Pricing Car Repairs, Before the Repairs | Hacker News Reader

Pricing Car Repairs, Before the Repairs

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34 pointstortilla20 comments

Anything that keeps mechanics honest is a great idea in my book. However, I think this misses the crux of the problem: diagnosis.

It's easy enough for me to call a mechanic or two to find out how much they would charge to replace my transmission, but how do I know that my car actually needs a new transmission? My primary fear when going to the mechanic is that they'll claim that my car's problems are much more serious than they actually are, so they can charge me for the more expensive repair.

They can easily get away with this, because I'm not knowledgeable enough on the subject to second guess them. Oddly enough, the situation isn't much different with doctors and dentists. Every time my dentist decides to drill into my teeth, I can't help but wonder if they just see it as an opportunity to make a large sum of money.

If anything, the situation is worse in the medical industry. They almost never give price quotes up front. What's up with that? And there's basically no way of knowing how much your insurance will cover. Generally I just do what the doctor/dentist says and save my pennies while I wait for a huge, seemingly arbitrary bill to arrive in the mail. This system is obviously broken.

Now, one of you HN readers looking to start a company: go fix it! :)

I agree. What would prevent something like 20q.net? Compile a database of make/model/year, symptoms, and eventual repairs... People enter their car type then answer questions like "Did the car start? Yes/No/Sometimes?" "Does it make a grinding noise when you turn the key? Yes/No"... then using past results it tells you it's 85% likely to be the alternator, etc...

This is exactly what I'm working on. I already linked it once today, see my user page if you're interested.

I used to work for a car manufacturer where we made such a diagnostic database for mechanics. At the end of all the decision trees was "hmm. call factory." Instead of following the suggestions, the mechanics routinely skipped to the bottom. Several dozen of my field trips to dealerships were resolved with a $2 part that they skipped over because reading was hard.

Your health-care example is not quite accurate, at least in my experience. Many insurance plans require that people telephone to "pre-approve" (non-emergency) hospitalizations, precisely to be able to discuss the coverage with them and make sure the costs payable by the patient are understood.

Dentists are quite happy to quote prices and negotiate, especially those who own their own practices (which is most good ones).

However, I don't even think most doctors know what is charged for their services.

This site is actually really interesting. I haven't brought my car to a mechanic since I was 18 and I'm 32 now. I've had to fix just about everything and doing a quick spot check on some of the work I've personally done in the past the site looks pretty accurate.

For example over the years I've replaced several water pumps on vehicles that I have owned. Most of the time it's pretty straight forward but on my 88 Toyota pickup the water pump was burried and I had to remove the timing belt to get at it. Long story short it took a lot longer then the other water pumps I've replaced in the past.

When I plugged it into RepairPal, they accurately reflected the difference in labor and as a result the price quoted to change the water pump on the yota was about 2x as much as the one that I replaced on a chevy.

Dare we address the fact that anyone waving an iPhone in a mechanic's face has by almost by definition signalled that he has no idea what he is talking about when it comes to auto repair?

Really interesting concept.

I'm curious how a mechanic would react when confronted with an iPhone that showed their estimate to be much higher than the "average."

Yeah probably trouble for dishonest mechanics. But maybe an asset for legit ones? I think some customers feel they are being ripped off, even when they aren't. So this could be used positively by both sides.

I think it is an asset for legit ones. Just this morning my battery light came on, and when I went to the repair shop I was told I needed a new alternator, and it would cost $400. I thought that was high, but didn't have any data to back it up (and was stuck at the shop without a working car), so I went ahead with the repair. I initially felt like I was taken, but this site says a new alternator for my car should cost $400 - $600, so now I actually feel good about the purchase (and the garage).

The mechanic will tell you, "Fine. Go to the average costing mechanic then." At that point it will be up to you to find him.

A busy mechanic will give higher quotes because he doesn't need your business. His worker utilization is high, and that is what drives his profits. Markup on parts is small, if not zero. Taking on the extra work means he has to bring a guy in on Saturday, usually his best and highest paid one, and pay overtime.

Now the idle mechanic knows the market rate and will quote that or lower, based on how much he needs the work. But there is a reason that he is idle.

I was parts manager at a six-bay auto shop for over a year and our parts markup was 30%. (Springfield, Missouri.)

The first and third paragraphs are right on, btw.

Internet research is grand and all, but if you don't want to get ripped by your mechanic try going to the same one for a few years and getting to know the guy. Go to a local shop and chat the guy up, do not go to a Jiffy Lube where s stoner fills out a questionnaire on a computer and reads back to what it says.

Very interesting. I am in Massachusetts. I worked in an auto body shop for several years growing up. Parts markup for auto body work is 0% in Massachusetts. The insurance companies have books that list cost of parts, and labor times to repair/replace. You don't get any more, and you might get less because of overlap. The labor rate paid by insurance companies is fixed here, too.

For mechanics or other non-insurance work, they can charge what they want, but their prices always end up below retail. If there is markup, it isn't much. It costs me less money to pay someone to change my oil than it would if I bought the oil and filter myself.

That's the thing, though. If he's within a reasonable range, then ok. If he's way outside that range you should take a pause and consult someone else. It's just a sanity check on the mechanic, like calling a friend or another shop.

I had a great mechanic for a while who I could trust, but at some point he retired and sold his shop to someone new. I ended up with a problem that seemed to be getting into the thousands of dollars range. Is he right? Is he lying/taking me for a ride? Is he being lazy? I'm a pretty technical guy, but I don't know everything about the ins and outs of auto mechanics.

I told him to wait, and after a few calls to car-friends and a dealership I could call him back and have him take me through the problem again. My goal wasn't to 'trap' him, but now that I knew enough I could see what he looked at, what he thought the problem/options were, etc.

I ended up taking the car to a different mechanic, not because the first was lying to me, but because it was clear that he didn't have enough knowledge about my type of car. It ended up being a cheap part and a quirk with the car's computer.

I later told the other mechanic (in a friendly manner) and he was genuinely surprised, and offered me a discount in the future if I ever needed anything else.

A customer waiving their iPhone around is probably a pretty good way to show that they don't know anything about car repair and are bad at negotiating. That's probably not going to work out so well for them...

Just a data point: I got an estimate for an alignment that I recently had done at a chain for $85 and they gave an estimate of $120 to $153.

What keeps the repair shops that they surveyed from giving them a higher price quote in an effort to skew their estimates?

Many hackers would probably find car maintenance/repair a very satisfying hobby. I find working on cars/motorcycles to be very similar to writing applications, only with the added bonus of being tangible and real.

You don't necessarily have to do all of your own work (tools and time dependent), but once you learn how to do a lot of it, and have gotten your hands greasy enough, you can talk to mechanics intelligently and straight, and can tell BS when you hear it.

So, when I bought my car I did research on the owners forums to find the common problems, tips, etc. I was impressed that this website already had those things nailed down in the "common problems" section.

I'm impressed, and made an account. The service cost estimation is slightly useful to me, but it's the other information they have (and future feature potential) that has me hooked.

This is pretty useless since the price point can vary widely based on where you go to. You can go to a dealer, you can go to a national chain, you can go to a hole in the wall garage.

hola quiero hjaker

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