Labour costs to change a differential ?

Pete M wrote:

> Yup, you've got the hang of this haven't you?
>
> BMW do charge different - higher - rates in London and the Home
Counties
> though.
>
> Plate glass and coffee must cost more dahn sahff.

I was taking the mick (a) out of dealers who charge as mcuh per hour as
some very good contract lawyers, and (b) Professional Northerners who
reckon you can get a day's honest graft out of someone for a cup of
tie, a pie and a lump of coal.

The plate glass and coffee cost the same. The labour doesn't - but not
to the vast extent that BMW's labour rates imply:

BMW garage, central London: ~=A3150 per hour
BMW garage, Newcastle: ~=A360 per hour

The cost of living is not 2.5 times higher in Newcastle than in London.
And parity earnings weightings are nowhere *near* 2.5 times.

In article >, Lordy says...
> Conor > wrote in
> :
>
> >> Problem is the car has already been towed to my local garage so I'll
> >> have to get a break down in labour costs from them I guess? Otherwise
> >> towing costs may cancel out any savings looking elsewhere.
> >>
> > You need to clarify.
> >
> > By diff do you mean a complete unit or do you mean a crown and pinion
> > set? The first is an hour, the second can be several hours.
>
> I think its the complete unit. The breakdown of work for the 225+vat labour
> (5 hours at 45+vat ph) was to remove the prop shaft, drive shaft , axle
> (presumably CV), sawp out diff, and then put it all back together again.
>
> They seemed to take a while to work out a quote which I assume means they
> dont usually do this kind of thing? Other garages with cheaper quotes
> virtually gave me the quotes before I could finish asking the question.
>
> I guess its one of those jobs that take much longer if you're not used to
> doing it?
>
Not really. Four bolts for the prop, whatever method for driveshaft
removal (several bolts or pull out) and whatever else to unbolt. A
couple of hours tops.


--
Conor

An imperfect plan executed violently is far superior to a perfect plan.
-- George Patton

On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 02:00:15 -0000, "Pete M"
> wrote:

>In ,
>Dori A Schmetterling > decided to enlighten our sheltered
>souls with a rant as follows
>
>>>
>>> If you choose to live down south, you should expect to be ripped off.
>>>
>> And where is the rip-off boundary?
>
>As far as I can make out, somewhere just South of Birmingham. I'd guess at
>Northamptonshire :-)

Watford Gap services.

Conor > wrote in
:

>> They seemed to take a while to work out a quote which I assume means
>> they dont usually do this kind of thing? Other garages with cheaper
>> quotes virtually gave me the quotes before I could finish asking the
>> question.
>>
>> I guess its one of those jobs that take much longer if you're not
>> used to doing it?
>>
> Not really. Four bolts for the prop, whatever method for driveshaft
> removal (several bolts or pull out) and whatever else to unbolt. A
> couple of hours tops.
>

Scary. The difference between the two garage service stations (less than a
mile appart) is

1. Three full size roomy hydralic bays (at least 15 ft ceiling think
KwikFit sized) vs what looked like two hoists at most.
2. Pretty woman to answer the phone vs "Yeah mate?"
3. Room for 10 cars parked on premises vs cars parked on the street.
4. Roomy reception with plants vs standing in a little room less than 10ft
sq.
5. 225+vat for a diff swap vs 80+vat

Surprisingly the first garage doesnt provide complimentary Vaseline.

Lordy

In article . com>,
Andrew Thomas > wrote:
> BMW garage, central London: ~£150 per hour

Crikey - mine is 112 a hour, although not actually central London. But i
was unaware of any BMW workshops in Central London as such - just
showrooms.

--
*I see you've set aside this special time to humiliate yourself in public

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 11:59:31 -0000, "Dori A Schmetterling"
> wrote:

>> I have a nasty feeling that I know where this is going...

>Tell us.

(sorry about the formatting...)

Michael Palin: Ahh.. Very passable, this, very passable.
Graham Chapman: Nothing like a good glass of Chateau de Chassilier
wine,
ay Gessiah?
Terry Gilliam: You're right there Obediah.
Eric Idle: Who'd a thought thirty years ago we'd all be sittin'
here drinking Chateau de Chassilier wine?
MP: Aye. In them days, we'd a' been glad to have the price of a cup
o' tea.
GC: A cup ' COLD tea.
EI: Without milk or sugar.
TG: OR tea!
MP: In a filthy, cracked cup.
EI: We never used to have a cup. We used to have to drink out of a
rolled up newspaper.
GC: The best WE could manage was to suck on a piece of damp cloth.
TG: But you know, we were happy in those days, though we were poor.
MP: Aye. BECAUSE we were poor. My old Dad used to say to me, "Money
doesn't buy you happiness."
EI: 'E was right. I was happier then and I had NOTHIN'. We used to
live in this tiiiny old house, with greaaaaat big holes in the
roof.
GC: House? You were lucky to have a HOUSE! We used to live in one
room, all hundred and twenty-six of us, no furniture. Half the
floor was missing; we were all huddled together in one corner for
fear of FALLING!
TG: You were lucky to have a ROOM! *We* used to have to live in a
corridor!
MP: Ohhhh we used to DREAM of livin' in a corridor! Woulda' been a
palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish
tip. We got woken up every morning by having a load of rotting
fish dumped all over us! House!? Hmph.
EI: Well when I say "house" it was only a hole in the ground covered
by a piece of tarpolin, but it was a house to US.
GC: We were evicted from *our* hole in the ground; we had to go and
live in a lake!
TG: You were lucky to have a LAKE! There were a hundred and sixty
of us living in a small shoebox in the middle of the road.
MP: Cardboard box?
TG: Aye.
MP: You were lucky. We lived for three months in a brown paper bag in
a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six o'clock in the
morning, clean the bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work
down
mill for fourteen hours a day week in-week out. When we got home,
out Dad would thrash us to sleep with his belt!
GC: Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at three o'clock
in
the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of hot gravel, go to
work at the mill every day for tuppence a month, come home, and
Dad
would beat us around the head and neck with a broken bottle, if we
were LUCKY!
TG: Well we had it tough. We used to have to get up out of the
shoebox
at twelve o'clock at night, and LICK the road clean with our
tongues.
We had half a handful of freezing cold gravel, worked twenty-four
hours a day at the mill for fourpence every six years, and when we
got home, our Dad would slice us in two with a bread knife.
EI: Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night,
half an hour before I went to bed, (pause for laughter), eat a
lump
of cold poison, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay
mill
owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home,
our Dad would kill us, and dance about on our graves
singing "Hallelujah."
MP: But you try and tell the young people today that... and they won't
believe ya'.
ALL: Nope, nope..
--
Dan Drake

