HOW MUCH SHOULD YOU CHARGE FOR SIDE WORK??

hey how's it going everyone Justin again as always thanks for watching my channel welcome back today we're gonna be talking about what should you charge as a mobile mechanic or somebody just simply trying to get their side hustle on doing some weekend warrior projects etc even if you work at a busy shop or you just do it on the side for fun how much and who do you charge what tune we're going to talk about that today in the video this video comes from a fellow subscriber by the name of Kelby cool his question during one of my videos was hey bro I'm a diesel mechanic for semis and I was wondering if you would do a video on mechanics that do work on the side and how much to charge and how to avoid bad mechanics so you don't have to spend a bunch of extra money I think it'd be a great video because I'm asked all the time and I'm told that I'm over priced most of the time and other days I'm way too cheap thanks again for the grant videos I love the cheers to those of you that have your beers I always cheers to you get some beer sleeves made up for that awesome well thanks for the question Kelvin so yeah this is going to be kind of by person to person really and how long have you been doing it for who is it who is it exactly that you're gonna be doing the work for is it a friend family member grandma is it an acquaintance is somebody that knows you from another person and they just happen to get word that you do it or are you passing out business cards and on Craigslist and somebody just called you up out of the blue to see if you would diagnose or work on their car do a repair for them so again very very by basis kind of situation here for me when it comes to certain family members I would say most family members I don't charge I'll just go out see if I can't help them out do what it is that I do and if anything they're like no no I want to pay or no no I got to give you something I'm like look you just give me whatever you think the work was worth and we'll just call it good I'm not going to give you a number I'm not gonna I had no plan of charging you to begin with and if nothing else and you can't afford much hey man maybe a 12-pack of beer a pack of cigarettes I don't know couple energy drinks pack of cigarettes depending on like what time of day it is and then I usually just kind of go from there and they're happy with that other times now this is this is one thing that I will have the family members pay for is the parts because I don't always have money to help every single one out there are certain fill numbers that I know that can't afford it but they just trying to get their call on the road and if I can afford to I'll usually just pay for the part especially if it's like mom or grandma or whatever you know what I'm saying so that would be a huge thing that you can decide to do for them if you can afford to as might just take care of mommy you know what I mean get her back on the road so she can go back to making her money when it comes to friends look it really depends because if I answered every single you know diagnostic slash heavy line slash small repair job that every friend ever asked me to do I would never be at work because I get calls all the time or messages from Facebook saying hey bruh I need your help can you do this can you help me with that how much did you charge you for this and I'm like Jesus man sometimes I just want to break and when their cars are so freaking terrible that it seems like it's an every week thing I would be busy non-stop I don't want to be that busy so you have to decide how busy you want to be to for instance I had a friend who asked me you know hey how much to do like a transmission stab this guy asked me questions all the time I was like look out man I don't know five hundred bucks you know I mean five hundred bucks you bring me the car you pay for the transmission I'll stab it in have you back up and running if it works it works because if you're going to buy a junkyard one which I think his intention was if you buy a junkyard one I'm going to recommend that you change the fluid and filter and you get some kind of trans cooler line cleaning kit you're gonna have to pay for all that stuff and if you got a crappy transmission from the junkyard doesn't work and you're still slipping gears there's nothing I can do for you I'm not gonna warranty it out because you decide to buy it from the wrecking yard he's like alright cool so enough said other times I've gotten calls where it's like hey can you help me out with this thing and it just seems like it might be more trouble than it's actually worth and I'm busy and I got stuff to do it I really don't want to do it and it's just like some kind of an acquaintance sometimes I'll charge or all attempt to charge so freakin much that I don't want to do the work that maybe they just won't want me to do it either help me now go past dealership prices I'll be like yeah man look I've said I'm so busy if you want me to actually do it and take time out of my schedule it's 150 bucks an hour you're looking at at least four or five hours oh man that's a lot yeah I know because that's how very little that I act or that's how that's how much I actually want to do it or how very little I want to do it that's why I'm putting the price on there because if it's gonna be an extreme inconvenience for me I'm telling you this is the price of my inconvenience because I don't want to do it so there's that other times it might be an acquaintance or somebody that I actually see quite regularly whether it's at a store or at work you know before it used to be like when I was at the gym if somebody wants me to check something out real quick take a look at something tell them what I think like hey I got some fluid leaking can you take a quick peek or hey my check engine lights on what do you think it could be I know I could go to autozone and get the code pulled but if you could take a look at it you didn't mind checking it out that would be super awesome but I'm like hey if I can do a video on it and you don't mind me being around your car and doing stuff and checking it out for right now since I am trying to get more to diagnosis I've got no problems doing that so often times I might even throw like some free work in there and just go check it out if you're really adamant about doing side work now when I was being doing the mobile mechanic thing I