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      08-31-2020, 02:39 PM   #13
BravoJohny33
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Drives: BMW 2010
Join Date: Mar 2016
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Quote:
Originally Posted by chassis View Post
BravoJohny33 Spend some time digging through the US Federal govt data sources (BLS, Census, BEA) and see if auto technician is a growing or above-average paying occupation. I don’t think it is.

For a specialist Porsche or Ferrari shop, they charge what the market bears. If they print money, good for them. For higher volume brands like BMW, MB and others, there is more competition and less profit, although a consumer may believe they “charge too much”. MB dealers charge about $200/hr in labor. It is what it is.

If you think shops charge too much, go into the business yourself, or invest in tools and know-how so you won’t need their services.
Just to be clear I do not think being an auto technician is well paying. I think it pays like crap for what it does to your body. I am saying shop owners have increased prices a ton over the years and it does not seem these benefits have made their way to their employees. But I do not know how to figure probability of a business type through the decades.

You mention competition drives down prices but I find they do not because there is no easy way for a consumer to shop around for the best price. For one pretty much all shops these charge a fairly large diag fee. Some refundable and some are not so you are already in the hole for that diag fee.

Then you have to deal with shopping around and the only way to do that is pick up the phone. Then whatever shop you find might want to charge another diag fee because they can't trust whatever the other shop said. At the end of it all I have found prices to be pretty similar between shops. But once again what a repair costs is all over the place depending on what you are having done.

Transparency of prices is pretty big deal with anything in a free market. Its why dentistry and health care is out of control as well. Much more extreme than shops but needless to say there is no easy to shop around for a heart transplant.
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