Our blog this week is about labor rates and how they can be misleading to say the least. When people call around to auto repair shops they sometimes want to know what a shops t labor rate is because this is the only way they know how to differ between shops instead of warranty or quality of the work and parts.  A labor rate is defined by a set time to do a job in a manual that’s set up by a facility that takes cars apart and sets a time that a good mechanic can perform a certain job. They can differ a lot between the companies that set the times up and what it really takes. Sometimes they are way too low and sometimes too high. A good honest shop will take that into consideration and adjust accordingly most of the time, but there are some out there that have a progressive labor rate. These misleading rates are say $100/hr when somebody calls and asks and it can go up from there for each additional hour so say 1 hr is $100/hr and hour 2 is $105/hr and hour 3 is $110 per hour but they only tell people it’s $100/hr  when they call and ask. I know this is done at dealerships my friends have worked at. Some shops will say $50/hr and charge 4 hours for 2.5 hour job also which is still misleading. So in the end make sure you trust the shop and they have a good warranty on parts and labor. At Carnage Off Road we have an available  lifetime warranty on parts and labor depending on the job and our labor rate is competitive with all other shops with no funny business going on about it.