like half of however much it would cost at an independent shop or a dealership because I wanted the business that was when I wanted the business so I might only charge like $50 an hour and then I would get a labor guide book like a chitin Chilton labor guide book and I'd look up the labor like all right book calls for like four hours 50 bucks an hour you're looking at 200 bucks plus parts so you paid for parts fluids this that in the other and I'll bang it out for like 200 bucks oftentimes if it was a brake job since I know how much not just lube and tire shops charge independent shops charge and dealerships charge usually basically to do the front or the rear of any car you're probably looking at around four or five hundred bucks to get the work done I'll usually charge 75 bucks an axle bam-bam-bam get it done they pay for parts 150 bucks in pocket so when you want the work there are certain things that you can do that you know that you can fly through so if it's like a transmission fluid and filter and you look at the dealership prices and it's like 330 and you go to independent shop and it's somewhere around 200 ish based on the fluid cuz some fluids are different like on the Volkswagen I got to get special fluid by a pin star and it's like ATF plus one so it's a very special fluid to get it's very expensive so you know it depends on that pricing but once they pay for the fluid and the filter and everything else you know it might only charge them like you know fifty to a hundred bucks to actually do the service and then might save you know 100 bucks or 200 bucks so there's that so you can actually charge depending on what it is that they're doing it you know oil changes I always tell everyone I'm not doing all change okay you owe me does it all change that bad it's gonna be 50 bucks I tell you that because you can go to Walmart which I don't recommend and I'll show you guys why in another video it's 20 bucks for the oil change I can't beat that you can go to the auto parts store buy a complete kit oil filter everything for like 26 to 28 bucks you go to a dealership it's probably gonna be somewhere between 45 and 55 bucks unless it's full synthetic and it's on like a diesel or something like that because you need more quarts of oil you might be somewhere in the ballpark of 70 to 80 bucks so I just typically I don't do oil changes I don't care to do that other things like obviously like AC I don't have my AC cert or license so it's not like I can do AC repairs at home I'd have to have a certified tech that's on spot to be able to do anything like that in which case I save all that stuff for the shop I won't do it the house I might plug on my gauges to take a look at some of the pressure readings on the low and high side and use you know thermometers and you know laser pointers to try to get it infrared reading or some kind of temperature reading on that but or maybe even a sniffer or UV light but I'm not actually going to conduct an entire repair in my front yard because I'm not certified to do so so there are certain things that you have to kind of you got to be smart about it you know I'm saying that's what I'm trying to say trying to beast you got to be smart about it so how do you charge who do you charge when do you charge again this is all depending on you and how bad do you want the side work or how little do you want the side work what kind of vehicles you're working on and at what point what system or what area are you trying to take care of I'll give you another for instance before we go electrical pairs now when I was at the dealership and when I was up in Oregon it was by the hour where's no telling of how long it could take it could take 30 minutes which you always charge at least one hour it could take three to four hours to reduce some wiring or repair wiring or whatever in which case it gets expensive pretty quick so I know some places in people will charge by the hour I usually charge by how many circuits I got to fix so there's just a couple of random little wires that came undone it's friends and family no charge it's an acquaintance or something like that a man I don't know give me a couple energy drinks I'll fix the two wires that are broke if it's just somebody that called me up they need it diagnosed and they need it checked out and I find that it's a wire I might only charge him like you know 25 bucks or something like that to repair the wire and diagnose it because it was like well that was an easy fix took me all of like maybe 15 minutes to pull the code look at the chart find out where the circuit was get a flashlight dig down somewhere deep find the one wire that was chewed on strip it solder it heat shrink it put it back together clearcuts verify repaired the problem and then go from there and if to actually work then great and I don't should be 25 bucks it's all done so that's just how I charged your way might be different again guys I try to avoid side work there are certain times I will take on bigger projects and kill it on the weekend there are other times that I'm only in it for the education or the experience and I might just do it for free because I want to get more involved with diagnosing and troubleshooting that's pretty much my little flow of things I don't go out of my way to look for it but if the work comes to me depending on my mood and what it is that I got going on that's how I charge that's all I got for this video tell me thanks for the question I appreciate thanks always for watching if you guys have a different situation or a different way of charging somebody whether it's friends family etc please put it down in the comments and don't tell me oh you got a charged family because you know they're gonna ask you a lot they're just gonna burn you if you don't they're gonna use you need views you yes certain family members will use an abusive situation other times they just need to get out of jail free card that's all I got this video see you guys next time deuces

Channel: Justin Dow

Views: 8,822

Keywords: Justin Dow, how much should you charge for side work, how much to charge as a mobile mechanic, how to charge family for vehicle repairs, who much to charge for vehicle repairs, how much should you charge for diagnostics, should you charge for diagnostics if your just startin out, HOW MUCH SHOULD YOU CHARGE FOR SIDE WORK??

Id: w1F_QO-PWiU

Length: 11min 23sec (683 seconds)

Published: Sat May 11 2019