Oct 30, 20229 min read

Brace Yourself! That will cost EXTRA!

Updated: Nov 1, 2022

Today’s topic was requested by one of our readers! Congratulations on winning an hour of coaching with me! I can’t wait to meet you in person :)

Quoting jobs when you are not a tech can be hazardous to your health. If you under-quote, you risk not covering the tech expense properly, dropping your effective labor rate, gross profit, and the boss' net profit. If you over-quote, you may lose the job totally.

Part of our function as advisors is to quote jobs, but because we are not techs, we do not always know every part that may need to be replaced while doing a job or what could go wrong.

I am not talking about simple brake job quotes; I am talking about more complicated stuff.

But even simple jobs sometimes go sideways.

Which is precisely what our reader requested to know.

"How do you know when to add time for broken bolts, rust, or corrosion? Is it fair to the customer to do so? I always feel like it is our fault."

In my correspondence with our reader, I got the clear message that they felt the tech should be fixing those things at no extra charge. This person has been instructed to call the customer and advise that there would be additional charges, but they are struggling to justify the cost.

So, let's try and change that opinion and give this advisor some confidence that they are doing the right thing.

Let's start with this question for everyone reading. (There will be a poll at the bottom of the blog. If you can take a moment to click yes or no, I would appreciate it!)

Do you believe that broken bolts, rust, corrosion, or excessive amounts of prepping, even to start the job, should cost more for the customer, to begin with?

If you have been in that position, does the thought of calling and adding more expense give you nauseating feelings? Do you usually just internal the extra time?

Step one on the path to understanding this situation is knowing that there will always be unforeseen things that increase the cost in the world of disassembly. Things break due to age, rust, etc., and sometimes the tech cannot see additional worn parts until they are out in their hands. This part of the job will never go away. So, we need to understand how to deal with these situations.

I have had techs come out of the shop with parts of the car that should not be in their hands when doing what they were supposed to be doing on the vehicle.

If you are working at the dealer, both you and the techs will benefit from seeing the same type of vehicle every day. So, for things that happen frequently, you can forewarn customers about the possible related costs before you do the job.

Some everyday things are sway bar links that break due to age when removing the steering gear. Steering knuckles that are worn when doing wheel bearings, axle bearings that are worn when doing axle seals, and control arms that need to be replaced when doing compliance bushings. Leaking water pumps the tech may find when doing the timing belts. The list is enormous.

Advisors struggle to sell what they do not understand or believe in. That mental dissonance makes it hard to speak from a place of posture that the customer will pick up on. Our actions must align with our cognitive beliefs when we are selling things. It is that simple.

When a tech comes and says, "There is a broken mounting bolt on the water pump that needs to be removed, it will be an extra half an hour."

Do you feel that is the tech's fault?

Do you say, "The job is already quoted, so you/we will have to cover the additional cost." Do you go to the manager's office? Or do you pick up the phone and call the customer to explain the extra charges and brace yourself for the outcome?

Here are a few ideas to help you along. You will need a few verbiage tips, but mostly this is about confidently understanding that this is not the tech's fault. I have found that all the techs I have worked with for over thirty years, if they broke something, and it was their fault, will come and say straight up, "I broke this; it needs to go on an internal line." Which gets covered by the shop.

You need to trust your techs! If you do not understand how something is broken and not our fault, go look at it. See what the tech is dealing with. This will help put things in perspective.

Before we go much further, I will say a few things about how the flat rate book works and how you can wrap your brain around it to help you frame, explain and justify additional charges differently.

Here is some documentation to give you the posture you need to sell additional time when needed and how you should use the book to quote jobs correctly.

The “Mitchel” or “Chilton” manual that you may be using to quote jobs and pay technicians for those jobs used to be a four-inch-thick book with thousands of pages that had every make or model in it and virtually every repair possible that needed to be quoted, right down to the oil change.

Now, of course, it is all digital; thank the universe for that; it was so heavy and awkward to pull out, find the make, model, repair, etc. Usually, you had to throw it on top of everything already on your desk. It was a mess.

But at the front of that book was a “How to use this book” section that stated a few things. Here are a few of them taken right out of the Chilton Manual from 2004:

“This manual is a guide for computing fair labor times, but it is not intended to be unconditional. There are many variations in the way different service providers are equipped or perform the same job. Labor times are based on the ‘‘Law of Averages” and are not set according to the best technician or the technician-in-training. They are a blend. Severe Service Times Extra labor time should be considered when the vehicle exhibits advanced age, high mileage, lack of maintenance, abuse, or has operated in a climate that creates extra effort needed to free up seized bolts, replace broken fasteners, remove rust, degrease, and clean parts, etc. Additional time should also be added when more than normal road testing is required. Suggested Severe Service Times are displayed for your use as needed.”

What are the takeaways here?

This book is a guide.
The times are based on the average time to repair brand-new vehicles. And based on their equipment.
These times do not include the time that may affect the repair caused by rust, corrosion, lack of maintenance, or other environmental factors.

Just knowing this should start to shift your mindset.

