Auto Repair Estimates And Car Repair Prices - The Real Information To Avoid Car Repair Scams

Worrying whether or not you were overcharged for your car repair is an awful feeling. There’s tons of advice on how to avoid getting ripped-off, but few discuss the actual car repair prices. We really need to look at the charges on a car repair estimate or auto repair invoice to determine if we’re paying too much.

The focus needs to shift from giving outdated and ineffective advice to addressing the "actual" and "specific" charges. Are they legitimate charges? Can they be justified by industry guidelines?

Now car repair estimates can be confusing. So let’s break it down to get a better idea if your auto repair shop is billing you appropriately.

First, a glossary of terms is in order, as the auto industry has a language of its own…

Aftermarket Parts: parts not made by the manufacturer.

MSRP: Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price

OEM: Original Equipment Manufacturer. Manufacturer approved parts designed specifically for your vehicle.

TSBs: Technical Service Bulletins. Notes and instructions provided by the manufacturer for known and specific concerns(they are not recalls).

Flat Fees: services such as alignments that don't get broken down into parts, tax, labor

Miscellaneous Charges: these can include, but are not limited to shop supplies - rags, chemicals, hazardous waste disposal fees, waste oil ...etc.

Labor Rate: a repair center’s hourly charge to service your vehicle

Labor Time: the amount of time or hours determined that it will take to fix your vehicle

Labor Description: the step-by-step written details of repairs and/or services

Ok, let’s look at the Anatomy of an Auto Repair Estimate:

There are six basic components to a car repair estimate

1) Customer/Vehicle Information

2) Parts

3) Labor

4) Miscellaneous Charges

5) Flat Fees

6) Summary of Charges

Customer and Vehicle Information

Using a generic “top down” style estimate, the top portion simply contains your personal information and your vehicle's specifics: year, make, model, mileage...etc, as well as your request or concern.

We also want find the shop's labor rate. The labor rate is critical in determining if you paid too much. Most repair centers don't list the labor rate. We'll discuss why shortly.

Auto Parts

Parts are listed usually with a brief description, as well as the quantity, and the price. There are three types of parts: OEM (parts made by or for a manufacturer). These are the parts installed by a dealer, although many local shops use OEM parts too.

Aftermarket parts are non OEM parts, and there are various degrees of quality, depending on the brand and where they’re made – China versus USA, for example.

Then there are Used parts purchased from a salvage yard.

To determine if you paid too much for parts, first find out what type of parts are being used. With OEM parts, you don’t want to pay more than MSRP, although most people do without realizing it. Premium aftermarket parts are similarly priced across brands, although beware not to pay more than MSRP, which again, many folks do. Used part prices are all over the place, so pick the price in the middle.

Auto Repair Labor

Labor is billed in tenths. So 1.0 equals 1 hour. 1.5 equals an hour and a half.

Labor rates range from $60 to $100 per hour at local repair shops and $80 to $140 per hour at the dealer level. Labor times are based off established industry guidelines, which are frequently abused.

If you don't see the shop's labor rate posted on the car repair invoice, ask your service center for the rate. Repair shops can manipulate the labor rate (among other things) with a labor matrix. Matrix pricing is a complicated and ethically questionable practice discussed at length in RepairTrust literature. What you need to know is that you can pay as high as $150 per hour rather than the posted labor rate of $105 per hour.

To ensure that you're being charged properly, you'll want to multiply the number of hours billed (which is also often not posted) by the shop's labor rate.

Most labor descriptions are poorly written and difficult to understand. So ask questions.

Here’s a "clear" labor description for a 30,000 mile service on a Toyota Camry.

Performed 30,000 mile service per customer request, and in accordance with manufacturer guidelines. Changed oil and filter, installed new air filter, cabin filter and performed all necessary tests, checks, and procedures, including road test (miles 30,123 – 30,125). Performed lubrication services and confirmed proper vehicle operation. Set tire pressures, and checked fluids, belts and hoses. Note: vehicle is pulling slightly left. Needs alignment

Miscellaneous Charges

The bulk of your car repair invoice will be parts and labor, but we can't forget about Miscellaneous Charges. These charges can include, but are not limited to, shop supplies - rags, chemicals, hazardous waste, disposal fees, waste oil ...etc. The latter of these may be billed out separately in a summary at the bottom of your repair invoice.

