Damn, but once again, Gary does a great job! I'm going to add on just a bit.

People have long thought that they are paying for my time, and to some degree that's true. You are also paying for the investment I have made in often very expensive tools and specialty tools.....things I may only use two or three times a year, but without them the job takes three times longer or is impossible to do. The investment in equipment by a shop owner is also a part of it. That little tester that loads your battery and can check your entire starting and charging system in under 5 minutes may cost $2000. or more. Would you prefer I just changed parts until I found out what was wrong, or are you willing to pay me a "Diagnostic Fee" and FIX the actual problem?

And.......Are you willing to pay me for what I know? A good mechanic gets training all the time, but he has also learned techniques to make a job go faster and sometimes has done a little R&D to figure problems out that are recurrent. Here's a little story. During the mid 70's the Labor Rate was $12/hour around here. We began seeing a lot of Ford products with bad Turn Signal Switches which are mounted in the steering column. The labor rate to change the switch was 1.2 hours ($14.40) and a new switch assembly from Ford cost about $40. for a total of $54.40 plus tax.

We found the problem with the switches was one of a lack of solder and hence a poor connection on the ground terminal of the switch inside the steering column. By repairing that, the switch worked fine and never had another problem. There's a trick to pulling a steering wheel on some cars that makes it very fast. We had found the problem ourselves and the soldering job took about 5 minutes. What this meant was that I could pull your LTD into the bay and back it out 20 minutes later....FIXED and GUARANTEED! We charged $18.00 for the job and every custimer was satisfied and overjoyed that they had saved 35 to 40 bucks!............Unless they waited on their car.

If they waited and watched and realized we did it in 20 minutes, they started questioning why we charged so much. If they took it to any other shop or any Ford dealer in town, they knew they would pay $60.00----We saved them $40.00 and they're pissed! So we only took the jobs that could leave their car in most cases.

Were we unfair? Before you answer, think about us as you would a Doctor. We are willing to pay a Doc for what he knows, the equipment that makes a procedure faster and less painful, the research into the exact nature of the problem, the testing fees to aid in his diagnosis. And with all that, when the Doc is done we thank him and count our blessings. Many times a shop owner or mechanic who does the same is considered to be "gouging the public." We had an excellent reputation and never had any problems on this partly because we explined it in the terms I have just used, and because we fixed, not "worked on," cars.

Spaw