What the hell is going on with shops?

Hersbird said
So if I need work on my Barracuda now I have to pay for all your fancy scanners so you can work on a new Honda? Or the topic of this tread in the first place, you need all those scanners to fix a slave cylinder? I still challenge you to post some book times for common jobs so we can see how clueless I am. It is COMMON in shops for a single tech to write up 16 hours worth of work in the day and then work 9-5. I know the tax write offs don't cover the costs totally but it does cover a portion. Basically all those costs you mention come right off the highest tax bracket you make it to.
Like I said in the beginning, I don't mind paying a fair price for good work. I just want transparency and a little less spin. Like I said I have had a shop do a job, seen the labor time they wrote down, then did the same job myself and beat it with no experience and simple hand tools. Maybe that's not common but as I pointed out then why are there techs out there writing up 16 hours worth of work and working 8 hours? That is rhetorical, I realize why it happens, you explained it, it's how you cover up for the fact you just need to charge $300/hr to keep a profit. I'm fine with that, I say just charge $300/hr and be done with it!
As far as me I deliver mail to at least 1100 houses every day, usually 6 days a week, 45-55 hours/wk on average. I live in a below average for our area $185,000 home with a couple 5-10 year old cars, a 30 year old boat, and a 20 year old truck camper. To get this job I worked 11 years in the navy as a nuclear hydro electric machinery mechanic and chemist 60-80 hours a week and my highest earnings year was $24,000. I too haven't gotten a raise in over 2 years and have to pay more for all that stuff just like you do, at least I voted for the other guy, LOL! I pay entirely too many taxes also as have to deal with more government bureaucracy then you can imagine as well. I'm sure you would think my job easy as well, but everything is until you actually do it!
Good luck, sorry to offend your honest and fair work standards, obviously you are not the problem out there. that said you are the clueless ones if you deny the shams that go on in the auto repair world.

One last point to make regarding the labor times charged; That isn't just for the time the technician takes to do the job but also includes the time taken to do the administrative portion of the job. It has t take it all into account. The time on the phone to book the appointment, the time spent at the counter by a (hopefully) professional, the time spend calling around or looking up parts on the computer & preparing an estimate(not a 5 min. job in a lot of cases at all), time spent closing out a repair order & make a final invoice, & then quality control. If you were to take a stop watch & time each aspect of the process involved & compared that to the billing time I'm sure you would see it isn't all about 300% profits. Probably more like a 25-40% margin on labor, which isn't by itself enough to sustain a business very long.
You stated you are a letter carrier, well the post office is forced to raise the costs of postage when their costs go up. Labor costs rise, benefit costs rise, FUEL cost to tranport all that mail rise, storage facilities & maintainence costs, compiled with the declining volume of postal mail because of electronic correspondence. I'm sure you feel that pinch in your job. Everybody complains when the cost of a stamp does go up. But it has to to cover expenses. Some think it's not worth it. But they want that letter to arrive!
BTW the P.O. to it's credit is the only government agency that has to operate on a budget based on its revenue that it generates vs it's costs directly! They have to balance a budget! Ironic isn't it? But that's another rant for another forum I guess!
Just take a minute to consider the bigger picture that's all I'm saying.
Let's all get back to Happy Moparing again!