Independent shop can I supply parts.

My old mechanic just retired so I need to find someone who can do stuff when I can't  make the time or it's just not fun.  Ijust got an estimate to do a timing belt on my Passat. Labor price looks good. About 5 hours.  Then I saw the parts price and he wants 360 for a barebones timing belt kit.

I googled the part number and on Amazon it's 187.  I found a great kit at blauparts for 300 that has everything including the other 2 belts, seals and new hardware. Brand name parts etc.

So do most shops let you supply parts.  I do not mind paying for the labor.  I would even pay a better rate.  But 100 +% markup on parts is better than I do in the med device industry.

Is he understating his houly rate and inflating the parts.

Well... Let's start from the charitable standpoint of assuming he's just trying to make a living, not trying to skin you. He might have a schedule of hourly and parts pricing which works together. If they work together to make his bottom line sane, then he's not underpricing his hourly rate or overpricing the parts. He's not a parts shop, and is possibly paying nearly what you found online (or more?), so it's likely it's not 100% markup to him. Online you choose your shipping rate and wait; for a lot of parts he needs his relationship with local parts places who will give him some kind of discount, but down from what starting point? And he needs that local supplier so he can get stuff from the warehouse quickly so when a customer drops something off he doesn't have to say "Great, I'll order your parts from Amazon and I can start working on it in 2-6 business days..."

I would not expect, in most instances, to be able to bring parts to a shop. You can always ask, and I'm certain some shops would take pity on you for the case of "I bought the parts and now I don't have time to do the job, can you quote with that in mind?"

These things always make me think of bike shops; Shimano has some berked up system wherein it's entirely possible that your local bike shop can't buy parts wholesale as cheaply as you can get them online, because of how the volume discounts (and possibly some other shenanigans) are laid out. And just like your case, folks wander off saying "jeez, my local shop is trying to take me for a mint on these parts."

Because I don't have a Bid'niss address to maintain, most  jobs I get are 'mercey' work.  I Charge half what a shop would and go get those parts most of the time, and feel guilty trying to make money on them. pretty Stupid Huh.

A SHOP, has to pay a couple Thousand a month for what it takes to keep the doors open, and your hurting about a couple hundred. it's about 100 an hour here for labor at most shops more and less for other factors. Dealerships keep the doors open off the Shop .

I don't do FWD timing belts, the variety of cars  I see prevent learning the Quick trick on them all, 300 would be bottom dollar on a timing belt job.

Ask the guy.

My local guy who does the same thing (stuff i dont have time for, or is beyond me) is cool with me bringing the parts. 

However, if he needs parts i didn't bring, he gets them from orielleys or napa, and charges me walk in price for them regardless of how much he paid. 

Im ok with it. 

Ask the shop. The first shop I worked in after high school allowed people to supply there own parts but labor rate went up. It was 80 an hour normally, 110 if owner supplied parts. Anything missing or forgotten from the owners parts was acquired locally and charged at normal pricing.

Also worth noting that customer supplied parts may effect any warranty that would come with the work. They might not want to stand behind unknown parts that you supply.

Our dealership allows customers to bring in their own parts under two rules: If the customer did the diagnosis as well, and their diagnosis was wrong, no complaining, and if the parts you bring in are no good, also no complaining.

Example of situation #1: Guy brings in a 3rd-gen Camaro V8, says his coolant temp gauge doesn't work, he diagnosed it and it needs a temp sensor, which he has brought with him. Our tech installs the sensor, gauge still doesn't work, customer throws a fit that he is still on the hook for the labor for installing the sensor because it didn't fix it. You diagnosed the issue (incorrectly, it seems), you brought the parts, and you told us to just install them, not our fault. Don't be that guy.

Example of situation #2: Guy has his Traverse in for a howling noise, tech determines its a wasted wheel bearing. Customer says "Oh, I'll get my own", gets some super cheap no-name bearing from Amazon, we install it and the tone ring is manufactured wrong and it throws an ABS light. Customer gets another from and the same source, we install it and within a week its making noise and the guy gets mad at us because we "can't fix anything." Finally he ponies up for a GM wheel bearing and went on his way without issue. Don't be that guy either.

    To be fair, how much time did you spend looking for the parts?   The shop has to spend some time sourcing parts as well, shop time isn't free, so they might have a slight mark up on parts.

       If you bring the right parts and they then don't have to spend any time looking for parts, that might be OK.

        Paying for a shop to do work is expensive but they have to cover all of their expenses, time is never free.

A friend has a long time connection with an independent shop near where he worked.  Having that relationship makes bringing your own parts in easier.

