Quote or estimate repair jobs

I am looking for advice on how to quote or estimate customer repair jobs. I know on certain repairs you can hard quote, but some troubleshooting jobs just cant be quoted the same way, so do you just estimate a ballpark number? How do you go about quoting? What if it looks as if the troubleshooting may take a while, how do you sell that to the customer?? Is there a industry standard? I am not able to find anything as far as labor repair hours.
thanks in advance for any help!

My tried and true method is to think to myself in my head (lot of room in there, I have such a small mind) how long it should take me to do a job with the tools and equipment I have available. Then I double that for unforeseen issues. Then I bump it one unit of measurement for reality. So, for example changing say a water pump on a small dozer, drain, flush, fill, change belts and hoses just for good measure. If you have everything you need, don't find any surprises or break any bolts, and don't get interrupted, let's say two hours. Then we double it to four hours because nothing ever goes the way it's supposed to. Then because the universe will often show it's sense of humor, we bump that a unit of measurement. So a two hour job will usually take four days.

I don't get a lot of work, LOL

lantraxco said:

My tried and true method is to think to myself in my head (lot of room in there, I have such a small mind) how long it should take me to do a job with the tools and equipment I have available. Then I double that for unforeseen issues. Then I bump it one unit of measurement for reality. So, for example changing say a water pump on a small dozer, drain, flush, fill, change belts and hoses just for good measure. If you have everything you need, don't find any surprises or break any bolts, and don't get interrupted, let's say two hours. Then we double it to four hours because nothing ever goes the way it's supposed to. Then because the universe will often show it's sense of humor, we bump that a unit of measurement. So a two hour job will usually take four days.

I don't get a lot of work, LOL

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You sound like the guy that gave me a quote to repair my loader bucket. It had a list of work to perform but no cost. He told me I will have an estimate of cost right after he completed the work. I think he does not get much work either.

I used to use a machine shop now and then, in the ten or so years of doing business with them, the bill was never less than 10% over the original estimate. Good machinist, poor estimator.

Yair . . .

I have never quoted a price for a repair job, we worked to an estimate based on an hourly rate or not at all.

lantraxco's #2 post is pretty much spot on.

There is no point in taking on the clients problems, bolts breaking on disassembly, previous incorrect assembly and so on are not shop problems and need to be documented and additional costs discussed with the client before proceeding with the job.

I was once accused of "being a parasite feeding off the misfortunes of others" when I gave a very reasonable estimate to machine a new taper and retaining nut thread, make a nut and scrape the new prop of a trawler that had lost his wheel.

With attitude like that we just stuffed the shaft back in and dropped her back into the river. They were faced with quite a tow.

Cheers.

Scrub Puller said:

I have never quoted a price for a repair job, we worked to an estimate based on an hourly rate or not at all.

Cheers.

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Around here many shops will quote a range, ie- between $400 and $500, which is really an estimate in principle. That being said, I will never let someone do work that wants an open ended purchase order and tells me he has no idea of how much until he is done which is what the guy wanted me to do for my bucket repair.

CatToy: A bucket repair is a little easier to quote than something like an engine that doesn't run, or overheats, or even a hydraulic cylinder, you just don't know what's inside.

Lantraxco: your machinist was probably as good an estimator as most, he just wasn't as good as you at "multiplication and addition"

Generally on something like that we will give two estimates ...... One being best case & least expensive . The other is a worst case scenario figure .

Lay it out on the table for the customer & let them make the decision . After that it's all about trust & communication. If the customer tells us to go after it then that's what we do . If it looks like it's going to turn in to a basket case then pick up the phone and call customer ask if they want to proceed with this money pit .

Main thing is keep the customer in the loop on progress & cost . Let them tell you what direction to go with it . After a few jobs like that you now build trust and from then on they only ask " How much do I owe you for the job ? "

Exactly as td stated. I will tell a customer your water pump should take 2 hrs as long as everything goes as it should. Any additional unforeseen issues will be extra. If it's 2.5 hrs I don't bat an eye or call the customer for additional approval. If it gets to double the time well, then I'll call and say look, this is where we are. This is what it's going to take to finish up. How would you like me to proceed?

