Brother recently bought a used Lexus said Lexus does not come with Apple CarPlay. Easy enough to remedy BeatSonic makes a plug and play unit that integrates with the factory system flawlessly.
It works so well and flawlessly as a matter of fact that is is an approved aftermarket product that is sold through the Lexus parts department and can be installed by the dealer.
$750 part. I will be installing it for my brother. I’ll have it installed without a doubt in under 2 hours and almost positive I will have it all buttoned up in under an hour.
Super, super easy install and nearly identical to what I did in my Tundra.

How much does the dealer want for the install for a part purchased from their parts department???????

$800!!!!!!!!! Absolutely asinine!
Unreal.

Consider yourself lucky and/or blessed that you have the tools, skills, and knowledge for doing that type of wiring/electronics/dash work yourself. Well, maybe not you, but your brother.
Many people in today's world are not as fortunate, and actually pay people to repair things that they own and drive.
At least for me, that is an extremely alien concept!

I recently purchased a used Kubota tractor. I have spent a considerable amount of time repairing/maintaining/upgrading that tractor over the last month.
I have not kept track of the hours, because I enjoy that type of project. I am also retired, with zero conflicting time constraints, other than sleeping and eating.

I had to visit the local Kubota dealership yesterday for a complete set of safety decals/stickers for the mower deck. They were casualties from repainting the mower deck.
While there, I noticed the hourly labor rate for their service department was $110 per hour.

Let's see here, maybe 20 hours of tractor work per week, times four weeks. $8800.00 labor, plus parts, fluids, and sales tax. Don't forget the hazardous materials charge, for tires/oil/coolant disposal.
So far on this project over the last month, when sourcing Kubota dealership parts, they have offered me a job twice! Nope, no thanks, not interested...

I bought the used tractor cheap, knowing that anything requiring work, I could/did do at home in my shop all by myself. I have about $300 or so maximum in parts, fluids, and supplies.
The price of the used tractor, plus the $300 in parts/fluids/supplies, plus that $8800.00 for labor, plus hazardous materials disposal, and finally sales tax, and I would just buy a brand new unit instead.
The brand new Kubota's come with a nice warrantee.

The company I work has a lot of contract customers. For time & materials customers they get about 540 an hour for what I work on. Plus a $2200 flat rate travel fee. I’d just like to make 10% of the hourly labor rate. To be fair my pay has gone up 50% in the ten years I’ve been working there, it’s still not 10% of the labor rate.

quote:

Originally posted by cee_Kamp:
Consider yourself lucky and/or blessed that you have the tools, skills, and knowledge for doing that type of wiring/electronics/dash work yourself. Well, maybe not you, but your brother.

I am very lucky to have had a grandfather that taught me all about cars and fixing things around the house. It’s saved me boat loads of money around the years.
My brother is much more of the brains and less of the DIY even though he is capable of it.

quote:

Originally posted by cee_Kamp:

I had to visit the local Kubota dealership yesterday for a complete set of safety decals/stickers for the mower deck. They were casualties from repainting the mower deck.
While there, I noticed the hourly labor rate for their service department was $110 per hour.

This is what really rubs me the wrong way on this one. I’d say Lexus shop rate is $175-$200 an hour. This is in no way possible a 4+ hour job.
2 hours at most.

His wife has a Lexus that has been serviced there for years and he just bought this and he keeps his vehicles for a long time and does zero work himself. So it will/would be going there for pretty much everything.
He is now looking for an independent Lexus shop (at my direction) to go to. They lost a lot of future service by being silly on the labor charge on this.

The parts guy was nice and gave him 15% off. Which is almost $115 savings which is nice.

I have run upon this as well.

Bought a Dodge truck. Thought it would be kinda cool to install U-Connect for the hands-free laws.

I like the voice recognition software and text messages being displayed on the radio.

'We can't do that. It is not compatible. Your truck is too old...' said the rep with the obscene labor rates posted behind him.

