I'm the boss/owner. Now go away and play trains




Let me get this right, You did every thing aside from the 14 head bolts?
Then you let yourself get shafted and now every mechanic is an over charging prick.
Yeah I can see the logic in that



I've never charged that much for a falcon gasket job. so I wouldn't know.

My parts suppliers (the main one at least) give me parts at about %30-40 below RRT.
I sell the parts on at RRT
VRS and Head bolts $220
The last head I sent for repair I got a bill for $500 My machine shop gives me %10 So I charge that on at $550 That $50 covers the cost to drop the head off and pick it up again.
I charge 4.5 hours at $110/hr $495
Nulon long life coolent $40
Motorcraft AFL1 oil filter $11.50
Fuchs Semi syn oil $45
I charge $15 for what I call workshop supplies/consumables
and $8.8 environmental levy.
And %10 of the final bill goes to the government.

with the cost of the VRS and head bolts,
That particular job would have cost about $1385
Government gets $138.50
= $1246.5
Machine shop gets $500
= $746.5
parts cost me $225
= $ 521.50
Mechanic gets $112.5 (Not including Super)
= $409
The workshop supplies/consumables and enviro levy are not profit. $23.8
= $385.2

$385.20 is what is left. At your apparently 'steep' $90/ har that is down to $295 and at the $70 that you probably this you should be paying that is now $205.
If you bring in all your own parts, that drops a further $90 of profit out of the job.

To give you an idea of how pathetic that amount really is.
My building costs me $158 a day in rent. Let alone the rest of my overheads.


Compared to your line of work, We are are under charging the job by about $1000.
How can you sleep at night knowing how much you are ripping people off?


Edited, added in the VRS bolt price due to ravens inability to use his own brain.

Last edited by tickford_6 on Sun Mar 04, 2012 9:15 am, edited 1 time in total.

after all this positive feedback and input I'm pretty keen to give it a go and do my own when it's due . I don't think I'd have too many serious drama's......well done and thanks for the encouragement .Love this place .

Your 2 break downs contradict themselves....... Sorry mate but flashing as many numbers as you can don’t cut it. Something about that head job you would charge $1385 ( the lowest priced job I have heard of) and then you broke it down to a nice little number, but previous to that you flashed another set of numbers up that seemed to have no influence on your $1385 price..........
Do you want more stories about our local mechanics? Friend of my wife spent $4000+ at JVC automotive Katoomba for a fuel management problem that still was not fixed. Mechanic in the lower mountains quoted me $5000 to exchange an auto on an EL with me supplying the trans. Blackheath mechanic is known to change brake disc's without needing it or requested.
The cheapest head job I could find around here was $1850. I investigated it before buying the Ef seeing they have weak heads. Last quote I saw for a shave/acid bath/ pressure test job done by a machine shop was $285 4 years ago, but I am sure I have read on here blokes still getting it for that price.
Lastly if you can read I said it was my boss who charges that . I get $530 a week. I sleep well, thank you for asking. My hands are the ones doing the work for every cent I get so I am kinda tired often though.

See how $1300 is cheapest yet still pricy. This is why we do them for around $900 or lower if the customer wants it done the "cheap and nasty" way. we sleep at night by not ripping off our customers cos were not money hungry Perfectionists.
Tickford_6 what's you're business name? I'm sure someone last year you posted you were a thirdyear. Big effort to go from 3rd year to a qualified mechanic with his own shop in 1 year. 80%sure it was you.

They do add up. it's just the first one doesn't have the price of the VRS or head bolts in it.
That wasn't as many numbers as I could. that was a break down of what goes in and where the money goes. It doesn't get any simpler that then. If you like I'll edit the cost of the VRS and Bolts.
If you can't work that out that's your problem. You asked the question I answered it.

You didn't like what it shows, because you thought you were going to see me making huge profit.
But that's not the case





Not interested, Never was, never will be, As I am not them. I couldn't care less what your local mechanics do or charge.




Lastly If there is so much money in your work, why aren't you asking your boss for a pay rise. Why aren't you looking at starting your own business.


In the end you are not a mechanic, you do not know what it costs run a workshop and you never will.
You do not have the knowledge to have this conversion and have any meaning full input.

It isn't pricy or cheap, It just what it cost that time.
Funny thing is mate if all i had done on that was shave the head My profit wouldn't have changed.
So I fail to see how it's money hungry.


You'd be wrong. I made a thread about it in 2010 when I bought my workshop.
I'd like to know how I some how went from someone with 10 years in the trade owning his own shop in 2010 to a 3rd year in 2011. Oh well I'm back to being the owner again, so I guess it all worked in the end for me.
But I really don't need to prove anything to a barely out of his time s**t kicker like you.

Last edited by tickford_6 on Sun Mar 04, 2012 9:55 am, edited 1 time in total.

Funny, were's you buddy backing your attack on Pakrat now?
You Did say that I had had a few bad experiences with local mechanics because I hunt for cheap prices, so you did invite me to prove my point.
You charge $110/h for 4.5 hours, but your only paying the mechanic $112 and your profit is $385.20 ( for a job you have supplied the site for it to be done)....... I am not as gifted in maths as you are but I am sure $110/h for 4.5 hours is a total of $495, but your getting $497.70 from your $1385 job. Might be a slight difference but when you have given as many numbers as you have, slight differences can add up. No comment on $500 being over priced for the machine shop I noticed too.

The way you try to depict you horrible expenses compared to your tiny profit makes it sound like you would be better off on the dole. Its funny that as soon as anyone opens a bussiness, the truth about profits gets confused. To conclude, thats why I do not ask for a pay rise, you bring up pay rises and the boss will tell you he is going backwards, not to mention he is Hillsong and has his debt to the church.

So now you are arguing over a few cents. Would like to come up here and we'll go over this stuff together?
You also have no idea what was done to the head for that $500.
If you can read you'll see that when I typed the labor cost I said 4.5 at $110 is $495.
That's also $5/hr above award wage.





Funny how some one who does not run his own business think he knows what it costs to do so.
What generally happens is before the fool like you opens his own business he thinks there is huge profit in every thing, then after that fact the reality hits home.

Being that I had run another workshop for some els before and my family has been self employed in various other jobs I had a fair idea of what I was getting into.
I'm not sure if you are aware of it, but NO ONE runs a business to only break even.
We do it to make money, and we work damn hard for it.



Seriously mate. The more you talk the more it's obvious you don't know what you are talking about.

I am mistaken, my bad.