Are All Garages In London Rip Off Merchants?!?

[kyepan 291]

Anger..

 

So far, the minimum to just press out an old bearing from a 1.6 drum, and press in a new one is £20!?!?

 

I'm not a cheap skate but surely this is a 10 min job...

 

J

[welshpug 1,657]

£90 P/H+vat?

 

 

that'd be £18 for a ten minute job.

[Baz 421]

High overheads, busy + a job that they probably cba to do = high rates.

 

I'm constantly amazed at what people charge and more so what people are happy to pay for simple things that used to just be 'bung us a tenner for the tea jar' these days, even if you do it yourself ie. borrowing the use of a press, tyre machine/balancer etc.

[Anthony 1,003]

To be honest, I wouldn't have said that £20 is that bad for doing the job - yes, it's expensive when you multiply that up to what it would be an hour, but things don't really work that way.

 

Certainly a few years back before I bought my own press I was typically paying £10 to press a pair of trailing arm shafts when refurbishing a beam, and that was me doing it myself and taking less than 10 minutes - so comparitively, getting someone else to get their hands dirty and with the London premium on top for "only" twice that sounds quite reasonable!

 

I'm constantly amazed at what people charge and more so what people are happy to pay for simple things that used to just be 'bung us a tenner for the tea jar' these days

The real-world inflation rate means that what was a tenner a few years back is now pretty much twice that once it's been rounded up.

[kyepan 291]

ok, i'll let the flies out of the wallet then...

[Miles 331 1 Cars]

As said around the right figure, I would say a Tenner outside of the City for that and £20.00 for a front wheel bearing as they can be a pain

[GilesW 41]

Ok not London, but - My local independant motor shop (Burgess hill, East Sussex) have their own press and tools and take you out the back and press the old out and in with the new for bearings you buy from them. And they are as cheap as a motor factors.

 

Same with everything else you get from them. That's why they have been trading for over 30 years.

[kyepan 291]

can a rear hub bearing be changed using the freezer and oven method?

[Tesstuff 222]

You really are a tight &*^%%^& aren't you

[GLPoomobile 958]

I was going to post this in the Silly Little Things topic, but it seems to be almost relevant here. If you think £20 to press out a bearing is bad, how about ~£70 to put an obituary in the local midweek paper in a Devon town? If that's not taking advantage of a situation I don't know what is!

[Tom Fenton 1,541]

Look at it from the perspective of joe average who thinks car maintenance is checking the oil and no more. So he puts his car into the garage for a rear wheel bearing. Pays say £40 for the bearing as the garage mark it up, and say £75 labour to fit it. Comes home £115 worse off.

So you on the other hand who knows enough to do it yourself, go out, buy a bearing for £20, gets the garage to press it, come home £40 worse off, BUT you are £75 better off than our friend joe. You feel hard done by as you think they have had you over, but the reality is that they own a press and you don't, so you are not just paying for the time it takes, you are also paying towards whatever they laid out in the first place to buy the press.

Your two options are, either bite the bullet and buy a press, and after 5 or 6 goes at £20 it will be getting on for having paid for itself, or if you won't use it enough to justify, then pay the £20 as and when to get someone else to use their press for you.

 

In this very same vein I am on the lookout for a tyre machine as I know that I will make it pay for itself within a couple of years, with my own needs swapping tyres around on various cars and also trackday wheels and tyres.

[marksorrento205 80]

In this very same vein I am on the lookout for a tyre machine as I know that I will make it pay for itself within a couple of years, with my own needs swapping tyres around on various cars and also trackday wheels and tyres.

 

I was only saying the same today

[Baz 421]

The very same reason i have a tyre machine!

 

But some of the points here make sense tbh. I think we've just been spoilt, growing up dad used to co-run a garage and thus has always had many mates in the trade, so until recent years i've always paid very little or just favours for the use of things, Christ, i even remember paying £15 for MOT's!

 

I used to pay a tenner or so to use the tyre machine & balancer for a few hours every so often, the local place wants that to remove ONE tyre!!

