sobey

Hi,

Its been increasingly difficult to shift out of Park. My mechanic advised that the shift cable is corroded and has to be replaced. The time charged for this is 2.5 hours plus $150 for the aftermarket cable.

Total is close to $350 when all taxes are factored in!

Is this a reasonable amount of time to change this cable?

Thanks!

19Accord97

That comes out to about $80 an hour which is average. No idea about the price of the cable. I am sure it is marked up quite a bit though.

holmesnmanny

...which is surprising because they normally give them at cost which is always lower than retail if they are going to be making a decent amount of money from the labor.

19Accord97

lmao
What shop in the world does that?!

Most autocare places charge ~$80-125 an hour. Then they in general multiply parts that are less than $100 by 2.5 times. Parts over $100 are multiplied by 1-1.5 times. I work at an auto shop chain......I know the price matrix.

92hondaex4door

i paid $157 for my cable, i think that was cost at my local honda dealer. its very easy to do, dont pay that much for somebody to do it. took me an hour tops. i think list is 175 if i remember correctly

92hondaex4door

that was for a 92 accord, so the price maybe diff. my bad

holmesnmanny

Shops do that, not chains. You answered your own question, actually. Chains need to make the money back that they spent on advertising and marketing. They can charge more because more people that know nothing about cars go to them, thinking that they're better because they advertise and small shops don't.

Economics 101

Any other lessons you need, lemme know.

19Accord97

"Shops do that, not chains" ?

Sorry bud, but your reply doesn't make sense. No need to try and "school" me as I have a bachelors degree in marketing - soon to start a masters. So if you would like another lesson, feel free....maybe you should try proofreading beforehand. Lastly, the "economics 101" statement you're referring to actually does not fall into microeconomics.

holmesnmanny

Given that you aren't even challenging what I'm saying, says more than enough. thanks for playing and have a nice day

19Accord97

haha Please, keep it coming! Kind of like how you think marketing costs, advertising, fixed and variable expenses fall into "economics 101". Now that is a joke. Right back to you - you are not challenging what I am saying.

BTW, Corporate adsorbs and generally pays for advertising costs and any sort of damage/liability claims through the corporation or the insurer. Hello, haven't you noticed that across the country commercials are the same? If each store of a chain paid for it, don't you think they'd show THEIR shop? Does a private shop have a corporate headquarters to pay for advertising or liabilities? Nope.

Do most chains and shops partake in the MAP program and follow the Mitchell guide for labor? Yup, sure do. So how do the so called price differences occur? I have people bring in written and printed quotes from other shops AND chains all the time and are they much cheaper? Nope, they are generally the same. And why does the customer choose our chain? Because we offer a warranty on the work at all of the thousands of locations across the country.

Sorry - you got served. Next.

holmesnmanny

First of all, I'm not the one that mentioned marketing, you were.

Secondly, I never said it was the small shops that paid for advertising, unless you count the pennysaver, which I don't. My exact words were "Shops do that, not chains.". Obviously it was ME that was saying that the chains had to pay for the advertising.

Next, most shops use Alldata, not Mitchell. Sorry to break it to you. Mitchell is a joke, ask around.

Lastly, economics relates to the use of finetuning the supply and demand to a profit maximizing price. Since most shops don't have to pay for a lot of advertising, they can afford to charge a lil less than those that do, which is what I said.

19Accord97

haha Too easy. Not even going to waste my time!



Back to the OP, did you ever get the problem fixed?