AviBen

Dave C -- wow! Thank you!!

worf928

You're welcome. Now go make them feel embarrassed.

AviBen

Many thanks to forum members (esp. Dave C.), who provided very helpful information. Here's the final outcome: After some friendly discussion with my dealer, they adjusted the total price, parts and labor, to a little over $1,900, completed the work, and I've got the car back already. I also just ordered a Zunsport full grille set. The dealer told me they get a lot of this kind of road damage; I don't understand why Porsche doesn't provide a more protective grille in the first place.

worf928

I'm glad this worked in your favor. Did you get any detail on their initial pricing of the various parts? And/or where they cut their margin? (I like data that can be fed back into the model.)

vjd3

$250 an hour labor rate is ridonkulous ... my local Porsche dealer is $149 and even the freaking Ferrari dealer in Boston only charges $150.

sscofield

Which is recommended....Sounds like Rennline is about $400 installed by Porsche dealership.

worf928

Both. You have to call it. There are many threads on the 991 and 991 Turbo forum. Search with "grill" in the thread title.

I will wager a beverage that you local dealer is outside I-495?

Inside rt128, independent Porsche shops are charging ~150/hr. IIRC Herb Chambers is north of that.

AviBen

Parts were a little over $400 total. Labor was 6 hrs, just under $1,500. The cut was mostly in the labor. I don't know whether the labor charge started out as so-called "book" rate or actual time.

worf928

It looks like the $400 will be a mystery. We know that the parts were about $400 via the links posted. Your original 'estimate' from them was 5 hrs @ 250.

If the actual labor was 1500/6hrs then we're at 250 hr which is consistent with the estimate.

So, $400 mysteriously disappeared. My bet is parts margin.

There's no "Book rate" as such. There is a 'book time' which is what the manufacturer specifies for a specific task in units of hours.

The vast majority of dealers - if not all - for new-ish cars, estimate based on book time at their shop rate and pay their techs based on book time at the tech's rate (much less).

There are fewer ways to "game" this system than with time-on-task. But, there are still ways to game it.

AviBen

Update: My Zunsport grille has been installed, the black version on my night blue metallic, and both my wife and I (she's the acid test) think it enhances the beauty and elegance of the car. I like its visual prominence as compared with the newly announced Rennline version, which installs behind the bumper (and requires its removal for installation), as opposed to the Zunsport which installs from the front without removal of the bumper.