Wow! Pricey service truck.

Birken Vogt · Jan 9, 2023

I bid on a govt job a couple years back, we supply and install the equipment which we had in stock but factory 26 week lead time, job needed to be done in 8 weeks or so. 2 other contractors called me and I gave them the price on the equipment that we had in stock, they bid the job their way. One other contractor came out of nowhere did not call me. We bid the job for $36k, second place bid for $35k buying it from us, third place $60k buying it from us hoping to make big money. 4th place bid the job at $25k, they must have gotten some kind of deal on the equipment. None of us could figure out how they did that but they got the job. I suspect some kind of shenanigans with mfr as stated above.

Welder Dave · Jan 10, 2023

Sometimes on gov't. bids they will either throw out exceptionally low bids or even ask the low bidder if they want to re-evalute their bid. My former neighbor was kicked off a big gov't. job and there was a big lawsuit. I did some welding on that job and it took about 3 month's to get paid. Reading the court documents online the gov't. asked him and his partner (needed for bonding) on the job if they wanted to submit a new bid because their bid was a fair amount lower than the next bid. They assured the gov't. they could do the job for their original bid. It got real ugly and there was a major falling out between the 2 partners, hence the big lawsuit. It was 400K+ job that should have been a 500K+ job.

nowing75 · Jan 10, 2023

The sad part is even if you want to spend the money there is nothing available. We are looking at geting another truck and every one i talk to will not have anything until end of year.

emmett518 · Jan 10, 2023

JD955SC said:
I want to say last I heard that service trucks are running almost 300k USD these days equipped with the standard bed, crane, Miller APU for air/hyd/weld.

No wonder why it cost $3000 to have the Deere guy come out to fix my front axle seal.

John C. · Jan 10, 2023

Call outs are about $1,500 minimum these days without doing any repairs.

DMiller · Jan 10, 2023

Fabick Cat is and has been $1000 field service NO Repair time for a year or more. Local Deere dealer has nobody for field service, have a driver go out and haul back regardless where from or at.

John C. · Jan 10, 2023

All the dealers in my area were at $1,000 call out five years ago when I left the Cat dealer. I know wages and fuel have sky rocketed so I'm just guessing at the $1,500 number.

DMiller · Jan 10, 2023

IIRC from the last guy I spoke with, that $1k is the truck, mechanics hours start as clock in on ticket to leave the shop. Fabick is at $170/hr now.

Truck Shop · Jan 10, 2023

Just glad my days are coming to a close. tired of it.

chidog · Jan 11, 2023

With those huge costs to come look, I bet that helps the independent mechanics a bunch.

Mike L · Jan 11, 2023

I’m not having any trouble getting busy down here. Once I got out and met some folks and got a few people to give me a chance things have gotten busy. I hear the same story everywhere. Dealer sucks, is too expensive, and is 3 weeks out.

92U 3406 · Jan 11, 2023

Mike L said:
I’m not having any trouble getting busy down here. Once I got out and met some folks and got a few people to give me a chance things have gotten busy. I hear the same story everywhere. Dealer sucks, is too expensive, and is 3 weeks out.

I'm guessing it must be hard to keep good guys at dealers these days. I know I'm 10x happier wrenching for a small company than I ever was at one of the major dealer chains. I know I was a miserable prick a lot of the time I was at the last dealer lol.

suladas · Jan 11, 2023

$1000 to come out and look? That is insane. I could see like $500 minimum or charge your hourly rate from the time you leave until you're back at the shop. $1000 is a lot just to show up. Overhead on a service truck is less then a shop has.

John C. · Jan 11, 2023

$1,000 is just to drive out and come back at hourly rate. Rate here when I left the dealer was $165 an hour. That's $1,320 per eight hours. Mileage on the trucks are around $3.00 per mile. On top of that you have miscellaneous hardware charge, environment charge and sales taxes if applicable. So $1,500 is probably a good estimate for a minimum.

Truck Shop · Jan 11, 2023

One thing I've never liked about a service truck--it's wrecked and your out of business, waiting for
insurance to settle. Because finding another right away-probably not.

Spud_Monkey · Jan 11, 2023

Hmm $1500 for service calls and no one wants to hire me cause either I'm too old, been out of work too long, deemed me too crazy or no credentials to prove who I am. Sounds like I need to get back into my mobile mechanic/welder days, except commercial fishing vessels and agriculture it's agriculture and whatever else comes up. Slap a service body on and paint it up on my M939A2 and get advertising for around $500, surely could get to wherever the equipment is broke down.
This is middle of nowhere so not much overhead.

emmett518 · Jan 13, 2023

My local Deere dealer was jumping. Lots of inventory. Lots of product going out the door.

$500,000 grader / snowplow.

heymccall · Jan 13, 2023

Pretty sure that my dealers are $165 /hr and $5/mi, just to drive the truck.

It's cheaper for me to lowboy the machine to the dealer, in the rare event that I can't figure it out

From years ago, I remember the mechanic being 1/2 rate plus mileage for driving.

Truck Shop · Jan 13, 2023

heymccall said:
Pretty sure that my dealers are $165 /hr and $5/mi, just to drive the truck.

It's cheaper for me to lowboy the machine to the dealer, in the rare event that I can't figure it out

From years ago, I remember the mechanic being 1/2 rate plus mileage for driving.

If one of ours fails within a 225 mile radius, it's way cheaper for me to fire up the tow truck and drag
it back then call a road service. Average road service just to replace a air brake chamber-$900.

Old Doug · Jan 13, 2023

Truck Shop said:
If one of ours fails within a 225 mile radius, it's way cheaper for me to fire up the tow truck and drag
it back then call a road service. Average road service just to replace a air brake chamber-$900.

If i could get a gig replacing one chamber a week i would be set .

Wow! Pricey service truck.

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