I work in auto parts sales and I deal with a number of local shops. most of them take the price that they pay us and straight up double it. I get the whole 'shops have overhead' line but I feel it is really scummy to charge your customers more for something like that. all they have to do is put the price into labor. they even get the part delivered to their doorstep for free, same day.

almost universally those shops are also the ones that will try to sell you on work you don't need. If i have a choice between two shops that quoted me the same total price but one jacked up the price on parts then I will choose the one that gave me regular parts prices every time.

There's also the PITA factor to consider. We know the parts that we supply will fit and will work and are reliable. If you show up with some piece of eBay garbage that needs modification to work or doesn't have all the parts included, that's more work for us. We also don't want to be on the hook for parts failures when we didn't select the part - any reasonable person understands that we wouldn't be, but invariably the customer affected is not one of those people.

If we install something that you sourced elsewhere, we will charge you extra for labor. Profit on parts is part of how we keep the lights on here. If we source something custom for you, you'll pay the retail price for it even if we get a wholesale price because it takes time for us to source those parts and time is money.

Plus, to most customers the shop labor rate is really easy to compare to other shops. Oh, these guys are 85/hr vs the dealership at 115/hr.

Most customers won't be able to compare parts prices to parts prices (even with two quotes for the same service, different part supplier, different quality, etc).

So it makes sense that shops might have to compete hard on labor price and then make some reasonable amount back on parts. Remember, they ARE ordering, storing, managing, inventorying, etc the parts.

In reply to scooterfrog :

I thought you were asking if you could be a vendor SELLING parts to independent shops. 

Not a bad business idea...

a benchmark dealership service and parts organization tries to hit 70% gross profit in service, and 40% in parts, FYI.  indy shops can get away with lower margins because overhead is usually lower.

the $187 parts you found on amazon are likely E36 M3.  blauparts is good, and thorough.  ask him if you can bring your own parts in :shrug:

SVreX said:

In reply to scooterfrog :

I thought you were asking if you could be a vendor SELLING parts to independent shops. 

Not a bad business idea...

Good buddy of mine owns a parts shop here. He wishes that he could just shut down the front desk as walk ins (ie NOT shops) are less than 15% of his sales and more than 85% of his problems. I think the parts networks (he sells mostly carquest parts) requires that he sell to both markets.  

Robbie said:

 Remember, they ARE ordering, storing, managing, inventorying, etc the parts.

you must not know very many shops. 99 out 100 shops will throw any unused parts in a pile in a corner. then inventorying consists of commanding the parts store driver to sort through them to figure out what belongs to them. ordering means calling 4 stores for less than 10 seconds each and telling them all to send the parts then returning the ones that came later than the others. and they never store parts because they can just tell the parts store to send it over.

if you want to know the best mechanic shops just ask the local parts store. we see all the shady crap that the bad ones try to pull.

Robbie said:

Good buddy of mine owns a parts shop here. He wishes that he could just shut down the front desk as walk ins (ie NOT shops) are less than 15% of his sales and more than 85% of his problems.

I'll bet that 85% of problems are pretty much exactly why shops don't want customers supplying their own parts.

Keith Tanner said:

Robbie said:

Good buddy of mine owns a parts shop here. He wishes that he could just shut down the front desk as walk ins (ie NOT shops) are less than 15% of his sales and more than 85% of his problems.

I'll bet that 85% of problems are pretty much exactly why shops don't want customers supplying their own parts.

AGREE!

Daeldalus said:

Robbie said:

 Remember, they ARE ordering, storing, managing, inventorying, etc the parts.

you must not know very many shops. 99 out 100 shops will throw any unused parts in a pile in a corner. then inventorying consists of commanding the parts store driver to sort through them to figure out what belongs to them. ordering means calling 4 stores for less than 10 seconds each and telling them all to send the parts then returning the ones that came later than the others. and they never store parts because they can just tell the parts store to send it over.

 

if you want to know the best mechanic shops just ask the local parts store. we see all the shady crap that the bad ones try to pull.

I agree with everything here. However, even the worst shop has to make those 4 10 second calls (ordering), getting the parts and keeping them until the tech is ready to install on the car (storing), making sure that the right parts go with the right cars, and invoicing the customer for the parts (managing), and im sure almost all shops inventory some parts like crush washers, fluids, wiper blades, oil filters, hardware, etc.

