You cannot avoid auto repair or truck repair no matter how well you maintain your vehicle. You will still need to bring it to your automotive service center for auto inspection, engine repair or car transmission system repair some time. Perhaps you may need to have some of your car parts replaced with AC Delco car parts, or perhaps you will just need auto oil change. Whatever automotive service you will need, your mechanic will either use hourly billing or flat rate billing. Both are acceptable billing methods in Tampa. But what difference does it make?
Hourly billing is self-explanatory. Your automotive mechanic and automotive service center will bill you for the exact number of hours spent working on your vehicle. Flat rate billing, on the other hand, is based on how much time a flat rate book says a certain type of repair takes when done by the average professional mechanic. The flat rate book is an automotive industry standard that is used everywhere and not just in Tampa.
Flat rate billing becomes a problem when some clients believe that they are being scammed when they are billed for a three-hour repair that the mechanic finishes in just two hours. The clients think they should, therefore, be billed only for those two hours. They should take into consideration, though, that the three hour period specified in the flat rate book is the industry standard in doing such type of repair. This means that the average professional skilled mechanic will take three hours to do the job properly. If the particular mechanic was able to finish it in two hours, and the repair was done well, it just means that this mechanic is exceptionally skilled and perhaps has had long experience in such types of repair. The time and study he has invested in preparing himself professionally up to that point accounts for the speed with which he did the task. It is only fair that he be duly rewarded for it.
If clients fear being scammed, that could be possible with hourly billing, as well. Without the benefit of a flat rate book, clients will not have any idea on how much time it should really take to do a certain type of repair. For all you know, the automotive mechanic could spend four hours on a task that should take only an hour. Even if you do have a flat rate book at hand, the automotive mechanic who is being paid by the hour will not have any incentive to do the job faster even if he has the capability to do so. It will be to his best interest to extend the task to the maximum time possible.
With flat rate billing, therefore, both the client and the automotive mechanic are at an advantage. The mechanic can work at his real pace and if he finishes earlier than expected then the client can drive off much earlier, too. The mechanic can then take on other jobs and the client has lost less downtime.
There are times when the mechanic can even be at a disadvantage with the flat rate billing system. With very new car systems, sometimes the manufacturers estimate of how long a certain repair should take is quite tight considering the fact that mechanics have not had enough time yet to master its innovations. It would not be farfetched under such scenarios for mechanics to take even more time than specified in the book. This means they are on the losing end of the deal.
So if your automotive mechanic in Tampa uses flat rate billing, do not blame him for it. You are not being shortchanged for as long as you are getting the highest quality of auto repair or truck repair.