JLarson
Senior Member
We're 500 minimum plus seals on small cylinders, 4"x48" and under, for shop rebuilds right now. Clean, teardown, rebuild, paint, cap and wrap or pallet depending on the cylinder and how we're sending it back.
Not sure how they charged it, it wasn't an exact price but told it would be right around there and that was enough for me to say nope. I called two different shops and both said the exact same $1000.
Some jobs I price a certain way because I know others do and I almost feel guilty invoicing because of how much money i'm making so I do get it. If they want to charge that they can by all means, they just won't get my money because i'll do it myself.
No offense but your home shop also doesn't have the EPA or canadian equivalent up your butt about oil messes. It's a huge deal at dealers and rebuilding cylinders always makes a mess so there's some of it. Also I haven't done a ton of rebuilds but several were beyond repair but know one knew until too late or something else went wrong and now the shop has to eat the cylinder.
No offense but your home shop also doesn't have the EPA or canadian equivalent up your butt about oil messes. It's a huge deal at dealers and rebuilding cylinders always makes a mess so there's some of it. Also I haven't done a ton of rebuilds but several were beyond repair but know one knew until too late or something else went wrong and now the shop has to eat the cylinder.
For sure, there is far more expenses in running a shop. I would expect a hydraulic shop would charge like $150/hr for repairs, but they were quoting like $400 which is insane. I didn't ask, but if they took it apart and determined it was junk, I would expect to pay something for disassembly if I didn't buy a new one from them. They were quoting the $1000 based on everything being good and just replacing seals, anything more would be extra. When I got a new hydraulic cylinder for my dump truck they opened up the old one to see if it was worth fixing, and didn't charge because I bought a new one from them.
That could be it, they figure every cylinder is super critical and don't consider that for a hobby machine it doesn't have to be 100% to factory standards. I didn't really need the cylinders painted and figured they probably charged $100 just for painting. I also don't think they necessarily needed to be honed. They were just weeping at the gland nut seals.My experience with hydraulic shops are: they do quality work (Most times) they want the cylinder to be up to OEM specs when it leaves their shop.
BUT, most hydraulic cylinders are not critical. Failure or leakage can be tolerated. For hobby machines like mine, cost is more significant than failure or downtime. A slightly bent or dinged rod or leak down on a stabilizer cylinder is nothing. I don't need the cylinder to be honed. It's not aerospace performance. I can stop anytime and get a cool drink to ponder my situation.
Maybe they didn't want the job? I remember deere alloted something like 2 to 4 hours to rebuild a cylinder depending on size, you said they were off of a CTL so with $150? seal kits each, yeah I see it. But that being said CTL cylinders should really only take an hour each.
Coming from the other side, your customer who you let go out with a dinged rod and it starts leaking, will always conveniently forget that he told you not to worry about the ding when it was apart in your shop. So you do them all the same, 100% or not at all.
Yeah, I'm done working by noon. I was in their shop yesterday until 2:30...............it was like sitting inside an oven.Ready for Tuesday? Supposed to be 83 degrees here and look at that- 106 out in oklahoma.
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