Tune ups at your local shops?

[BostonBull]

What does a tuneup consist of at your local dealers and what is the cost?

We are thinking of doing two different levels of tuneups. Around here everyone offers pretty much the same old thing.


What would everyones perfect tuneup from a dealer be? Meaning what is the total list of things youd want done under a tuneup?

 

[lcso10]

At my shop a tune up consist of a new spark plug and new fuel filter. Clean the air filter, cylinder fins, and starter cover. Sharpen chain and take out links if needed. The two new parts cost about $7.00 or so. The labor for the tune up would be $25.00. Only extra cost would be if the air filter needed to be replaced.

 

[DOLMARatOs]

Tune-up at our shop includes saw sharpening (free for the chain on the saw and regular price on extra chains in the case or ones brought in with the saw), full cleaning of unit, replacement of all filters as needed, fuel line replacement, carburetor rebuild if needed, complete cleaning of the fuel system. Clean exhaust ports, new plug of course. We always clean the bar and check the oiler. When saw is picked up it is full of quality bar oil, has 3/4 tank of 93 octane fuel mix with stabilizer.

This costs $50.00 plus parts in my area. $15.00 deposit/down paymnet is required up front. Saw tune-ups are 3 days or less.

And at this price I see a huge amount of cheapo saws and high quality saws and I do a ton of them.

Hope this helps. P.S. our hourly rate is $50.00. Shop minimum is $15.00.

 

[Uwharrie]

How do customer react to your store charging them to leave a saw to be repaired? In our store we have never did this or even thought about doing so. If I brought my Hummer in for service and the shop wanted me to prepay for service I would feel insulted. That's the reason we don't. I feel that my customer deserves the same treatment that I expect when I need service. Of course your polices are for your store and you have a right to make any rules you see fit. It's your store.

 

[vegaome]

Howdy All,

This may seem like a dumb question but if you call it a tune up would any of the above tune ups include actually running the saw and tuning the carb? I'm good at taking stuff apart, not as good at putting it back together (but I get by) and not very good at adjusting the carb but working on it. I have listened to the Madsens sethi wave file a bout a hundred times, with my eyes closed, holding my breth and I still can't hear what they describe in their writing/text about the operation. I can get the idle and the low but the high eludes my ears. I think i get it close then I back it out another 1/8 because I'm afraid I did not do it right. Takes time I guess. It would be worth $20 bucks to me for someone to set it right. I don't want some dumb @ss to do it I want a pro to set it. I'm no expert but I usually don't let people work on my gear. If they were good and I could watch I would.

v/r

Mike

 

[computeruser]

How do customer react to your store charging them to leave a saw to be repaired? In our store we have never did this or even thought about doing so. If I brought my Hummer in for service and the shop wanted me to prepay for service I would feel insulted. That's the reason we don't. I feel that my customer deserves the same treatment that I expect when I need service. Of course your polices are for your store and you have a right to make any rules you see fit. It's your store.

Well said.

I'd also wonder why they wanted an inexpensive repair pre-paid - are they struggling so badly that they need the cash to buy the parts necessary to fix the saw? If it was a full rebuild on an 088 that required an OEM P/C, I could see asking for a deposit. But for a $50 tune-up and sharpening?

 

[musch]

Big Difference

I'm guessing that with saws costing from $100 and up there are plenty of situations where guys drop off a 10 year old homeowner saw, get the call that it needed $80 worth of work, and six months later, its still sittin there.
I agree it sends a cheap message, but the car analogy is probably not right on the mark.
Of course everyone isn't bringing in Big Brutus :hmm3grin2orange:

 

[DOLMARatOs]

How do customer react to your store charging them to leave a saw to be repaired? In our store we have never did this or even thought about doing so. If I brought my Hummer in for service and the shop wanted me to prepay for service I would feel insulted. That's the reason we don't. I feel that my customer deserves the same treatment that I expect when I need service. Of course your polices are for your store and you have a right to make any rules you see fit. It's your store.

UWHarrie

You make a great point and I can expound upon it. For 12 years we took the saw in and repaired it. But in the midwest and in my shop we have 2 big problems 10% ethanol fuel and we are the only shop in 10 miles that will work on all brands of saws. A by-product of this is that we get a huge influx of cheapo saws. 50% have scored cylinders or loose mains or just need too much work, much more than they are worth. A large portion of these customers aren't going to buy a saw from us to replace the one they brought in, they aren't going to pay a minimum labor rate for the time it takes to diagnose thier saw, run an estimate and call them (usually 3 or 4 times). They'll abandon the saw and now I am stuck with labor I cannot account for, a saw that is totally worthless (not enough aluminum to make a pop can) and I have to get rid of the fuel and oil that the saw came in with. So, we ask for $15.00 up front. If the saw is not worth $15.00 then there is no reason for us to look at it. Granted there are MANY exceptions to the policy. If it is a pro saw ie Stihl, DOLMAR, Old Homelite, HUsky, etc. then we'll waive the fee because the saw is worth more than $15.00 if the customer decides to abandon it.

