what would you do in this situation. doing a side job. timing belt,/water pump along w/ replace coil pack and tune up on a 2000 golf 2.0 engine.
book calls for 4 hours total to swap all the shit out. thats what i quote w/ an 1/2 hour over run time.
do the waterpump and timing belt w/o problem. go to do the spark plugs and coil pack. odd thing was when i scanned the car, it showed typical crack coil misfire as well as a hard misfire on cylinder 4. that seemed strange becasue a cracked coil wont show a hard misfire in just one cylinder.
so im going plug at a time while im chaninging the plug/wire, and everything is going smooth. then i get to number four. it is tight as hell. shine my light down and what do i see–the plug isnt even in the head. who ever replaced the plug last cross threaded the fuck out of it. im talking a good 5 threds not even engaged on the plug. i call the owner up and tell them to come check it out.
so i just want to get the fuck home at this point–being i was up at 8am for my normal 9-6 and this was a side job i started at 10pm. no saving the existing threads, so i run my sparkplug repair tool down the hole and stick a heli coil in the head.
now this is not my fault. i fixed another persons mistake. however, i “quoted” the job before seeing this problem. i know the person is tight w/ money. i dont want to be a mooch, but at the same time, i dont like fixing shit for free or worse yet not doing anythign at all and having my name bad mouthed that i do shit work. i’d be happy w/ just replacing the helicoil i used. how do i go about asking for that w/o coming off as a dick.
person is kinda inept about cars too–being it had 130k on the original waterpump and timing belt. im surprised it made it that far. never seen a timing belt so wore out in my life that had not broke.
a quote is just that, an estimate covering expected labor under expected conditions. A crossthreaded plug is definately an unexpected condition and not required to follow the guildline of the origional quote.
if you let teh person know that the job costed more than planned. but tell them roughly how much so the customer can plan/budget the repair bill.
make sure and mentioned all the extra you didn’t charge for.
yeah what he said let them know what the quote was for and you ran into this and now it will cost a little more for the repair and I’m sure they will understand
I get situations like that all the time. You get a job in, quote the customer book time and something happens.
A common situation for me is lowering a high milage honda. You know that one of the rear lower strut mount bolts can be froze, so that means cutting it out, buying a new bushing and bolt and installing it. That can easily take half a day right there, but its totally unexpected sometimes and there is nothing you can do. You are doing work you were told to do, its not your fault the car came to you with other problems thats going to get in your way.
Best way to do it, just talk to the kid, explain to him what you did and what you found. Tell him there is nothing you can do to get around it, reasure him that you want to fix the car right and not have it neglected like it was given to you! Ask the customer if they are willing to pay the additional cost to repair the problem you fixed correctly. Most of the time they are greatful taht you took your time to do the job right and are willing to pay your time.
Other times people are straight floppy vaginas. They’ll tell you it was your fault for something and will only pay for the job at hand, not the extra work it took you to complete it. In that case, I’ve told them thank you for the work, tell them again how you went the extra mile to make the car right and nicely ask them to go on their marry way. After that there is nothing more you can do. I’ve gotten more return business for just being honest and trying to help a nukka than anything else. Good luck with it brother.
charge him dog time = money in my book… and i know what you mean i put my old sohc turbo in this kids car and dude had shit all fuckd up no motor mount bolts gas lines cut, no grounds and when i told him i wanted more money he was being gay, and i told him that i would put it in for him but when you got to go and buy more bolts, gas lines, rewire shit, its not free that is takin you time and money so therefore you need paid for it… So Salior if i was you i would just come straight out and tell him you want money for your time to make the car run better
I think what everyone said is right. There are things you don’t expect to run into.
It’s all about how you deliver the message. To people who don’t know shit about cars (me), you already go into a situation worrying about getting bent for more work than what’s needed to be done. I’m not saying you’re that person, but you have that going against you sometimes. Many garages/people will just say “this is what I had to do, pay me.” But if you put someone at ease and tell them what you need to do and why, I think they feel a little bit better about spending their money because they at least know what’s going on and they aren’t as intimidated by something they don’t know about (car repair).
Let him know what’s up and I’m sure he won’t have any problem with you doing any work. You seem like you’re a pretty stand up guy, it shouldn’t be a problem.
Personally, I don’t continue with the work until it has been o.k.'ed by the customer. Even then I still have troubles with some customers, but not so much with general repair customers.
I’m sure the person understands that you do quality work and your an upstanding guy. As long as the work is quality I wouldn’t have a problem charging more.
Maybe one thing, especially since the person really isn’t familiar with cars, maybe take a picture of the problem and take a picture of another plug that is correctly installed just to show that there really was a problem that needed fixed and your aren’t just making shit up? Might help to make the explanation a little bit easier.