Tampa 928s

Kevin in Atlanta

Alldata is a source used by a lot of shops.

Rob Edwards

Not sure this is a race 'won' by the fastest wrench.

hacker-pschorr

Referred to as "book time" in the industry.

The better shops charge time & materials ignoring book time.

It's a way to speed up mechanics. If book time is 2 hours, they are paid 2 hours of labor even if the job took 4. One or two stuck or broken bolts in the water pump? Too bad...
One reason why alignments at the dealership are often referred to as "set the toe and go" since that is the primary cause of premature tire wear & that's what the customer cares about. Popping out an alignment in 20 minutes when the nook says 60....the mechanic can make more money stacking jobs.

It's a horrible way to measure yourself by unless getting the job done in the shortest time possible is the only goal.

Book time doesn't take into account a 30 year old car covered in grime & corroded fasteners.

Eplebnista

Book Time is the specialty tool industry's best friend. An ex-tech friend of mine refers to his collection of inner tie end removal tools as "the moneymakers."

docmirror

Flag rate(or book rate) is rarely used for cars > 6-8 years old, except for body shops. The relationship to flag rate vs actual time on a 35YO car is meaningless. Ford adds about 10% for flag rate for cars > 8 years old.

docmirror

My brother is a wrench for Ford. He has a whole cart of those. One of them reduces a trans job from 16 actual hours down to about 6. He grabs every trans job he can find. He made a specialty tool to recut spark plug threads in an insert that is all done with the head on the car. Saves another 8 hours over flag rate.

The Forgotten On

I have them on microfiche

But yeah, book time is a great way for shops to make money when they can log 20+ hours of labor in an 8 hour shift.

Don't judge yourself by it. Those times were set when the cars were new and didn't have fasteners stuck in place by 30+ years of goo.

Tampa 928s

GregBBRD

Doesn't matter how many hours. The job goes on until it is finished.

The factory "flat rate" times (out of the grey book that Rob shows) were for warranty time on brand new cars with everything around the problem in perfect condition and with trained factory mechanics.

You will not/should not get close!

Speedtoys

^^ . What he said.

But Plan C to get the data...

Have a kid going to Porsche training:



Thats 560 time units for a 5spd R&R.

5.6hrs.