Long story short, I was able to get the module, controls, mic, wiring harnesses, and power supply out of a junkyard for $35.

I pulled another one out of the junkyard and drew up a wiring diagram for an EMT buddy of mine.

It took about 90 minutes for each install.

quote:

Consider yourself lucky and/or blessed that you have the tools, skills, and knowledge for doing that type of wiring/electronics/dash work yourself. Well, maybe not you, but your brother.

It's a blessing and a curse. I won't pay somebody to fix my stuff, either. Unfortunately this means I spent a week this year renovating my own bathroom, my day off last week replacing a water heater, an afternoon fixing the washing machine, and another fixing my BIL's brakes. I've literally scooped shit with a cup to avoid paying a plumber. I cant afford to live any other way (especially these days!), and I'm grateful for the skills...but there are definitely times you wish you didn't have them!

There are 4 cases:
1) have skills, have money. Diy or hire.
2) have skills, no money. Diy.
3) no skills, have money. Hire.
4) no skills, no money. Sol.

Sounds like you’re #1 or 2.

I’m usually between #3 or 4. I envy guys with skills.

@konata88,

I think there should be another number on your list.

5) You have the skills and money, and you refuse to pay someone incompetent.

I stopped taking my Jeep and my girlfriends Jeep to the local Jeep dealership.
Both of us had repairs/service work at the local Jeep dealership that simply was
faulty piss poor service work. Plain & simple incompetence.
a) Lug nuts severely over torqued. Had to drill out the lug stud in the center of the lug nut, for removing the lug nut.
b) Lug nuts left loose. Broke a lug stud. Ruined an expensive aluminum wheel.
Fixed it at home myself.
c) Took G/F's Jeep in for a front suspension squeak. They changed front sway bar rubber bushings. I replaced the worn out lower ball joint to fix the squeak.
d) gas tanks, in tank fuel pumps, fuel sending units, more incompetence, more butchery.

There is more, but I had relearned the life lesson.

I had done some automotive service work professionally many years ago.
I went back to school mid life and learned tool & die making, CNC manufacturing, and model
shop machining. My Father taught us kids to be self sufficient & independent.
When I retired, I figured I would pay to have good work done. I worked hard all my working life/careers, and earned that right.

Then after the Jeep escapades, and some motorcycle repairs escapades, I had relearned
that hard earned life lesson again.
If you want it done right, and you have the skills, knowledge, tools and shop, do the job
yourself, take as long as needed to do it right the first time.

Here at home, other than safety/emissions inspections and replacing/balancing tires,
everything else is on me. I also pay for wheel alignments, but only if experiencing abnormal tire wear. My Jeep is at 170k miles, doesn't wear tires abnormally, and it's never been in a shop for a wheel alignment.

1. Appliance repairs.
2. Home repairs. Including wiring, plumbing, carpentry.
3. All wheeled machines. Cars, trucks, motorcycles, ATV, Side-by-side, tractors, implements.
4. Any/all machine shop work needed.
5. Electric/gas welding/brazing/silver soldering.
6. Now I'm learning some basic farming/hunting food plot skills. And tractors.
7. I keep all the computers/network/cell phone systems operating.
8. I just bought a trail camera system. Mesh Wi-Fi interconnected cameras.
I am teaching myself the new system, setup, operating, troubleshooting.
It sends trail camera photos from the boondocks/woods to email addresses/phone numbers.

See, you CAN teach an old dog some new tricks!

It takes a lifelong selection/collection of tools.
And a chronic willingness to learn new things.
Also, you need someplace to do some of those things, workshop/building.

As I have aged, I take great pride doing stuff for myself at home.
I always take the time, to do it right the first time.

Everything cee-Kamp said.

quote:

Originally posted by konata88:..
I’m usually between #3 or 4. I envy guys with skills.

You lack of knowledge, experience, and confidence.