These are great answers. The guy I am working for thinks that all repairs can be hard quoted. It may be from his trucking background? He is always griping about "we should go with flat rate" I have never seen or heard of flt rate for heavy equipment repairs. Is there a book somewhere? Anyway we get quite a few customers that bring equipment in and it either has come from the auction or they have had there best friend who knows a thing or two about electrical and decides to re engineer the manufacturers design! I definitely like the idea of continued customer contact, but I believe my manager thinks it looks like we don't know what we are doing, sometimes that is true it just depends on how much damage the customer has done. Thanks for the insight, I appreciate this forum!

Yeah jatspic05 , Got a call from a fertilizer dealer that had a truck down with a rear differential shucked . We drag the truck in to the shop thinking we will swap out the hog head real quick ..................

Only problem was could not get the axils out . Slammed on both of them for about an hour and nothing would give . Now we new the ring & pinion had missing teeth from the way the truck was acting .

Only thing we could figure is the splines in the axil & spider gears had twisted not letting the axil come free . Called the plant manager and let him know where we were on the project and it was going to get ugly ............... He quickly replied " Do what ya gotta do and just make it roll again ! "

OK , Fired up the torch and cut the rear housing cover off first , then reached in and cut each axil shaft so we could get it all apart . What was odd to me is that the ring & pinion failed as well as both axil shafts twisting in the spider gear spines . Never seen that happen .

Ended up getting rebuilt hog head & two new axils . Plus got to weld the rear cover housing back on . That was fun .

That job was time & materials , Fertilizer plant manager made the decision for us and we fixed it ...... And sent him a big bill .

Just an example of some crazy jobs a guy can get in to .

Troubleshooting is time and materials only. I don't make hard quotes on any heavy equipment repair for anybody. I used to put down not to exceed. When I started getting close to that mark I called the customer and asked if he wanted it to be able to make money by working or being sold.

we typically quote "worst case" to a customer that demands an estimate before any repairs are done.

usually within 30 minutes or so of test running, pulling fault codes, and experience we've got a pretty good idea what the job will take...

cleaning out months/years of accumulated mud, debris, mulch, salt and crap out of your neglected machine costs more.

rust, corrosion, seized pins, ect ect....

we've had what (was assumed) to be a simple repair turn into $30K, and take weeks to get finished.


:drinkup

Crewchief888 I know exactly what you mean about cleaning out the machine and definitely frozen pins!!!

This probably isn't going to answer your question but this might give you a different perspective. In my opinion what is ultimately fair is to work by the hour, the customer pays for the work completed. On something major is hardly the time to start to trust someone, therefore, find and try a mechanic/tech new to you on something small, develop a relationship- find out the quirks and possible difficulties- then when that major overhaul/breakdown comes you have a known quantity. My guy has a broad background- can do quite a lot- but his phone service is sketchy so I know I might have to call him ever hour to find him but once on the task, I know he will be fair on the rate and hours.

it's hard to qoute repairs.
the only time i'll do it and can do it with convidence is when i'm line boring a "simple" job. bucket ear repairs and such is pretty straight forward.

but for bigger repairs i never qoute a solid price.
i can estemate a price, but as crewchief888 said a normal job can go into a big hard job in switch..
then i usely estemate a wurst case price so we both hope the end-bill will be lower then my estemate:notworthy

i personaly think working on a solid-price repair wouldn't work out well in the end.
there is Always a risk that a job would be harder then thought first and that risk i would calculate in my price.
i also heard people(usely my new clients) who have had a mechanic do a solid-price repair and you can definitly see the mechanic had to cut corners somewhere to make the most profit. That i would never except.
i Always say, the downside off a high bill is less than a poor repair (in dutch its a better saying..)
the bill only hurts a couple off hours, and the quality off the job/fix will last for a life time

just get a good mechanic (self employed or not) that you can trust and go from there.
having a good mechanic is more like a relationship, you got to let him make some fair money and when things get tight he usely give a bit to
(atleast thats how i work)