Prices
What an Hour Costs Here, and Why the Four Rates Differ
Four departmental rates: $210 for body and paint, $260 for mechanical and electrical, $285 for diagnostics with a one hour minimum, and $95 for detail. Labor is not taxed in California.
Why four rates instead of one
A blended shop rate hides which work is expensive. Splitting it means you can see where the money on your estimate actually goes, and it means we are not charging a detail hour at a structural rate to average things out.
Body and paint is the volume rate and covers panel work, refinish, laminate and structural. Mechanical and electrical is higher because the diagnostic burden is higher and the tooling is more specialised.
Why diagnostics is the highest rate
Diagnostics runs at $285 with a one hour minimum, and it is the highest rate on the card because it is the only line where you are buying an answer rather than a repair.
An intermittent 12 volt fault on a coach with three power sources and two decades of owner additions can absorb hours before anything is replaced. That time is real work and pretending otherwise would mean burying it in a parts price.
It is credited against an authorized repair, so on a job that goes forward the diagnostic effectively costs nothing extra.
What is not billed at these rates
Carrier billed work may be billed at a carrier negotiated rate that differs from the posted retail rate. That is normal across the industry and it does not change your deductible or the scope of the repair.
Materials are separate and calculated on every estimate: $55 per paint hour and $5 per body hour. Those are supplies consumed on your job, not labor.
Questions
Questions on this
Do you bill in quarter hours or whole hours?
Estimates are written against published labor times for the operation where one exists, and against measured time where it does not, which is common on coach work. Diagnostics carries a one hour minimum because the first hour is where the useful information is.
Is the rate different for a large coach than a van?
No. The hourly rate is the same. A larger vehicle takes more hours, which is where the cost difference shows up, and the hour bands on each service page reflect that.
Are your rates negotiable?
The posted rate is the posted rate. What is genuinely negotiable is scope: there are usually choices about how far a repair goes, and we would rather have that conversation honestly than discount the hour and narrow the work quietly.
Turn a band into a number
The band tells you the territory. A priced estimate on your vehicle tells you the number, and it is credited against an authorized repair.