Skills are what you have after you have gained the above, and believe it or not, you have to start with none of those to achieve all of those.
But you have to be willing to put down "I can't" and pick up a task and a tool.

There is no such thing as "lack of skills". They are in every problem you face.
Either you pick up those skills or you pay someone else to walk away with them.

If you can make a peanut butter sandwich, you can lay brick, tile, do drywall, caulk and paint.

Since you opened and closed the jars, you can unbolt and bolt things and put screws in wood.

If you cut that sandwich in half, diagonal or cross-cut, you can do carpentry.

On and on and on. Everything is just steps, one at a time, and build on it.

Knowledge is everywhere; you simply need the desire to look for it and understand failure is that place where you press forward one more time and reap success. Either move forward or stop moving.

The universe doesn't give a fuck about you.

Many of us here do.


You want an asshole of a coach to help you get started? Email me.


I have had a life with no other option but, do or, do without.

And have done rather well in the doing.


"Get busy living, or get busy dying."
-Andy Dufresne
The Shawshank Redemption

quote:

5) You have the skills and money, and you refuse to pay someone incompetent

This is incredibly true. There have been rare occasions when I have paid someone to do something that I could do myself. More often than not I end up regretting it because they do a piss-poor job of it, end up doing something wrong or breaking something, and I could have done it better myself.

I do my own work on my personal vehicles, but the work ride has to go to the shop of their chosing. Those guys broke all the clips off the under-hood weatherstripping on the Durango, and didn't replace them. I ended up ordering new ones off Amazon because it wasn't worth the fight. The last time I picked it up the check engine light was on. I looked and realized they never plugged the intake air temperature sensor back in. Then one of our guys got a flat and I just about got a hernia trying to break the lug nuts loose with a 4-way...had to call the street department guys to bring a breaker bar to get them loose.

Then there was the debacle with my pastor's car a few weeks back where a shop over-tightened his lug nuts to the point that we twisted one 45 degrees without breaking it loose.

Stuff like this makes me realize that I'm not only saving money by doing stuff myself, but also a lot of headache and frustration down the road.

quote:

Originally posted by Black92LX:

quote:

Originally posted by cee_Kamp:
C. [/QUOTE[QUOTE]Originally posted by cee_Kamp:

He is now looking for an independent Lexus shop (at my direction) to go to.

Depending on the nature of the work needed, I'd take a Lexus to a very reputable Toyota dealership shop, or even better I have a very good independent shop that does very good work without ripping me off.

Toyota will have many of the same basic parts as Lexus.

I really like my local independent shop. Their technicians are NOT paid commission, or flat rate, or try to sell extra things, they are ALL on a very good salary.
.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Absolutely I have already told him to start looking for an independent Toyota/Lexus shop. I have one here where I live but we live two hours away so not quite feasible.



I am certainly of the boat if I can do it I will
do it.
Also if I THINK I can do it I will do it. Which on a couple of occasions has had me have to call someone to fix my screw up but that is OK O have learned things from those scenarios.

It all depends on what we are referring to as well. In this scenario we are talking about automotive work.
I can do almost all the normal run of the mill stuff and have lots of tools.
However I can’t do it all. An automatic Transmission needs rebuilt guess what, I can’t do that.
Not looking forward to this transmission going kaboom in the wife’s Suburban as I can’t fix it and well fixing it will really be a bit of a financial strain at the moment.

There are also times where it is just cheaper to hire someone. For instance I needed a value reset on my Tundra’s ECU.
The cheapest Bidirectional scanner of quality that I would trust to rewrite my ECU is $450. I have a nice scanner but it is not bidirectional and I likely will never need to rewrite to the ECU very much.
Dealer charges $250. This is how I found the independent Toyota/Lexus shop as my backup if I need them.
They charged me $75 (1 hour of shop time) to reset the value. The whole process takes 45 minutes to reset, let idle, relearn, add fuel, idle, relearn again.
In that case I paid the $75.
Being that I would need to plan to reset the values on the ECU 6 times to pay for the scanner, which likely I won’t need to reset anything in that fashion again it was a no brainer.

