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Found out a brake job on a 2018 F-150 pays the same as one on a 2005 Corolla, and I can't stop thinking about it
I was flipping through a labor guide at the shop last Tuesday when I noticed something that bugged me. A front pad and rotor job on a full size truck calls for about 1.8 hours of book time, and a little commuter car from fifteen years ago comes in around 1.9. So the guy working flat rate gets basically the same money to wrestle a heavy truck with bigger rotors and rusted caliper bolts as he does for a small car that comes apart easy. My old boss in Dayton never mentioned this once in six years, and he ran the books the whole time. It got me thinking about how flat rate charts were set up back when these trucks were lighter and the rotors were smaller. Does anyone here know who actually sets these times, and have you ever seen a shop adjust its own rates for trucks?
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nancy_ross3d ago
Ran into this exact thing at a shop I worked at in Toledo. We had a service writer who would pull the book time and then tack on extra for trucks if he knew the job was gonna fight us, but that was his call and it varied by who was at the desk. Some guys got the bump, some didn't, and it caused a lot of bad blood on the floor. What actually helped was keeping a log of every truck job that ran over, with photos of the rusted bolts and the extra time it ate, then showing the owner a month of it. Once he saw the pattern in black and white he started adding .3 or .4 to the heavier stuff. The labor guide companies won't change anything for one shop, but the guy signing your check can.
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