Over the whole cars man

[Haze]

who here is just over working on cars and fixing them and ****? i dont even do it that often and its just annoying to me now lol.
i had a day today where we did a service on a mates car. and everything took about 5 times longer than it should have and i was basically being used as a spare hand being told to pass tools and rags and **** while they ****ed around.
anyone else actually considering letting mechanics financially rape them lol?

 

[vs ed]

Why did you hang around?
I would have told them to meet me at the pub when they were done

 

[genIIIbandit]

Try being a mechanic 4 a living, ever wandered why u dont see many old mechanics, cause they have to many friends!!!!

 

[Haze]

lol favours all around

 

[maginoodle]

why do you think they charge so much. At times things go wrong that you wouldnt even dream about. i remember years ago i was putting a new clutch in a sss stanza and the only way to get one of the top bellhousing bolts undone was to go and borrow socket extension bars fom everyone we could. We ended up using the ratchet from behind the diff.

 

[digisol]

Most mechanics or any other tradesman HATE owners looking on while they work on the customers item, I will simply go on smoko when someone watches, as shown below are the normal rates.

If the basics were not learnt when young, cram for the basics and learn em now, personally speaking I will only pay someone for mechanical or auto electrical services if I need use of special tools not in my own inventory or trade knowledge, lathes, presses, auto electric work, and special tools not worth buying for one job, etc.

Otherwise in simple workshop terms, the standard mechanical workshop charges are shown below;

$60 / hour.

$70 / hour, if you wait. tick tock tick tock.

$80 / hour, if you watch.

$100 / hour, if you help.

BTW that's cash on completion or no car, no cheques, no promises, no exceptions.

I.T. charges are similar, with the exception of time, many jobs are unable to quote a time frame for as some systems screwed up by those who should have never undone the box can take days to repair.

 

[noah_73]

Try being a mechanic 4 a living, ever wandered why u dont see many old mechanics, cause they have to many friends!!!!

That's not all. Wingeing customers don't help on iota, nor does the **** payslip that they recieve at the end of the week help (cleaners and kitchen hands can earn more money). Two reasons I am no longer a practising motor mechanic.

 

[VLACS]

i realize running your own busines has many expenses, but get upwards of 60 bucks an hour and not actaully having to pay for parts becuase hte customers do, how do they earn such a low amount.

peronally i hate mechanics. im sure there nice guys but i dont want to give them 12 weeks pay for some thing i SHOULD be able to do myself. unfortunately i have to use a mech :b:

 

[digisol]

Most trades are basic common sense, unfortunately sense is sometimes far from common, I had been racing bikes from 14 or so, when I bought a road car the mechanical side of things was the same, just more cylinders.

While my first car was a Austin Freeway with failing clutch and 1 mth rego that cost me $50, But my first registered car was an EJ and I learnt to rebuild the poor old grey motor by pulling it apart and seeing how it worked, while still at school, and yes it started first go, but as most my age know, those models could nearly be repaired with a 1/2" - 9/16" spanner, a handful of others, a screwdriver and a cig paper for setting the points, and that method still works today on dizzy based engines.

It was great, no computers and dozens of sensors waiting to break and leave you stuck on the road, they could be driven home with a piston broken in half (literally) stuck up the top of the cylinder when a gudgeon pin seized breaking the piston in half, try that on a commodore, it missed a bit and the rod kinda rattled in the bore a tad.

That was real core mechanics, no IT course was needed to fix an engine and I miss those old engines, BTW that old Austin was built like a tank, 85 mph downhill, the chassis rails were 1/4" thick and if still alive today I know which would survive best in an arguement with a new commodore.

But as said the general mechanical things are not hard to learn, grab an old s/h heap and pull it apart to see what makes it tick, all those secrets will be revealed quickly, should you stuff it up your car is still in one piece.

Much will be learnt by pulling it apart, just don't drop the crankshaft on your foot or medicine may be the trade learnt instead.