Thread: We Have Skills Too !!

Originally Posted by 32t

There is a good chance it would have broke at the shop also. They would have ordered the part not walked over to get a new one. Doubled the price of the part and added a minimum of another hour labor.

Add that to the origional problem and I can see saving $200 easily doing it yourself. Add another 25% or whatever your tax bracket is and that is what you would have to earn to pay for this doing another job.

How long did it take you Roy? I bet this was a pretty good hourly wage equivalent doing it yourself.

Yes Tim, I also believe that the valve would have broken in anyone's shop. As I said it was ancient (probably original equipment/which would make it 30 years old with about 200,000 miles on the rig).

How long did it take me? hmmm not counting the walking time, the time BS'ing with the parts guy and a friend I ran into I would estimate that I had maybe a half an hour to three quarters of an hour to R&R the tank, R&R the valve, install new hose (I wasn't going to dick around trying to get the broken piece out of the old hose). And that includes using the head and quenching my thirst with a barley pop.

Now back to the shop breaking the part. I for one would be fully understanding as I've had similar things happen, however so many who have never even changed their own oil would be pitching a fit and demanding that the shop pay for the part and the labor.

For easy figuring I will round up your estimate to 1 hour of time and will lower my estimated cost savings to $100.

To earn that $100 you would have to pay income taxes and sales tax on the parts and labor that you purchased. That would easily add another 25% or $25 to your cost.

Using these numbers I think that you earned at least $125 an hour for your project!

As I said it was satisfying to get the job done and and done right also to have the rig back up and running and I did it myself--well with the help of the people who manufactured the part, the parts store guy and everyone in between!

I spend a fortune on my fleet of vans I have, my employees do not take care of the vans at all.

Originally Posted by Dlb1963

I spend a fortune on my fleet of vans I have, my employees do not take care of the vans at all.

Come out of Retirement and have more hands on with the management of the 'fleet'. Nothing like the 'Head Guy' being present when you check out a rig!

My son is supposed to take care of it, I am gone for another ten days, the inmates will run the asylum.

Originally Posted by Dlb1963

My son is supposed to take care of it, I am gone for another ten days, the inmates will run the asylum.

While the Cats Away, The Mice Will Play!

I would be pulling my hair out if I had any !

I'll go more off topic here since it doesn't have shite to do with what skills we have.

Back when I was working in the auto-body trade there was a gentleman who operated a small fleet of trucks that were used for hauling peas, wheat etc. His trucks were Internationals and were painted black and he decided to have them repainted in a golden yellow for the fiberglass tilting nose and a white for the cab.

The shop foreman presented a bid of only 8 hours to prep the trucks and repaint them and guess who got the job to do this on 20 trucks??? YUP! ME!

The foreman wanted me to just steam clean the outside then just spray the new paint---no actual degreasing, no sanding--Nothing!

I couldn't do it! I take pride in my work! After a couple of trucks I'd figured out how I could do an entire truck in 8 hours but it took two days--Prep one and spray part of one then the next day finish one and prep one and spray part of one on and on and on.

Anyway one day the owner came in to see how the work was going and he was very pleased with how his trucks were looking. He and I were talking and he told me something interesting---------

He preferred to hire Girls rather than Boys to drive his trucks. I asked him why and he said it was because the guys wanted to 'Hot Rod' the trucks and the girls just wanted to drive them.

I certainly believe you about hot rodding, my best two employees are Tony, who is 70 and Dennis who is 63 going through dialysis every evening when he gets off work. I do not hire anyone in their 20s as a technician after the accidents, the no shows , living in the vehicles. I have a few gulf vets that a very good employees.