Very few of these "extras" are actually used during regular repairs. Miscellaneous charges are calculated off the amount of labor hours billed, not the amount of miscellaneous items used.

Flat Fees

Flat fees can be another very tricky area. Flat fees are services, such as an alignment, which don't get broken down into parts, tax and labor. This makes it difficult to determine the real and fair price. On the plus side, most flat fees are competitively priced.

Be warned however, another term for Flat Fee is called Menu Selling. In other words, you might see Tune Up: $99.99 or Transmission Flush: $89.99. Follow your manufacturer's recommendations only, not a dealer's or repair shop's menu.

Summary of Charges

The last part of an auto repair estimate is the summary of charges. It's usually found in the bottom right hand corner of the invoice. Check it against the charges above to ensure that it all adds up mathematically, as well as logically.

This basic estimate outline may differ from your particular invoice, which may have other categories such as "Sublet" or "HazMat."

A sublet charge is added when your auto repair shop uses another vender to fix or repair your car, such as a glass company that replaces your windshield.

A HazMat charge may include waste oil or other disposal fees. Just make sure that the charges are warranted, as again, they too are often calculated off the labor time rather than actual need.

In sum, understanding the “actual” charges, asking the right questions, and breaking down your auto repair costs is the best way to avoid paying excessive car repair prices.

Understanding Windshield Repair

For most automobile owners, changing oil and doing routine maintenance checks are important aspects of keeping the vehicle healthy. When the car manifests signs of problems, the driver would usually make sure it is corrected immediately to avoid more costly repairs later. But one thing most car owners neglect, but should not, is the windshield. Although the windshield does not belong with the ‘mysterious’ underhood components and seems to be transparent in its use, its importance cannot be understated. As with any car component problems, windshield damage should be repaired immediately.

Many people doubt the value of a chip repair. Paying fifty bucks for a chip repair that is barely the size of a nickel seems unreasonable. However, most do not realize that the windshield is very fragile to internal stress. It may look impenetrable, but when subjected to road and temperature stress, the chip can easily become a crack. Searching recent forums, an Acura owner’s tolerance of “an annoying little rock chip [had] finally become a long streak across the middle of [his] windshield.” (1)

Your Windshield

As with all things, let’s begin with the basics.

Windshield glass is a type of laminated glass. It consists of two layers of special composite glass with a laminate in between the layers. The laminate usually is made from a form of vinyl plastic, which is in simple terms, a very strong plastic. The laminate acts as a sticking board for the inner and outer layer of glass, which serves to hold both layers together and provides a surface in the event of shattering for glass fragments to adhere to.

A black frame, referred as the ‘frit’, lines the outer edges of the windshield, commonly 2-3 inches wide and even wider on top. The frit protects the urethane molding (generally speaking, glue that bonds windshield to car) of the windshield from the sun’s ultraviolet rays. Without the frit, the urethane would melt and cease to hold the windshield to the body frame. This is what happens with rear-view mirrors that are incorrectly installed; they fall off the windshield after the adhesives melt in the sun’s heat.

Functions of Your Windshield

Windshields play essential roles in vehicle safety and drivability. First and the most apparent function of the windshield is blocking wind and airborne debris from you and providing a clear perspective of road conditions. This is more of a drivability issue. The next two functions are safety-related, especially during an accident. In a frontal collision, two safety features of the car minimize impact damage to the driver and passenger: SRS Airbag and seat belts. In order for the airbag to deploy properly, the windshield needs to be in place. It stops the airbag from deploying upwards and redirects the direction of inflation toward the driver. In a rollover, windshield serves dually to prevent the roof of the car from collapsing and the passenger from having any body parts hanging outside the car. This issue is more pertinent with side windows, where loose body parts will dramatically increase fatality rates.

