What's the labor rates in your areas?

[johndeerebones]

Wether or not you are religous, here is my story.

For the past 6 or 7 years I have wanted to open a shop of my own, maybe hire another tech or two down the road.

Long story short, part of the sermon today we wrote down something we were stumbling over on a business card for us to actually write down and think on a problem. Anyway, after lunch today my wife picked up a local realty paper for who knows what reason. There is a two bay garage locally in there for a reasonable price. Went and looked at it through the windows, 2 bay shop, office, John, and some storage area, pretty clean. Would be a good place to start I think...

Anyway I'm crunching numbers and I'm thinking like 60 an hour, local gm is 75 and local ford is I think 85. I think 60 would be reasonable.
I have 7 ase certs, numerous John Deere certs, for who cares, and am a liscenced state inspector, so certainly not the most qaulified tech around, but most of the shadetree shops around have zero or maybe a couple ase certs in the whole shop....anyway, what are the shops rates around your towns? Sure the cities will be higher, but what about the smaller towns like mine?

 

[W4RLR]

You're a bit low. In my neck of the woods, even the independent wrench turner's rate is $80 per hour. The dealer gets a Benjamin for an hour's labor time. My RV dealer charges $125 an hour to work on my trailer. Needless to say I am doing more and more of my own work, even though I am less and less capable of doing so due to health reasons.

 

[Scooter]

I am not a mechanic, but I do own a small business. I would make my prices closer in line to the GM and Ford shops. In our area they are over $100 per hour. In you area, I would probably go no less than $70 an hour and would probably even go $75 per flat rate hour. You don't want to be known as the cheapest guy out there. You want to be the guy that solves problems and that people come to because you are good.

 

[95_stroker]

Starting lowball can be good, get a clientel base built up and gradually increase your labor rate.

The real question is this............. can you pay the overhead and make a living on 60/hr. If so then that is where you start, if not then re-evaluate costs vs income and go from there.

 

[Crumm]

Over $100 up here.

 

[johndeerebones]

Starting lowball can be good, get a clientel base built up and gradually increase your labor rate.

The real question is this............. can you pay the overhead and make a living on 60/hr. If so then that is where you start, if not then re-evaluate costs vs income and go from there.

local independents range anywhere from 30, retired guy, home garage. To 60, depends on the shop. At 60, I would like to go by the no more than thirds rule....

building expense, utilities, bonding, insurance, property tax, etc

my pay...I make 3100 a month now, if I could maintain that I would be more than happy.

to the business account, or paying help.

At 60, if I had perfect week and made 40 hours for a month straight I would pull almost 10k with just me as a tech, the building is listed for 85k, so I think I could more than make it.

I will not be the cheapest guy around, but like you said I want to build clients now. I know this all the shops around here are absolutely packed full and everyone I talk to tells me there is no good mechanics around to take their vehicles.....problem is all the mechanics at independent shops around here are paid 8 bucks and hour. You get what you pay for. I now make 19, I would have no problem paying a guy that much if he was very good. I want to run a top notch shop, that is what I expect for my work and that is what I put out now out of my home garage. The only flunky I would have in my shop is a lube tech...

 

[johndeerebones]

local independents range anywhere from 30, retired guy, home garage. To 60, depends on the shop. At 60, I would like to go by the no more than thirds rule....

building expense, utilities, bonding, insurance, property tax, etc

my pay...I make 3100 a month now, if I could maintain that I would be more than happy.

to the business account, or paying help.

At 60, if I had perfect week and made 40 hours for a month straight I would pull almost 10k with just me as a tech, the building is listed for 85k, so I think I could more than make it. I know a perfect month is kinda a pipe dream for even the best techs. When I worked flat rate, I pulled 130-140 in a 160 hour month, and that seems the norm for a good tech. That was by gm flat rate books, I would obvioiusly be getting something else available to the independent shops.

Would definitely be flat rated to customers. It is the ONLY way to quote jobs, sure you will loose money sometimes, but you will gain in other places. Eventually pay by flat rate would be good, but until Office help is in the budget that is too much to figure up...

I will not be the cheapest guy around, but like you said I want to build clients now. I know this all the shops around here are absolutely packed full and everyone I talk to tells me there is no good mechanics around to take their vehicles.....problem is all the mechanics at independent shops around here are paid 8 bucks and hour. You get what you pay for. I now make 19, I would have no problem paying a guy that much if he was very good. I want to run a top notch shop, that is what I expect for my work and that is what I put out now out of my home garage. The only flunky I would have in my shop is a lube tech...

 

[Scooter]

I think that starting lowball is ill advised. But that is just me. If you start there, you will stay there. One advantage to charging teh $60 an hour is, if your business is run properly, and have some projections, you shoul deasily make your revenue streams. Figure that you will need bill $12k to make your pay, with all the potential overhead, etc.
One thing that you need to consider is getting a business plan together. It will greatly increase the chances of your business being successful. It does not have to be written in stone. It needs to fluctuate with local fluctuations.
Some of the things that you want in your business plan:
1. Name of business and where it will be located, also what type of business is it going to be. LLC, Corp, Sole Proprietor
2. Type of business that you will be running
3. Who you are going to use for suppliers, insurance, parts, cleaning, etc.
4. What you are going to do for advertising and how you are goig to get customers.
5. What you anticipate your gross revenues to be.
6. What you are doing in the interim to keep the wife and kids fat, are you using savings, loans, or just hoping that you are going to make enough from the start to be successful?
There is a bunch more stuff that needs to be thought out, and that is the major purpose of a business plan, to think things out. Put it on paper, and review it at least weekly and see what and where you can change things to make you more money.

You can also get business plan templates on the internet. That may help you, a lot.

 

[95_stroker]

I think that starting lowball is ill advised. But that is just me.

I should clarify my "lowball" term. I'm not talking cut rate or half the dealer rate. I am talking more along the lines of 10-30 bucks less than the dealer depending on the local going rate.

 

[BJS]

In ATL Ford Dealer was $95 BMW was $125

Local import specialist shop charged $95
General established mechanics charged between $75-80

A friend of mine ran a Toyota Landcruiser shop in ATL and I believe his rate was $70. His business was built on do it right with the right parts the first time. He really didn't use standard labor rates except when he had something he'd never done before and was quoting a price for the customer.