There were more things it used to say back in the nineties, but those are the big ones.

It is essential to know that the techs being timed already had the vehicle on the hoist and all the tools laid out required for the job they were about to do. This dramatically reduces the time the job takes. As a tech, unless you have done the repair multiple times, you will not know what tools you need to bring to the party.

Those same techs being timed also did not need to shampoo the engine to get all the caked-on oil off the bolts they had to access before even starting the job. They did not have to soak fittings in penetrating fluid to try and free them up. These are all things that add additional time to repair situations.

So, when using the book or the online version, you must consider the above. When bolts are seized and rusted solid, that is EXTRA.

Understand and believe that ninety percent of the time, bolts do not break because the tech has used too much force or the wrong tool. That is not their fault. It is not your fault as the advisor, it is not the dealership's fault, and it is not the customer’s fault either, but the responsibility for that cost lies with the customer in the end, as they are the ones that own the vehicle.

Just like the manufacturer has to pay if there are seized or broken bolts or required additional parts when we are doing warranty repair. The manufacturer does not dispute the charges. They also know that this is always a possibility.

In these situations, the issues are usually environmental, age, or lack of maintenance that have caused the problems. Therefore, you must call and sell more time to extract and/or repair as needed. They are not part of the original repair.

How do you explain or ask for more money?

There are many ways, but how about we start being proactive with the older vehicles when quoting them in the first place?

If we can learn to act proactively with our new habits (see previous blogs on explosive habits), when we are making a quote for a vehicle that is older, you could quote the job with the caveat stating at the end of the quote, “The tax in for that water pump would be nine-hundred-and-sixty-dollars, as long as we do not have any seized or broken bolts to contend with."

Usually, that would prompt the customer to ask how much extra that would be. You could say, "Per bolt that breaks, there is usually about a one-hundred-and-ninety-dollar addition to the cost for the extraction and repair to the threads. But we will not know if we need to repair any until we begin to disassemble."

The forewarning gives people time to absorb the possibility.

Another proactive step is checking in with the tech. Usually, if you go to a tech to confirm the hours you are quoting, they will tell you to add time for broken bolts if they see them commonly. You could also ask them to check the parts list to ensure you have it all right.

When you quote the job to the customer, you should say that you have included time for possible broken bolts, but if they do not need attention, the job will be less.

If you have had the conversation before the job starts and have a bolt break, all you need to do is pick up the phone and chat which may go something like this:

“Hi there, Mr. Jones. Do you have a moment? The tech was able to get all the bolts out but one. We will have to perform one extraction and repair. As we discussed before beginning the job, with the additional bolt extraction and a thread repair to the front cover (or whatever the water pump bolts onto), the additional cost will take the total to eleven hundred and fifty dollars.”

If you have not done this before doing the job, your word track will be different, and you may have to deal with a heated customer at the end of the line. But it can be done.

After considering your personality type on the other end of the phone, your approach may be emotional, straightforward, analytical, light-hearted, or empathetic.

Here is how. The one I usually go with is:

“Hi, Janice, Alana here. We have a bit of a situation. One bolt on the water pump is corroded quite badly, and the tech is concerned that it may break. He has been working on it for a bit now at no extra charge, but at this point, we will have to start getting a bit more aggressive with it. The tech feels that he will be able to get it out, remove the part of the bolt that may break off in the cover, and repair the threads that the new bolt will need to go into. The extra cost should not be too bad. If things go as expected, the additional cost will take the bill to eleven hundred and fifty dollars instead of the nine hundred we originally quoted. Are you ok with us proceeding?”

This leaves the choice up to the customer.

Depending on your personality type, you will have a variety of reactions. This is why you must do the forewarning upfront when possible if the vehicle is older or if you commonly see that the mounting bolts are breaking off on this specific type of repair.

The previous approach has worked with most personality types. There are usually a few questions to answer, but in the end, the water pump needs to be replaced, and people get it done with an understanding of why the cost has gone up.

To avoid even having this conversation, I will quote higher on older vehicles when quoting something that is not menu priced. I.e., I quote point five extra per decade of age on average. So, if the job pays three hours and the car is thirty years old, quote four and a half hours. If it is twenty years old, I will quote four hours. You may not use that time, but you are better positioned to reduce time than call and always add it. Always.

There are times you cannot do that, of course. If I am doing a phone quote, I quote the straight book time with the caveat, as I explained before. When customers call several places for a quote, usually, none of those places will add time for the age of the vehicle, so I must do the same to remain competitive.

Unless underlying issues exist, most techs expect to be paid what the book says. So, if the job pays three hours and that is all he asks for when the job is done, you do not need to charge the customer for the additional time. The customer will be happy!

But how great is it when the tech comes and says, “Hey, there is a broken bolt that I have to fix; it is an extra half an hour. Can you call the customer and let them know?” And you say, “Go ahead; I have you covered!”

No time wasted for the tech, and no extra calls to make for you, who is likely a busy person with your twenty other work orders that you are handling.

Do you think the tech should be paid extra for broken bolts and removing seized components on a quoted job?