An improperly installed or cracked windshield will jeopardize your safety. One, the windshield may crack up and eventually lose integrity and shatter. Two, during an accident, the windshield will fly apart on airbag deployment with shards of glass spewing all over the place. And the airbag will be less effective. Third, on a rollover, compression stress will first stretch the crack from end to end and then finally break the windshield. Flying glass shards are very sharp and dangerous.

How Your Windshield is Installed

Ok, are you still following me? In the above sections, I have mentioned windshield structure and function. This section will cover windshield installation. The next section will tell you about windshield stress areas that dictate how likely a chip or crack is going to develop further.

Windshield placement is a highly robotic and computer-controlled process in the assembly line of automobile manufacturing. Computerized alignment and placement procedures ensure that both molding and windshield are accurately fitted. Preparation of the car frame provides a clean surface to which the windshield could bond. Furthermore, there is ample time between windshield installation and the end of the production line for the molding to cure. Because of these exacting processes, the quality that comes out the factory is the best.

For aftermarket windshield installation, getting rid of the original windshield properly is foremost to a good replacement. The correct installation techniques require removal of the old molding and lower windshield cowl panel. Subsequently the glass is cut out, leaving around 1/16” of urethane bedding. The channel area, where the urethane adhesives bond, should be primed to inhibit rust formation. Rust formation will eventually weaken the bonding of the windshield to the car. After placement of the windshield, the car should be given from 1-24 hours to cure, depending on the adhesives used.

Some unethical replacement practices include shortcuts, such as close-cutting, flush-cutting and jumping-the-cowl. These will not be covered here, but if you are interested, you may read about these shortcuts in brief in the second link in References.

Stresses the Windshield Endures

Whether your car is parked, speeding east on Highway 60 or turtle-ing in the morning rush hour on I-10, your windshield endures many abuses: temperature changes (most notably night cooling and day heating,) road vibrations and car body frame shears, and road debris.

Because glass expands and shrinks at a slower rate than the metal body frame it is located in, during temperature changes, for example a rise in ambient temperature, the expanding metal pushes in on the sides of the windshield; conversely, a decrease in the ambient temperature exerts a pulling force on the edges of the windshield.

Now imagine, in addition to temperature stress, the constant pulling and pushing of the windshield from the body frame absorbing road impact. A stress gradient exists within the windshield. The highest stress occurs around the edges and lessens gradually approaching the center point of the windshield.

So far so good…Then a rock hits the windshield and creates an opening. Usually the windshield could distribute temperature and vibrational stress to its neighboring glass molecule. Now, however, tension would accumulate along the edge of the crack until it travels down to the border of intact and separated glass. The extra tension causes the borderline intact glass to separate, since it is the next weakest point and would continue until something is done about it.

Stress gradients correlate directly to the likelihood of a chip or crack developing further. A stone break in a high stress area, i.e. the sides, is more likely to evolve into a crack. Cracks that start from the edges usually travel to the center of less stress, just as water flows from high pressure to low pressure. Depending on shearing forces the car body exerts on the windshield, the crack may actually travel in different directions.

Value Windshield Chip Repair Services

After you read this article, we hope that you have a deeper appreciation of the value of the windshield chip and crack repair that our service sector provides to you. By repairing stone breaks and cracks when repairable, we save you time and expense and give you quality. Cars retain their originally fitted windshield, which is ever more important in new models where windshield design have reached the stage that correct replacement is paramount to ensure a snug fit and prevent stress cracks from developing. (Stress crack can occur even without external damage, especially if the windshield is not designed to fit on certain car models.)

Properly done repairs will enhance the strength of the windshield, reduce optical distraction, restrict damage area and maintain a smooth surface for wiper operation.

To see the full article with extra links and pictures, visit www.gooberswindshieldrepair.com.

References

1 Acura Owner http://cl.acurazine.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-174634.html
2 Windshield Replacement Shortcuts http://www.ican2000.com/news/article_detail.asp?article=37