Tell me I am out of touch...

[Super_Dave]

Originally Posted by LEEVON

Couple of thoughts...700R4 should be a good deal cheaper on the rebuild than a 2004R but both are getting harder to find every day. I have been calling a core buyer for a month to find a 2wd 700R4 with mechanical speedo. They cost me about $1000 rebuilt with upgrades and converter.

If you don't mind humoring me on your original question regarding labor, 10-12 hours is reasonable. It is an estimate and it is typically based on labor guides but must also be padded for "unknowns". As a shop owner it's hard to explain exactly how this works unless you have been in the middle of a busy shop. There are many variables such as how long the bay will be tied-up, from where and when the parts arrive, how much time we have to spend head-scratching or fabricating or on the phone with a supplier. We make our money (and nobody is getting rich) when things are predictable, like CV axles on a minivan. If we are not efficient it effects the bottom line and morale. If we take in something that is custom, non-factory or the customer has already worked on it we take risk. There are plenty of times where I have given the customer the benefit of this relationship and lost. It makes for bad business and it can leave a pit in the owner's stomach. Customers don't throw you a party when give them a gift, and you learn to protect yourself. This applies to any busy shop.

For example, I had a guy who kept bringing me classics that he bought at auction. He said he didn't care what it cost, he wanted me to work on them. It was little stuff and I did it for awhile. The last thing I did however was rebuild the distributor and carb on a '58 Cadillac. I must have spent 15 hours over two weeks sourcing unavailable little parts and pieces and making myself an expert on the Caddy. Could I charge him $1500? No he paid $400 because that's what its "worth". It was the last job I did for him and he understood why. But he has not been able to find anybody to work on that stuff for him, and its sad but it's the way things are today. A quality technician making $30/hour with benefits costs me more like $50-55/hr by the time you factor in payroll taxes, uniforms, health insurance, 401k, and whatever other labor burdens exist. The rest of the money that the customer pays goes to overhead, and if you are really good at what you do and your customers are awesome, and you don't have too many surprises at the end of the day there is a very small % left over to take home.

With that said, a regular transmission shop would probably charge around $600-700...but Art Carr is not a regular transmission shop. When it leaves there it will be done right!

The only thing Art was doing was quoting an AOD transmission. The install quote was from a local specialty shop.

I understand all your points and they are very valid in many instances. I also believe it holds true for a lot of "we do every automatic transmission in existence" type of shop, where no one really specializes in anything... a Walmart transmission type of shop so to speak, where installers can be "easily surprised" by something that a knowledgeable tech in a specialty shop would never begin to consider a surprise.

However, as someone pointed out earlier:

1. A '74 square with a butt load of room underneath,
2. Using a 700r4 that was factory installed in countless squares for many years,
3. Installed by a "specialty shop" that only does this type of install,

...becomes your quintessential bolt-in install. All the hardware is available off the shelf and aftermarket. There is no way a shop of this caliber should need to pad their quote to cover the "unknown" in this situation. The proof in the pudding is the fact that another local specialty shop came in at $1300 less.

So the bottom line is the shop that understood what they were doing got the work and the shop that ran the price up is still looking for a sale. This is a good lesson in how to lose business. I know some shops feel they need to take some of the easier jobs and "pad" the cost in order to compensate for some less profitable work they were doing. I know that insurance companies "spread out the risk" of paying out claims in a natural disaster, by raising everyone's rates to recoup their payouts. I don't work that way, and I am smart enough to find another shop when one tries to do that to me.

I am all about paying what's fair and reasonable. I have been on both sides of the table as a business owner and a customer. Almost exclusively, the customer determines what is fair and reasonable when they vote with their pocketbook. If I were paying a specialty shop to do an LS swap with twin turbos and a NOS setup, then I would bow to the Shop Gods and pay the tab... But a 700r4 into a generation of truck that was factory equipped with the same trans and OEM parts, well, there are no Shop Gods. Cash is King and the customer has the Kings ear baby!

Back in the day, I would R&R a Powerglide to TH400 swap under a '56 Belair by myself without a trans jack in less than 2 hours... and I am here to tell you there were no factory elements to it whatsoever!

Man I hate being old...