Peter Hill wrote:
> On Tue, 25 Jan 2005 12:27:17 -0500, "Matt O'Toole" >
> wrote:
>
>> Lordy wrote:
>>
>>> Wow! On a BMW 320i one garage quoted 8 300ukp+vat labour to change a
>>> diff. This is the garage I usually phone to get a worst case
>>> scenario type quote!
>>>
>>> My local one is letting me source my own diff (for 150 UKP) and want
>>> approx 225+vat for labour.
>>>
>>> The chaps I'm buying from (Quarry Motors) say they could change a
>>> diff in one hour at a push and are surprised labour is more than 70
>>> quid even allowing for London prices!
>>>
>>> Problem is the car has already been towed to my local garage so I'll
>>> have to get a break down in labour costs from them I guess?
>>> Otherwise towing costs may cancel out any savings looking elsewhere.
>>>
>>> Are these 200+UKP labour costs standard for London or something?
>>
>> I don't know about that, but you can figure on paying for 4-5 hours
>> labor to change a diff.
>>
>> Matt O.
>
> It's RWD so you take the CV's off (6 bolts or push/pull clip fit),
> undo the prop shaft (4 bolts), remove the 4 or 6 bolts that hold diff
> place, drop the diff. Refit in reverse. Less or same time as a RWD
> clutch - I had mine done for £70 labor and they put new oil in the
> diff too.
>
> Lets say it's got 22 bolts on the 3 flanges and holding the diff in.
> 1 min per bolt = 44 min remove and refit. 10 min to swap the diff.
> That leaves 6 min for a fag break.
>
> Labor can be anything from £40/hr to £120/hr.

Much more than £40 and they're taking the **** though...

Carl Gibbs wrote:
> "Matt O'Toole" > wrote in message
> ...
>> Lordy wrote:
>>
>>> Wow! On a BMW 320i one garage quoted 8 300ukp+vat labour to change a
>>> diff. This is the garage I usually phone to get a worst case
>>> scenario type quote!
>>>
>>> My local one is letting me source my own diff (for 150 UKP) and want
>>> approx 225+vat for labour.
>>>
>>> The chaps I'm buying from (Quarry Motors) say they could change a
>>> diff in one hour at a push and are surprised labour is more than 70
>>> quid even allowing for London prices!
>>>
>>> Problem is the car has already been towed to my local garage so I'll
>>> have to get a break down in labour costs from them I guess?
>>> Otherwise towing costs may cancel out any savings looking elsewhere.
>>>
>>> Are these 200+UKP labour costs standard for London or something?
>>
>> I don't know about that, but you can figure on paying for 4-5 hours
>> labor to change a diff.
>
> You can? How did you work that out then?

"The Book"...

Matt O.

Andrew Thomas wrote:

> The cost of living is not 2.5 times higher in Newcastle than in
> London.

Perhaps not, but rent for the shop might be.

Around here you can rent (or buy) a repair shop for a just few hundred dollars a
month that might cost $10-20k a month to rent in California.

Occasionally we hear about cars just five years old being scrapped in Japan.
This is partly because auto repair businesses are simply not viable in many
areas.

Matt O.

"Matt O'Toole" > wrote in
:

> Around here you can rent (or buy) a repair shop for a just few hundred
> dollars a month that might cost $10-20k a month to rent in California.

Yup thats partly what I suspected with the differences bet my two repair
shops. Although less than a mile apart the obviously have different running
costs, different sizes, but oddly a similar amount of mechanics. One also
has a pretty voice on the phone and a waiting room (complete with plants).

Still "how much to change a rear diff on a 320i coupe" has now become my
little test. Any garage that wants 3hrs or more labour at the "going
rates" is off the list unless there is serious justification for the
expense. (ie Mechanics are competant Female Bikini Babes and your are
invited to watch in your own private cubicle with complimentary beers etc
as they get a bit grimy with axle grease .. etc ..)
--
Lordy