That’s a crazy price. I’ve literally stopped on the way to Disney bought a kit at Auto Zone and repaired a small crack while the family ate takeout.

Those kits work great and done even reasonably correctly stop most chips/cracks cold.

Fuck that guy and 115 bucks. That’s criminal. I don’t care if you own a business or not that is ludicrous and I would never take my business there.

There's a small auto glass business around here, I think it's a one-man business. He's mobile, I don't think he has a store-front. Many of the independent auto service and body shops in the area use him.

I was standing in line to get me car registration renewed and I realized that he was standing right behind me. I said, "Hey, I'be been meaning to contact you; I have a small problem."

He told me to wait for him in the parking lot while he finished his business with Patty and Selma, he met me outside, took care of the problem, and said "No charge, have a nice day," and drove off.

I called Safelite about repairing a chip in my windshield years ago. It was $95 then I think. When I complained about the price they said if the chip got bigger they would give me credit towards the replacement windshield if that's any consolation.

I picked up a chip in the windshield on my way back from Fl last month. A quick call to my insurance company led to an appointment with Safelite. They just came by the house and repaired the chip at no cost to me. I've had them fix several chips and replace 3-4 windshields over the past 20+ years and always had great service.

quote:

They wanted $115 to fix a small chip. I walked out and across the parking lot to the local auto parts store and bought a kit for $15.99.

So, what would you consider to be a fair price for a business, with overhead, insurance, labor, materials, to charge to perform the service.

40 bucks.

All that blathering about overhead is just that. At 40 bucks and a 5 minute job you can still make a profit. Drive up to business, say I have a crack, hand over 40 dollars, guy puts glue/suction cup thing on, walks back into shop, drinks cup of coffee, goes out and removes it. Done. If you really think that is worth 115 dollars then don’t be surprised when you go out of business.

quote:

Originally posted by pedropcola:
40 bucks.

All that blathering about overhead is just that. At 40 bucks and a 5 minute job you can still make a profit. Drive up to business, say I have a crack, hand over 40 dollars, guy puts glue/suction cup thing on, walks back into shop, drinks cup of coffee, goes out and removes it. Done. If you really think that is worth 115 dollars then don’t be surprised when you go out of business.

Well, let's see. The technician has to drive 20 or 30 miles to get there, and he's union so he's being paid to drive. The van he's got has lots of specialized tools that cost a ton, he's going to be there for 45 minutes or so, then he has to drive another half hour to the next job.

I'd say it's worth $115.00.

That's less than I charged for an hour in my business and I had a very successful business right up to when I retired.

Ok you are adding up stuff. If you literally read what I wrote I said, “drive up to business”. I don’t expect you to come to my house for 40 bucks.

You clearly weren’t in the windshield business. The specialized tools to fix a crack are some form of two part epoxy, tape, and a suction cup. Wow. The kit costs next to nothing to do it yourself. I just checked Amazon. Rain X kit $11.48. Tell me again how 115 is about right. Oh fucking brother.

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:

quote:

They wanted $115 to fix a small chip. I walked out and across the parking lot to the local auto parts store and bought a kit for $15.99.

So, what would you consider to be a fair price for a business, with overhead, insurance, labor, materials, to charge to perform the service.

$40.

quote:

Originally posted by Flash-LB:

quote:

Originally posted by pedropcola:
40 bucks.

All that blathering about overhead is just that. At 40 bucks and a 5 minute job you can still make a profit. Drive up to business, say I have a crack, hand over 40 dollars, guy puts glue/suction cup thing on, walks back into shop, drinks cup of coffee, goes out and removes it. Done. If you really think that is worth 115 dollars then don’t be surprised when you go out of business.

Well, let's see. The technician has to drive 20 or 30 miles to get there, and he's union so he's being paid to drive. The van he's got has lots of specialized tools that cost a ton, he's going to be there for 45 minutes or so, then he has to drive another half hour to the next job.

I'd say it's worth $115.00.

That's less than I charged for an hour in my business and I had a very successful business right up to when I retired.

Sorry but I don't buy your story. My mechanic charges less than $115 an hour. The effective rate, for what they charged, was $400 an hour for something a high school kid could do.

It's also drive up work not some boutique come to your home or work type of service. Put another way, it's McDonald's not a 4 Star Michellin restaurant.

Not to mention according to his logic, I have to pay for his employee to drive to his next job. "then he has to drive another half hour to the next job" WTF?

I guess you really don't want to mess with the glass repairman union either. lol Right up there with Hoffa.

what timing... this morning I noticed a very small crack (not really a chip) in my windshield. A highly recommended mobile glass company will stop by sometime this week to see if the windshield needs to be replaced or if it can be repaired.

My insurance friends recommended I go with zero deductible on glass. It really didn't add much to the premium.

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:

quote:

They wanted $115 to fix a small chip. I walked out and across the parking lot to the local auto parts store and bought a kit for $15.99.

So, what would you consider to be a fair price for a business, with overhead, insurance, labor, materials, to charge to perform the service.

With his logic, the guy should just do it for free.

quote:

Originally posted by BB61:
It's also drive up work not some boutique come to your home or work type of service. Put another way, it's McDonald's not a 4 Star Michellin restaurant.

Around here, they tell you up front that they're charging $50.00 just to drive to your house, and then more for doing the job. This includes pool repair guys, roofing guys, windshield guys, HVAC guys and every other type of tech that comes to your house.

I guess they drive to the house for free where you live.

Fence installation/repair service company I called locally..$400 minimum.

quote:

Originally posted by Flash-LB:

quote:

Originally posted by BB61:
It's also drive up work not some boutique come to your home or work type of service. Put another way, it's McDonald's not a 4 Star Michellin restaurant.

Around here, they tell you up front that they're charging $50.00 just to drive to your house, and then more for doing the job. This includes pool repair guys, roofing guys, windshield guys, HVAC guys and every other type of tech that comes to your house.

I guess they drive to the house for free where you live.

^^^^
Go read my posts again. I drove to their shop. They didn't drive to mine. So you agree, an immediate $50 off the $115 charge now because it wasn't a home fix?

quote:

Originally posted by BB61:

Go read my posts again. I drove to their shop. They didn't drive to mine. So you agree, an immediate $50 off the $115 charge now because it wasn't a home fix?

No. Here it would be $50 + $115 for a home job, so for you it would $165.00 minus $50 = $115.00

Local guy stopped when he was in the area. I asked cost - he said sometimes things don't go well and all he can do is stabilize the glass to defer a crack. If that happens it's $25. If he's happy with the fix it's $45. (I couldn't tell if he was joking or serious.) He must have been happy, was $45.

I was surprised by the number of steps he took. He was here just short of 30 minutes. Actually surprised it wasn't more expensive.

I'm surprised nobody has brought this up yet. Why not launch your own venture?

There's apparently a ton of money to be made for a relatively easy job. Start a company, do the work for $40, and put the $115 guy out of business.

I just had some chips on 2 windshields repaired. Guy came out. Price was $45 for first and $15 each additional. He drove about 30 minutes so it was worth it for me not having to drive an hour round trip and then sit there and wait. While he was working, I got some work done at home.

Not sure what kits he used or the cost, that wasn't my concern. My concern was the work was done properly at a reasonable cost.