Cowhorn

I am curious if many of you tip your service manager and/or mechanic after a service is performed on your Porsche? Do you tip them every time the car is worked on or only after major services? What do you usually give them? How do you do it without coming across the wrong way or appearing demeaning?

911Dave

I've never heard of tipping for auto service.

stormmaster

Seems to me the price they charge would be tip enough....

g5o

I agree. Service is where they make their dinero.

Jay H

At ~$90 per hour at shops near me, I would think that my mechanic (and the shop owner) makes more money than me. Maybe they should tip me for bringing them work...

Seriously, I have never tipped a mechanic for any service work. I don't believe that is expected if you are paying for the service work.

bornrich

Speaking from a morotcycle service perspective ($80 an hour). The shop did NOT make much money at all on service. It is the parts that drive the profit in sevice shops. Of course it depends on how that charge the time. Based on a book rate (i.e. tune up = 3 hours labor) or real time. If the book rate is used and you only take 2 hours to do the work then you can make much more money. However if you take longer then you lose money.

At the bike shop we use real time. If it took longer we had to call the customer to okay the extra time. We charged less if the effort was less then we expected.

Once in a while someone would tip the techs mostly they would bring pizza or coffee in the morning.

Peter Zimmermann

My shop would not accept a tip. We usually received a number of Christmas gifts at year end, but for us "no news was good news" after a car was picked up. The most gratifying moments were when we got a "thank you" phone call from a customer following a repair/service.
Pete

Cowhorn

Hmmm...Interesting. Thanks to all who opined.

NiATE

Beer's good! We always take beer...

Tips are almost never offered, and NEVER expected.

p_carfan

Back when......I used a regular shop (an independent) and from time to time they would do little stuff free gratis, I'd stop by the week before Christmas an spread a little cash around. Then they started FU@KING me out of every nickle they could.....That ended, now I do most of the work myself.

r911

Cowhorn - where do you live? Maybe it varies regionally or in other countries?

Pedro356C

I'd send a bottle of champagne by Christmas time...a Crystal if you have a Turbo!

Jgordon

for general stuff, I go with the "$100/hour plus parts markup is sufficient" attitude. For other stuff (engine rebuild, good advice, favors) I drop some beer. A crisp lincoln might be demeaning, but I think beer is a pretty universally recognized "thank you" among guys. I appreciate it when I'm bought one, so I pass it along as well.

mcuozzo

At a dealership never. They make enough $$$.

At an independent I usually tip for good service. When I lived back in NJ\NYC I had the fortune of knowing a few great independent shops. One was a corvette race shop that did work on my AC cobra replica. He charged a low hourly rate and usually under billed. I always just rounded up - $270 to $300 etc. The other was a porsche shop (although he worked on anything with wheels), he was a great mechanic and always gave great advice. I always bought those guys lunch and tipped them. Again his service rate was not that expensive (especially for the NYC area). Unfortunately he is no longer in business due to a serious motorcycle accident.

I do think it is more of a custom to tip back east though. Out here in AZ, I try tipping for a few things and often have people refuse it.

Matt

Cowhorn

I am in the midwest and I do think tipping is a regional phenomenon. I am hesitant about dropping off alcohol only because you never know who could be a recovering alcoholic. Sound stupid but you just never know.