The Garage 360

ONKAR CHAHAL
CHEAP FOR A REASON
“You are paying for my
knowledge and experience”
Agarage called me to see if I could diagnose a job for them so
I popped round one morning & had a quick look & gave them
a figure for me to repair. Their reply was as unimaginative as it
was expected.
“How much!”
So I broke it all down for them including the diagnostic charge,
labour & parts.
“Yeah, that’s too much. He won’t pay that. Can you do it any
cheaper?”
“I could do it for free, but I won’t. It’s not my car, why should I
subsidise their running costs?” I asked in return. When he asked
how much I charge an hour he then asked why was I so expensive.
His argument was he has rent, rates, staff etc to pay & he’s cheaper
than me, so why was I so expensive when I work from home?
“Because you & your staff can’t do the job, I can. You are paying
for my knowledge & experience. You are paying for the problem to
go away.”
Then the customer gets involved & says he can buy the parts
cheaper than I can. At that point I declined the job, thanked them
for their time & left. This wasn’t a recoverable situation in my
opinion, better to walk away than to chase a job that starts this
badly. About 5 months later the customer rang me directly & asked
if I could do the job for him. They’ve had the car all this time, the
head has been off twice & it still doesn’t start. They’ve bought a new
key, fitted a new immobiliser ecu & a fuel pump.
I arrange with the garage to leave me some room to work in & the
next day sure enough, the car is in the corner as requested. A few
hours later & it’s running, finally! I charge the garage for my time &
away I go.
What was the problem with the car above?
Cam timing was (significantly) out & they fitted the cam wheels the
wrong way round. They also reused the stretch bolts on the cam
wheels…..so it’s just as well it didn’t start! I swapped the vanos
wheels over, reset the timing using new bolts, & it started. Then, to
prove a point, I refitted the old fuel pump, ecu & used the original
key before trying it again, it started straight away!
What’s he point I’m making?
Just to be clear, in order to save about £300 they lost use of their
car for 5 months & paid for a fuel pump, ecu & a key. The parts
alone cost just over £600! So catching lifts, borrowing cars for 5
months & paying £600 for parts not required makes the garage
cheap, yet I’m expensive for fixing it in one day, at the price I
quoted?
In the scenario above, the garage lost out on their labour, had a
dead car on site for almost 9 months & the customer paid for parts
he didn’t need. And they still had to pay me. How does that work?
The point I’m making? It’s cheap for a reason. Buy cheap buy
twice.
It’s also true that quality demands a premium for a reason. And
if you do something for free, it isn’t always appreciated as it has no
value. That’s why I always charge & it’s not usually cheap.
In my opinion, the skill level is just too low as an average, across
the trade. Too many Google mechanics!
The answer?
By Onkar Chahal
More or better training is needed. Yes it costs money, but it’s
cheaper than the above scenario!
14 THE GARAGE
14 Opinion Onkar.indd 1 29/02/2024 13:59