91preludesi
Macon,#2UPDATE EX-employee responds
Sat, October 15, 2011
I used to work for an Express Oil Change & Service Center (not this location). I was a mechanic and I've seen the outrageous prices. I also saw several brake jobs come in and the lead mechanic told me that the brakes were just done 6-8 months ago. Now they need brakes again. Nobody goes through brakes that fast. I've seen first hand the parts that go on and it's always the cheapest bidder wins. If O'Reilly's has something for $60, Autozone has it for $58 and Advanced Auto Parts has it for $35, you're getting the $35 part put on. It doesn't matter how cheap the quality is. As far as the repair cost, from what I've seen at the one I worked at the labor was straight from Alldata. Granted if a job called for 0.8 hours to complete it would have been bumped up to an hour. That happens pretty much everywhere. On the other hand, where the customers get gouged at is on the parts. I've never seen such high mark-ups. All shops have a mark-up on parts. If they didn't they wouldn't be in business, but I've never seen mark-ups so high! Where I was the mark-up was 2.5. So a part that cost the shop $35 would cost the customer $87.50. That's extreme! Every other shop that I worked at the mark-up was around 0.45. There the $35 (shop cost) part would cost the customer $50.75. That's more reasonable. That's $36.75 extra they're making just for having a part delivered to the shop! They don't even have to go get it, it's not like they need gas money! That's a small price. Think about it when the part costs the shop $150. Customer cost is $375! It's no joke that you can have it done at the dealership cheaper...and with OEM (factory) parts!
When customers said something about the price being high they told them that they would, "See what they could do for them, they had a little wiggle room in the estimate". Of course they had wiggle room, the job was way overpriced from the get-go. They probably could shave off $75 or more and still make a good profit. Every business is in business to make money, but gouging people like this is just wrong! We're in a tough economy too. People need all the help they can get. They don't need to be robbed blind like this.