Auto Repair Estimates - Part 4 - The Labor Times Are Not Concrete

What Is Included In The Estimated Time
First of all, we call the estimating guide, a guide, for a reason. The labor times are not necessarily set in stone. If you feel the labor time or other issue is not fair you can challenge the task. There is a website for submitting your inquirers at degweb.org You may also want to check out this article on ABRN. Many times technicians and/or estimators do not feel like the estimating guide or computerized system gives enough time to perform the operation, but they just take it as the gospel as they do not know how to challenge the concern.

The Problem Will Only Be Corrected If They Know About It
If you truly feel that the guide is not giving you enough labor time, go to the above website and submit your concern, as there have been a lot of changes made to the different estimating guides due to this. The estimating software companies will never know that there is a problem with their database if we do not let them know.

How Are The Times Determined?
Lets discuss how the times are determined. The time is supposed to be the time it takes a skilled technician to perform the task. However, this is for new undamaged parts. This does not include pulling damage to gained access to bolts, rusted or corroded bolts that may be harder to remove than new ones would. If this is necessary, you need to add the additional time to the estimate.

If The Guide Gives 3.0 Hours To R&R, What Is Included?
Let's discuss the fender that we said it would take 3.0 hours to R&R in an earlier blog. This means that you are charging the customer 3.0 hours to take the old fender off and to put a new fender on the car.

Labor Rate
The shop labor rate is what the shop charges per hour. This varies depending on the shop as each shop is responsible for setting their own rate. In fact, it is against the law for shops to get together and discuss labor rates. That would be called price fixing. For this example, if the shop labor rate is $45, the shop would charge $135 to replace the fender. We will talk about paint and material charges later.

Estimating Times
All estimating guides use tenths. You may see 2.3, which is 2 hours and 18 minutes. There are 6 tenths in an hour so multiply each tenth by 6 to determine the time in minutes..5 equals 30 minutes and 1.5 equals 1 hour and 30 minutes. This gives us an idea of how the labor times are determined.

Back To The Basics
We don't need to worry if the estimating system is correct or not at this time, as we're just getting started. I just wanted to give you an idea of how it works and that the times in the guides are not set in stone.

by Donnie Smith