labour charge

[1997 t5 cd]

does anybody think a labour charge of £35.00ph is a fair bet for service/repairs to their volvo.
Believed to be ex volvo trained.

[Jonathan_angelo]

Well my Volvo specialist who worked with volvo for decades charges £100 per day!!!! so i tend to think that £35 p/h is not really that cheap.

Either that or im just lucky!!

If you are willing to travel to Norwich theni will give you his details. He is one of the most thorough mechanics i have ever met!!

jono

[imac]

Originally Posted by Jonathan_angelo

Well my Volvo specialist who worked with volvo for decades charges £100 per day!!!! so i tend to think that £35 p/h is not really that cheap.

Either that or im just lucky!!

If you are willing to travel to Norwich theni will give you his details. He is one of the most thorough mechanics i have ever met!!

jono

I pay about £50 per hour + VAT

My main dealer is £105 per hour + VAT

[neil stevenson]

It depends on the service received.
If you are happy with the work done then the price paid is not so important. I have paid main dealer prices and found the work charged for was not done and that done did not meet my expectations. The same goes for non franchised garages. My garage I use now, a one man operation charges £30.00 per hour and this is good value as he tends to round down his time rather than rounding it up to the next half hour.
If you have good reports on their work and are satisfied with your work done then it has to be good value.

[Mike_Brace]

It is very true whether it is a reasonable charge or not does depend whether you get what you pay for. On Anglesey the local independent garges ten to charge about £30 per hour. A lot depends on what facilities and equipment the garage has. These costs have to be covered.

Mike

[blues60]

I would say that's pretty cheap, as long as they do good work. The problem with many of the smaller independent garages is that although they are cheap and do good work, they don't have all the diagnostic equipment and gizmos that newer cars need. The manufacturers are doing a good job of making cars pretty dependant on their computer diagnostic computers when it comes to servicing and ECU updates. As VolvoT5 said, the main stealers charge around £100 an hour so if they are doing providing you with a satisfactory service for £35 then stay with them.

[1997 t5 cd]

many thanks for the views,yes its true the dealers have got it sown up with all the diag work.
I am lucky enough to have a code reader and pod for 95-2000 m/y volvo's so at least i can point the chap in the right direction when needed.

jono you get work done very cheap!

I would say that £35 is good value. I am sure you will not get hourly rates less than £25 for anyone apart from someone dodgy. Local volvo specialist to me charges £35 ph, way way less than dealers. In part this is because dealers have big overheads for "admin" staff, in part because they can rip you off because a lot of people will only ever use the main dealers.

As pointed out above, it then depends on how long the job takes. Professional mechanics use a book - an ICME guide - which for every job for a car lists the expected hours it will take. This is how they can do you a quote. Of course if the job takes less time than the book says, then expect to pay for the time the book specifies

But, the job may take a lot longer if they mess it up or don't know what they are doing. So it is worth paying a little more for someone trusted, who knows what they are doing. Someone who's done that job many times on volvo cars or a wide range of cars. Then you can be pretty certain that the book time will be accurate, and the job will be done well. But do always get a quote for any job before going ahead with it.

IMO an experienced mechanic is going to be better than the dealers for most jobs, especially if an independent specialist. This is because he will likely have many, many years of experience on a whole range of different cars and jobs and will want to keep his good reputation. At the dealer you never get to see the grease monkey who actually did the work on the car, plus have you ever seen a workshop manual? It's written in simplistic terms for idiots. What does that tell you about the person who's doing the work?! In many cases your independent guy will have a wide set of specialist tools or alternative tools which can be used, because these days you can't get by without these sort of things to do anything but the simplest jobs on any cars.

Now, for impartiality reasons I should point out that I am a little biased because my step-dad, until he retired a couple of years ago, ran his own independent garage and has about 35 yrs experience. But I also have experience of several main dealers, some of which were good and some very poor, and the above are my actual findings and the opinions of someone who first of all believed (despite what my step-dad said) that main dealers would always be the best option!

Cheers, Pete

[Citizen.Agfa]

Honest John (he of the Daily Telegraph) has reported recently of BMW Central London having to charge in excess of one hundred smackeroonies per hour! In part this is due to the £1million+ they have to factor in with regard to the blessed congestion charge.

All the best, Nick H.

back in sunny swindon it was cheaper to service a beemer or audi than a volvo - 80 quid an hour + vat - glasgow is some 55 quid an hour in the main dealer


I'll be looking to use a local independent for the work identified during the main dealer service - once a car has gone past a certain age /mileage then I'm not sure that keeping FVSH is worth it