Quote:
Originally Posted by metroschultz
NO not made of gold.
Economics 101
Retail Markup;
Alt cost - $125
Sell at - ..$250
Batt cost...$70
Sell at - ..$140
The garage marks the parts up so they can recover their operating expenses.
Admin, Electric, etc all the stuff thet you can't just call the customer and ask him to pay for.
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Or just because they don't want to do anything unless they're making obscene cash on it. For example I wanted a seal kit for my diesel IP. I call up a big diesel shop ~60 miles away and they say they won't sell me the kit but will reseal it for ~$600. I call a local diesel shop and ask if they have it. The owner tells me to call the shop I called originally, so I tell him I already did, then he says he'll call 'em to get a price. He calls me back and says it would be ~$60.
I was shocked because I know this is a ~$5/kit in terms of manufacturing. I figure Bosch makes a few bucks selling 'em to distributors and they make a few more bucks selling 'em to anyone, but $60!!?? I'm guessing the larger diesel shop wanted ~$20-30 for the privilege of selling/mailing the kit to the local shop, and the local shop wanted another ~$20-30 for the privilege of selling it to my ass after I drive down there to buy it, w/ the possibility of a extra $5-10 markup from the distributor. Anyway, long story short, I poke around and find out about a big diesel shop in OK that sold me two seal kits and two main seals (separate item) for $20 less shipped to my door in two days, and they still probably made a good ~$10 bucks for maybe 15 minutes of very low impact work. $40/hour is still pricey for poking around selling people parts, but it ain't obscene.
The local crooks can keep their inflated margins and $100-200+/hour crap labor rates thank ya very much!
P.S. I get my batteries from the j-yards for ~$10-20 and they're at most a year old. I figure it's worth paying 1/5th the cost for 9/10ths of the battery. And they even offer a thirty day exchange policy if it's bum. On half price days I can get three big truck batteries that are ~6 months old for the same price as the smallest new battery wal-mart offers.