Mike,Sep 23 2006, 03:30 PM Wrote:Pay somone 100 bucks to plug in a little computer, heheh i think not, still though that would be a pretty sweet way to make money as a mechanic.. lol
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LOL!
You have no idea what you are taling about on that statement.
Costs of checking a code at a shop is a little more than hooking up a little computer... :rolleyes:
the shop has lots of costs to cover on every job they do, more so on electrical and diagnostic jobs.
the scanners most shops use are about $3000-9000+cnd, not the s***ty little $100 Can-tire specials, so each time the scanner gets hooked up a portion of the cost goes to help pay for the unit.
then there is the mechanics time. To propperly scan a car you have to run it through Generic odb2 and then through a Vin/manufacturer-specific tests. a good shop will also do a quick troubleshooter lookup while they have the scanner hooked up after they have written down the codes and before they have ereased them. Minimum this takes 15-30mins, what is the shop labour rate($75-90/hour).
then there is the simple fact that the shop has costs to cover on all ends. for the average shop out there it costs about $8000/month just to open the doors. that is before wadges, parts, etc. $8000/month to cover basic upkeep the tools, machinery, overhead, untilities, etc. that also has to be factored into the cost of hooking up the scanner.
Shops also have to cover the cost of a lot of wankers out there who go in for a code reading and then take the work to another shop/person to get the repair done.
the biggest factor is knowledge. knowledge costs a lot of money. it costs the shop and the mechanic both time and money(and time is money) to stay up to date with the latest advancements. the education involved now-a-days to be a good diagnostic Tech is comparable to your basic or advanced, in some cases, university edcation. Good techs are not stupid grease-monkeys anymore, you have to be very intelligent and know what you are doing these days to work on cars above anything more than a basic DIY brake job. even then, you can cause major damage to the car if you do not know what you are doing on an ABS equipped car.
Accountants, Doctors and Lawyers charge you just to talk to them, Free consultations are usually a sign of a less than reputable place and it is no different these days with mechanics. yet a lot of the time you will waste a Mechanics time and not think anything of it. Time, knowledge and skills in any situation are not free, you have to pay for it. if you are lucky enough to get it for free from someone, be sure to thank them as many people will not do it.
So when you actually add it all up, many shops are not making ANY money for just hooking up a scanner to check for code, many do it at a loss and very few will actually turn a reasonable profit off of it. general repairs in most cases fall under one rate scale where as any form of diagnostic work usually comes with a higher price.
any idiot can pull a code and replace a part.
but if that doesn't fix the problem, then what? how much was that part? how much did it cost to replace it(time or money). now you are stuck because you have wasted money on a part that didn't fix the problem and you are no closer to the solution than in the begining.
the code is only a point of reference, it's not the answer. many things can trigger the same code but they all might have different causes.... a Good tech looks for the root-cause and will try and fix the cause of the problem. the average DIY'er and bad grease-monkey mechanic will try and fix the problem, not the cause of it.
the generic code readers do not do 1/100th the stuff a proper scanner will and that is why they are $100. hell, there are free ways to check codes on most post 00 odb2 cars where you don't have to spend the $100 on the little reader... but you have to know how to do it, and nobody will give that info away for free! ;)
just because you get a TPS error code, doesn't mean you have a problem with your TPS, you could have a bad ground, a bad power, a bad reference, you could have an issue with the ECU, the wiring, the conectors, the ground to the frame, the ground to the battery, the part itself could be the problem but then again so could the TB itself!
i'm not saying don't buy a $100 code reader, they can be helpful in many cases and are a great tool to have. just don't say the cost of having a shop/dealer pull your code is highway robbery, you have NO IDEA what it costs them!