This is gonna be long, but it's my personal experience with dealer work, and will help explain some things. You've been warned.
I started in the dealer stuff in 1992 I think it was. Stayed with it until 2008, went out on my own, then got called in to the same dealer I left to fill in while they searched for a tech. Small dealer but VERY busy. They never found a good tech and time passed me by, and I stayed. Still "there". Labor rate was $80/hr for a long time, and we did things in a combination of flat rate and actual time. Flat rate is a guide that only has to be used for warranty. It is figured by an experienced tech doing the same job 3 times consecutively, in a controlled environment (clean, tools out, etc)-basically opposite what a real world warranty repair would be. I use the guides to judge how long a job should take. 87% of the time I'm personally within flat rate. 13% of the time, I exceed the flat labor time. So if I quote someone 2.6 hours to remove a backhoe frame, and do it within that timeframe, they get charged for 2.6hr. If I do it in 3.9 hours, they get charged 2.6. If I do it in 2.3 hours, they're charged for 2.6. We try to keep it close to or a little under the quoted estimated cost. Keep reading...
In early 2018, the tiny dealership was sold to a company who owns several other dealers. The owners are good people. Good enough to keep us all there. Country folk for the most part. Anyway, not long after they took over and got their feet planted, the labor rate went to $95/hr. Many including myself were against it but I also understand how business works...has nothing to do with greed and everything to do with paying the bills. Their bills are MUCH higher than ours are, in fact, 99% of us don't understand what the break point every month is....and trust me, even in that little bitty place, it's almost 6 figures, monthly. So every dime has to count, and that is both good and bad.
Now that they've gotten settled, the labor went up, parts went up, and freight costs will rise too on 1 January, which will likely trickle down to most every other aspect of business. When the business's costs rise, they don't just "eat" it. They pass it down to the consumer. A business-of ANY kind-MUST turn some sort of profit in order to survive yet so many people don't like it. I wish I could work for free too, since I have a giving nature. But it don't work like that, unfortunately.
When the old boss ran the dealer, all that mattered was the bottom line. I personally had access to everything he did. I did parts, service, warranty, a a small amount of admin, ran back and forth between the departments constantly. Occasionally did sales. My brain moves fast so it was ok with me, just a lot of walking (~9-10 mi/day) and a lot of putting "fires" out (upset customers). Because I had access to both departments and then the parts department continually busy with phones and customers-such that they couldn't pull the parts that the shop needed, I got my own stuff-and that eliminated a LOT of errors.
Now, the new company wants to totally separate each department and I understand that. BUT the downside, we're still a little tiny dealer, with 2 parts guys who STAY busy all the time. So now, if I'm working on something and need a quart of oil or a spark plug, I carry the work order to the parts dept, put it in the "need parts" bin, and then go back to the shop & work on something else until parts show up. If I have multiple repairs going on and everything's waiting, and can't move any of them, sit & wait. I've had to wait for 2-3 weeks for a quart of gear oil to finish a customer's repair because the parts guys are too busy to pull the shop's parts. But I'm not allowed to, and I do what I'm told. The reason I haven't done it the "old" way is because these new guys need to know how it worked before and they also need to know how it's gonna work with the way THEY want it done. Yeah I am mad about it because the people who pay our bills don't like to wait and I'm the one who's got to take the brunt of the complaints. Frustrating? You bet!
So now that it takes forever to get parts, and now that we have to clock each and every service/repair job, if that job is just sitting there waiting for, parts, authorization, whatever...it's on the clock...and that time gets billed to the repair order. Customer calls and is long winded? Clocked/billed to his work order. Cleaning excessively dirty equipment? Clocked and billed at the posted labor rate. That's how simple repair jobs can get expensive. I absolutely hate it with a passion. It's not fair to the customer. It's not fair to the techs when it's out of their control. I work commission so I have to make every second count, and I work fast enough to make a little money yet slow enough to do a thorough repair. There is that fine line. Unfortunately, the delays in between are what costs. There is more to it, but that's the way most dealerships work. The little bitty mom & pop shops are the best ones, IMO, for many reasons, but they're slowly going away as bigger businesses are looking to expand constantly.
The service department was restructured in our case. I was a do-it-all tech. I was a writer, manager, and a tech, every day. Sometimes we'd take in 45 units and only get 2 or 3 out. Now, since the dealer is "bigger", they hired on a writer/manager and I'm the tech. That's great, I get to work all the time instead of answering DPF regen question phone calls 10x a day. But the downside is, that the only computer work I get to do now is to clock in and clock out. Because of that, any notes that need to be added to a R/O are done by the manager/writer. And he doesn't do a stellar job of communicating with the owner of the equipment as to what the problem, cause, and repair are. Lack of communication is the #1 cause of loss of a customer. People will pay more if they know exactly what's going on, but if they're in the dark, they're questioning things-and I don't blame them one bit. Similar to a shade-tree mechanic who'd say "I replaced yer breather filter"...yet they don't say why. Way I do things is to explain why. "found that engine was running weak because of a lack of engine airflow which was caused by an excessively dirty air filter.....replaced air filter, then re-tested". That way when the owner reads the R/O, there is no question. Thorough communication is paramount! I guess I do things differently than many. Fine. I AM different, because I genuinely care about other peoples' stuff and their needs.
The automotive industry has everyone thinking the same way. Spoiled if you will. A tiny tractor dealer such as the one I'm at is NOT going to work the same way because of a lack of space and lack of manpower. Adding space and a fancy new building is going to cost millions. Then adding 3-6 more techs, 2 parts guys, and another sales person? Potentially another $450,000 per year (just in wages alone at roughly $50k/yr)-and who's paying for it? The consumer....again, that's how business works.
I'm very very lucky, but I try to pick my battles. When I bought the second tractor the dealer was offering service calls for routine stuff, reason why I bought from them.
