ard

I wonder whether RLers would find it useful to track shop labor rates across the US. There are a number of threads on shop rates already but I propose tracking only a few verifiable facts. The idea would be for people to know what others are paying for service at both dealers and independents across the country.

I propose listing the following

1. Shop Name: the actual name, without obfuscation (e.g. a well known shop in the XYZ area of the country)
2. Shop City
3. Service date: month and year only
4. Hourly labor rate
5. Did you inquire about the hourly labor before booking an appointment or did you infer it from the invoice after service was completed?
6. Was a loaner car made available: just yes or no - not interested in the make or model, just whether a serviceable loaner car was given

I am deliberately staying away from asking subjective questions, for a couple of reasons:

1. I do not want such a thread to turn into a Yelp-like spectacle,- as in there are often 2 sides of the story when someone is dissatisfied with the service. Since the name of the shop is listed, anyone who cares to can research their reputation separately
2. This thread should be about cost of service so RLers have a basis of comparison. Even so, I acknowledge that there is variation, as some may have very strong relationships with their shop which can result in paying a lower hourly rate (rare in my experience) or being billed for fewer hours than were actually spent.

In terms of data gathering I want to protect anonymity. I thought about a couple of options

1. Simply posting in thread - easy, no (additional) PII is revealed beside your username, but aggregating and analyzing the data feels painful
2. Sharing a Google Sheet - great for data analysis but very risky for PII and preserving data integrity; many people have named their Google accounts in a way that make them easy to identify; also, unless everyone remembers to lock the cells with their information there is a non-zero chance of someone else editing data input by another member (probably rare, but still a consideration)
3. Inputting the above information into a Google Form - some PII risk which I'd counteract, if I were to run this, by making the responses anonymous which is an option in Google Forms; I am also not sure how to gather the results from Google Forms into a Google Sheet but I imagine there is a way. If someone knows / has done this, please let me know.

In the Poll I have listed an additional option because I want to understand the potential magnitude of the "free rider" problem. With each of the options above there is really no way to share the information back to only those who have contributed; if it's done in thread everyone can see the data; since I would make the Google Form responses anonymous I would not know who has contributed. I will say that worrying about free riders really has not been a problem on RL over the many years I have participated, but I am still giving the option in the poll

9.1.1

Personally, I don't like shops... I do my own stuff. My rate? $0, I enjoyed spending my time with my cars and I do everything with love and care.

asellus

You can call or email a shop and ask their rates. Some even post them publicly on their site.

To be frank, I don't see a whole lot of use in this data, and I'm a data engineer! I get off on this stuff.

Your time isn't worth anything?

Bud Taylor

Name and location of shop. I might add if some knew a shop who performed a specific job for under or over book rate/# of hours as this could show shops who have developed new techniques.