I called this company yesterday and spoke with John. I informed him that I have a work truck in our las vegas office that needs quarterly maintenance. We discussed rates and what work needed to be done to the truck. An oil change and a tire rotation. that's it. He agreed to give me a little break on the hourly rate which was much appreciated and the company has many excellent reviews so I decided to go ahead and give them a try. I told him what kind of truck we had before hand figuring that would be useful information for the tech to have.
So today the tech shows up, on time and then says he has to look at the truck first and then he needed to leave to go get the supplies he needed and would return, which he did. The tech had to go get the oil and filter because he didn't have them with him. This is after we already discussed what truck we have, year, make and model. So then the tech does the tire rotation and oil change, no problems there.
We then get down to making the payment. I call John on his phone as he is making the tech stay there until he gets payment. I ask how much and he says "$260.39". That's right. $260 for an oil change and tire rotation. He said there was 2 hours of labor and he was helping us out by not charging a service fee. My manager informed me that the tech actually only worked on the truck for about 30-45 minutes. I was being charged for the time the tech took to go shopping, for materials that he should have already had.
I also would like everyone to note that this employee was in his own truck using his own tools and is probably not even an employee. I own a service company and see a lot of this regularly. The work is most likely being subbed out and the tech has to get a cut and Busted Knuckle has to get a cut and like magic, that's how you get to a $260 oil change. God knows how much it would have cost if i was also charged a service fee.
So yes the work got done, but we we're clearly taken advantage of and my manager let me know the tech clearly didn't want to have to stand there while there was conversation about a $260 oil change. On what planet does anyone think that is ok?
So if you like to have to pay for a service 3 times over so everyone can get a cut, this is your place. Or if you really want to use them you better make sure to ask a lot of questions about the service pricing and make sure you're not paying someone to go shopping for basic stuff like oil. A specialty part or something not commonly stocked or when you don't know what the issue is, I get that. Not charging me labor time to shop for oil after you already agreed to show up to do an oil change and you know the exact model of the vehicle you are going to work on.