[Booyah5082]

Hey guys, newbie here and I got a question for all of you. I need some help figuring out a bill for some work I did for a guy on his 660 rhino. I work at a small 2 man garage(me and my dad) and grew up wrenching on anything with wheels and a motor. Earlier this month one of our neighbors by the shop came over and asked if I'd work on his rhino. His kids ride it around his lot and every year he takes it to the sand dunes in michigan. Anyways this thing smoked like a mosquito fogger and one day it just wouldn't start up and run for him. So anyways, did a leakdown found the problem to be with the piston rings and the bore due to what I assume to be sand getting past the air filter. So I put an overbore kit and a gasket kit on it and installed a UNI air filter and this billet intake adaptor so sand won't get in anymore. Than I did some general maintenance and wound up having a little over 300 bucks worth of parts in this thing. My question is how much time would you guys say I should charge the guy? It was one of them deals where he wasn't concerned about it and when I had some spare time and the desire to work on it I would work on the thing. Problem is I didn't really keep track of the time I had in it and when I did work on it, I wasn't working on it real hard. So I was hoping some of you guys would know what the going rate for this kind of work at a dealer is and than I can use that to help me charge this guy. I'm not going to charge him an arm and a leg for it like a dealer but I'm not going to do it for free either. If you guys could give me your opinions/suggestions on this I'd appreciate it.
Thanks

 

[trunknuts]

I think it's going to be tuff for anyone to give you advise on this. Only you really know how much time went into this thing. If you want to know how much the dealer would charge, I would suggest calling a Yamaha dealer tell them what kind of work you'd like done and ask them for a "ballpark" figure. Just my .02.

 

[Joe Llamahead]

Been there done that Booyah5082, I had a small auto repair shop in a small town so I worked on just about anything....... even stuff without wheels. I usually referenced flat rate manuals, I'm pretty sure they have them for bikes . for Everyhing else I would be as fair as I could, Omitting the time it took for me to learn /study schematics drawings ect. It's a tough call sometimes.

 

[mcdave71]

My normal rule of thumb is if you're just messing around on the side just charge around $20 to $30 per hour of work. If he's too unhappy with it then you wont have to worry about working on anything of his again..

 

[willykiller]

If you think you did a professional job, then charge what you think is fair..................

 

[dbestduner]

I work alot of bikes outta the garage also. But when my stuff leaves its runs tip top, alot of repeat customers. I don't have a fixed rare hourly, I go more by the job....hard to do sometimes

 

[Booyah5082]

Thanks Guys

I pretty much just charged him 20 bucks an hour and than had about 10 hours of total labor in it and than added all the parts which was 300. The local Yamaha shop wanted 400 bucks for just labor with parts being an additional 250 for just an engine overhaul so I felt I gave him a fair number. Nothing leaves this shop without running absolutely perfect so I'd say it's a professional job. He seemed pretty happy with it when he got it back and his kids rode it dawn til dusk the first week so I would say they were happy too. He's since paid the bill and stops once a week just to chat. We also work on this guys trucks and we've done a few of them since so I'd say he was happy with it. Anyways, thanks again for your input. I just do the work at the shop and let someone else take care of the billing and dealing with customers so I was clueless before this.

 

[erniejoe1]

Booyah5082

Your an honest man! I charge 30. + parts and materials and thats still a heck of a savings rather then taking it to the dealer.

 

[Booyah5082]

Thanks man, in the few short years that I've been doing this I've found out that you'll get more return customers by being honest and upfront with them. I don't know, maybe when I get so many customers that I can't keep up than I'll raise the price but I felt pretty good about that. Dad and I sold out of the old shop in august of last year and started a new one on the other end of town. He is satisfied with the current amount of business we do but I would always like to have more. and around here your best advertising is by word of mouth through your satisfied customers. My thought is that the happier they are, the more they're going to talk about you.