[ALEX 98 1 Cars]

I was in the same situation, I was spending hours winding out bearings with threaded bars and sockets and I'm too tight to pay a garage to do it as I'd expect to pay around £20 around me too.

So I bit the bullet after hours of searching to find the cheapest press I could.

£150 for a new 10 ton Press off ebay.

Great value for money and I've used it more times already than I thought I ever would.

The only trouble is the space it takes up, but I would recommend one if anyone is on the fence about buying one.

[1 FAT PUG 39]

not a bad price really

[Matt Holley 11]

Why is it that people think a mechanic should do everything for nothing, the pays not great, they have to buy there own tools and yet joe public seems to think a mechanic owes them a favor, it used to really piss me off tbh, its the same with diagnostics, nobody want's to pay the money for what they see is ten mins on a computer but that kits cost £££s of pounds and needs to be paid for, same as the press, the ramps, the tools etc etc.

 

Anyone that thinks £20 to press in a bearing is expensive just try and work out what it costs to kit out a fully working workshop and see how far £20 gets you.

[GilesW 41]

Some comments:

 

Mate invested in a proper ex kwick-fit tyre machine and digital balancing machine and all the weights etc. Uses it a lot himself but has made the investment back and loads more from charging mates/people/whoever a few quid a time to use it (or more for him to do it).

As said - cost of machine + maintenance+ cost of running it+consumables etc.

 

Another mate with a lift and full garage of tools charges £25 a day for workshop space to mates. This includes use of all tools and agreed time on the ramp.

He can do his work plus 2 others in there so on most weekends has £50 a day come in, plus whoever wants it during the week.

A bargain to most as saves grovelling in the dirt and messing about trying to find/buy/borrow all the tools you need for a job (has presses etc etc etc) and gives him some bread and butter money too.

[kyepan 291]

i would love a press, except i am in a studio apartment in london! Yes I am tight, spend when it's required, not when it's not.

 

no one mentioned whether the freezer and oven technique works. ?!?

Edited July 11, 2012 by kyepan

[kyepan 291]

Good news, the little machine shop / engineering place literally next door did it for a tenner, he did however charge me 40 a few days ago to tap and bung my fuel rail.

 

J

[SurGie 54]

I was going to suggest to go to a local engineering shop until i read your last post. I go to my local engineering shop for getting stuff pressed in out etc, wish we had one at work but we just dont need one. I get it cheap, around a fiver, although i have spent a few quid there a few times before now.

 

Always worth getting a press yourself for the price of them, especially when there's a VAT free day at Machine Mart.

[Anthony 1,003]

Always worth getting a press yourself for the price of them, especially when there's a VAT free day at Machine Mart.

Not when you live in a garageless flat in London it isn't

[GLPoomobile 958]

Not when you live in a garageless flat in London it isn't

 

Oh how I miss those days (insert misty-eyed smiley).

[tri_longer 25]

Looking at this from a slightly different angle, for those of you who have this equipment already, so presses, tyre changers etc, hypothetically speaking if you had members of the forum come round for a quick bearing change or tyre swap, what would you charge or expect to be paid, or would beers be enough? NOt looking to start an arguement, but clearly you aren't going to do it for free.

 

Is there perhaps, and I speak very hypothetically, setting up a list of members who can offer such services and the areas they are in. Even if you do have to pay a minimal amount, you also get to meet a fellow enthusiast, chat sh*t for a while, look over each others cars and get your part changed at the same time. Just a thought.

[Anthony 1,003]

Looking at this from a slightly different angle, for those of you who have this equipment already, so presses, tyre changers etc, hypothetically speaking if you had members of the forum come round for a quick bearing change or tyre swap, what would you charge or expect to be paid, or would beers be enough? NOt looking to start an arguement, but clearly you aren't going to do it for free.

 

I've let various localish forum members use my press and/or I've done the actual pressing for them and I don't think that I've ever asked for any money for doing it.

 

A few people have given me a few beer tokens or actual beers as thanks, and others are normally happy to return the favour as and when I need something that they're able to help with - a hand with a particular job, borrowing a tool that I don't have, or perhaps doing a spot of welding or similar for me.

 

That arrangement works for me