Sounds like they are going by “the book”. If the book says it takes 4 hours, you get charged 4 hours even if it only takes 1. That’s one reason I’ve forced my self to learn new skills.

sigmonkey’s post really hits the nail on the head better than I’ve ever been able to explain it.

quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:
Sounds like they are going by “the book”. If the book says it takes 4 hours, you get charged 4 hours even if it only takes 1. That’s one reason I’ve forced my self to learn new skills.

sigmonkey’s post really hits the nail on the head better than I’ve ever been able to explain it.

Whoever wrote “the book” clearly is just making up numbers.

Cee-kamp: I agree with the case; I considered that to be the DIY part of #1 but I'm certainly familiar with it. Whether I could afford to hire someone to do a particular job or not, I've often just accepted things over the years because I wasn't confident I could find someone to do the job well / satisfactorily (despite the cost).

Sigmonkey: I really appreciate your post and your kind words. I've actually learned much here over the years. I've troubleshot and replaced a fridge solenoid. Replaced a dryer motor. I identified and replaced a failed solenoid for a cylinder in the car. Many things that I might not have tried but for the help of people here. I've been picking up skills, experience and confidence here and there from you guys. You specifically have been helpful in the past. I'm trying, and this old dog has been learning some new tricks. Still have a long way to go. For example, I've wanted for years to add a window to the bedroom. But I don't have the knowledge or confidence to do so. And don't want to hire someone because (around here), I'm wary about competency to do the job right (I heard many a bad local story). So, I just accept no window.

Perhaps, soon, when a patch of boredom in retirement hits, I'll just give it a devil-may-care attempt. I may fill your inbox then.

My FIL used to work shop rate at a Ford dealership. The Book quotes a certain amount of time for any given job...usually pretty close to what it would take a normal mechanic to do it. A really experienced guy, though, with the proper tools, can learn shortcuts or improve his efficiency to the point where he can often get it done in half the time or less... especially for jobs that he's done a bunch of and is extremely familiar with. It wasn't uncommon for him to turn 13 or 14 hours of book time in an 8 hour day.

The downside to that system is that some jobs can't be done faster, or even take longer (especially up north where everything is rusted), so if you get stuck with one of those you're doing 9-10 hours of work and getting paid for 8.

quote:

Originally posted by konata88:...
Sigmonkey: I really appreciate your post and your kind words....
Perhaps, soon, when a patch of boredom in retirement hits, I'll just give it a devil-may-care attempt. I may fill your inbox then.

Anytime.

I had a union job one summer that involved cleaning heavy iron press plates. It was a two man job and took some skill to work with a partner. The union rated it as taking 2 and one half hours to complete. After about a week you could complete it in one half hour.

It also is nice when you are doing a new to you type of task, and where you have someone you can call or have them stop over and look at the problem/issue you are having.

My Brother is a Civil Engineer. His specialty areas of expertise are buildings, structural steel, reinforced concrete.
My Girlfriend is a Civil Engineer. Her specialty areas of expertise are road building, bridge building, and drainage.

Doing new to me tasks at the recreational property/cabin since retirement, I have made multiple phone calls to both of them.

It sure was an improvement at the recreational property when we got the fiber optic broadband internet installed, along with the indoors cell tower. (LTE 4G network extender, supplied by Verizon)

I'm a handy guy with DIY, but I am certainly NO Civil Engineer.

SPEED DIAL!

quote:

Originally posted by Black92LX:

This is what really rubs me the wrong way on this one. I’d say Lexus shop rate is $175-$200 an hour. This is in no way possible a 4+ hour job.
2 hours at most.

Well, there's how long it takes to do, and what the book/shop time is for it.
A Honda V6 timing belt was something like a 4-5hr time by book time, but a good tech could get it done in around 2.

Not that it's still not ridiculous at times.