I'm not saying most shops do a good job at those things, but I am saying that any shop by default HAS to do those things in some capacity. Its a fact of life in handling parts.

i just met the guy for the first time.  here is what he said and some feedback responses tpo the above.

first he is a parts and labor shop,,  he told me that flat out,  labor covers proifvit and overhead,  parts profits cover "cool tools"  those were his words.  i respect his honesty and he could tell i wasn't trying to bust his balls.

so no on my parts  it affects his image. he will use my parts if they are special and he can't get them.  (bilsein shocks instead of sachs)  but it would be case by case basis.  my brakes no,.catastrophic failure of shock isn't likely to kill me.

hs says he can't get the parts as cheap as amazon,  i think its more likely that its as stated above he just doubles the prices.  IM ok with that because his labor price was low.  the "whole job" was quoted for 1k  i have had quotes as high as 1.5.. I had a backyard guy quote me WAY more for the labor with my parts  with no warrantee.

He knew the car.  he said come by and we wil look a the tbelt.  he pooped the clips off and wew saw vw belt.   He asked was it always serviced at t dealer. (it was when my MIL owned it)  he then told me to call the dealer  and see if it was changed.  he is not trying t sell work thats not needed.   he said when he does a passat he takes the nose off instead of using the service position  because it takes the same amout of time but its less of a pain in the ass. 

knowing the car is important i had one mechanic cleaned my throttel body  when he had the air intake off for some other reason. and then couldn't figure out why it wouldnt low idle wiht out poping and missfires.  charged me 700 bucke to replace the maf and coils and vacuem E36 M3.  (all of which i had doen prevously to fix a different misfire when it needed it.  he had me get the reaplcements at autozon  because they were under warranty).  I asked him if he didi a throttle body calibration  uinsg his computer tool or even if he lift it unhooked ofm the battery for 2 hrs.  needless to say i did not pay himn the 700

so i like him his price was good even with parts markup,  he seem to know his cars,  hes new school  email automated texting.  my old mechanic used an awsering machine, not voice mail.

btw the 187 part i found on amazon was the same part number as his.  i also crossshopped Blauparts for their advanced kit which includes everything but antifreeze  and it was stil llower.

My local, gourmet steakhouse charges $28.99 for a 12oz ribeye steak.  Kroger had them on sale for $5.99/lb a few weeks ago.  I bought a steak and took it to the steakhouse.  Losers wouldn't cook it for me.  They are crooks. 

I've run both automotive and motorcycle repair shops and while I occasionally made exceptions my policy was always to not allow customer's to provide parts.  There were several reasons for this.

Part markup was one of my revenue streams

If a part failed my supplier would pay for me to R&R it again and stand behind the part

If customer supplied parts were wrong then I'd be stuck with a disassembled vehicle tying up shop space while they got the correct one.  Not that I never got wrong parts from my supplier (or screwed up the order myself) but it was pretty rare and when it happened it was either my fault or the fault of a supplier that had a vested interest in correcting the situation as quickly as possible.  Usually within an hour.

if you want to know the best mechanic shops just ask the local parts store. we see all the shady crap that the bad ones try to pull.

QFT. After ten years in aftermarket wholesale and two in dealership retail, I can tell you the honest shops in town and the crooks, the good mechanics and the hacks. I know who I'll take my cars to and will gladly recommend a shop to anyone who asks.

As for shop mark-up. It varies. Some guys double the price, some charge retail, and some pass on their good prices while still making a little profit. One guy I know (and coincidentally wouldn't send anyone to) has a sign "$80 per hour shop rate, $105 if you bring your own parts". Here at the dealership we allow customers to supply their own parts with a few exceptions, and with a few caveats. No warranty on parts or labor if customer supplied parts/diagnosis, and no aftermarket HV batteries.

Always been a mixed bag with me.  I've had some shops flat refuse.  If their parts are also expensive, I look elsewhere as the benefit of not living in a "one horse town".  My current primary mechanic pretty much always allows me to bring my own parts, because he knows I know my cars and, because of Mazda's racer support program, he can work with OEM stuff rather than the usual supply chain crap which may or may not fit or work right out of the box.  My car showing up with the parts in the back seat also helps him with scheduling.  I've also built a reputation with him of being right about what needs to be done.  If I'm not sure, he looks at it first, figures out what needs to be done and I order the parts.  We also have an understanding that if my diagnosis/parts are wrong, that's on me. 

Kramer said:

My local, gourmet steakhouse charges $28.99 for a 12oz ribeye steak.  Kroger had them on sale for $5.99/lb a few weeks ago.  I bought a steak and took it to the steakhouse.  Losers wouldn't cook it for me.  They are crooks. 

There's a restaurant in Silverthorne, CO called The Mint that lets you cook your own steak. You choose one from their display case and you get to grill it just the way you like it. They're not cheap either. I'm not really sure what the appeal is unless you're far from home and miss your BBQ.