The important thing is that we are not just a saw shop (read this as 2-cycle), in fact i'd say only 1 out of 6 pieces of equipment we work on is 2-cycle and less than half of those are saws. Our service department usually runs about 2000 tickets a season, do the math....166 saws a season. Of those saws, maybe 1/3 are what I'd call good saws (over $200.00 new).

It works well for our area, I have never had a complaint. People understand it is paying the minimum shop labor rate up front on 2-cycle equipment. The up side is that when they come in to pick up their equipment the bill is $15.00 cheaper.

 

[Uwharrie]

musch, If I understand you correctly you would not be offended if you brought your saw in to be serviced and I asked for an upfront fee on the 575 you just bought from me.( for the record he has not bought anything from our store, just using this for a comparison if he were a customer of ours ) As for the cheapo saws and an upfront fee and an expensive saw, you can't charge one guy and not another. You have to treat all customers with the same respect and not discriminate because one saw is worth more than another. If a guy leaves a $600 saw he deserves the same treatment as a guy with a 179.00 saw.

 

[Uwharrie]

DOLMARatOs , Thanks for your explaination. Of course every store and market is different and that's what makes this a great place ( this USA ) to do business.

 

[DOLMARatOs]

UWHarrie

Out of curiosity does your shop charge a minimum shop labor rate. Not the good ole boy price but an actual posted minimum labor? My question is why not charge that rate up front on equipment that at least in my area has a high probability of being either beyond repair or not worth repair. We post our 2-cycle policy along with our labor rate, standard prices, etc.

If i only worked on Dolmar or stihl or even husky saws this wouldn't be a problem. But I've only worked on a few of these all year. They seem to run a lot longer with minimum regular maintenance and their owners are more knowledgeable about the what not to do's on saw and 2-cycle use.

Then again, Northern Illinois is a long way from North Carolina and our markets and customer bases are totally different. So i can totally understand your viewpoint.

Does your shop service all brands of equipment? Or just what you sell? This makes a huge difference. Again, we are the only shop around that is an authorized warranty service center for Poulan, MTD, HOP (EHP and AYP), Murray, and the other so called box store brands. I even get a few customers a week call me up about XXX brand equipment saying they called the service 800 number and I'm the closest (usually only) dealer. This used to suprise me, now nothing does. HA

 

[Urbicide]

Howdy All,

This may seem like a dumb question but if you call it a tune up would any of the above tune ups include actually running the saw and tuning the carb? I'm good at taking stuff apart, not as good at putting it back together (but I get by) and not very good at adjusting the carb but working on it. I have listened to the Madsens sethi wave file a bout a hundred times, with my eyes closed, holding my breth and I still can't hear what they describe in their writing/text about the operation. I can get the idle and the low but the high eludes my ears. I think i get it close then I back it out another 1/8 because I'm afraid I did not do it right. Takes time I guess. It would be worth $20 bucks to me for someone to set it right. I don't want some dumb @ss to do it I want a pro to set it. I'm no expert but I usually don't let people work on my gear. If they were good and I could watch I would.

v/r

Mike

Hi Mike. I have some hearing lose at varying frequencies and have a hard time trying to hear the changes in sound on the Madsen's wav file. I talked myself into buying a tachometer to set my carbs with. Just a small adjustment can radically affect your saw. Maybe good, maybe bad. On saws with limiter coils you definetly need a tachometer to keep from leaning out the saw. You look at the display on the tach and you read a number, no guessing at a sound you may be unsure of. Here is a tach to look at. I have one and it works great. Good luck. Vince
http://store.baileys-online.com/cgi-bin/baileys/1112?mv_session_id=qtn9tC8p&product_sku=17122

 

[DOLMARatOs]

I assumed it would be universally understood that a tune-up would include all adjustments and testing the saw in a log (Before sharpening chain).

We do all of the above, plus wipe the saw down, wipe out the case if it is very oily.

 

[Uwharrie]

No we don't have a minimum shop labor rate. We do have a good ole boy price. Really. We do have a posted ( as required by most manufacturers ) shop labor rate of $55.00 per hour. Our rate is not set in dead concrete and we allow our techs room to do what is good for the overall company. An example, today I yes I had an elderly customer come in with a Stihl BG65 Blower and he said he needed to get it started maybe a plug. I checked the Exhaust as it's easy to do on that model and found out very quickly that I was dealing with a bad engine. It started up but had a very bad engine knock in the lower end. More than likely it had been run on bad fuel or regular gas. I told this customer that it was not worth the expense to repair and he agreed. I did not charge this customer anything. I will sell him another blower when he decides to buy. I am in business to make money but I also have a responsibility to the community and our store helps seniors with reduced service charges. We give and God has blessed us.

Our store has been in business for over 46 years and we mainly service what we sell. This helps our service dept to be extremely fast as we buy and stock parts for what we are selling. We do not ride up and down the streets trying to find parts for every mower under the sun. We have other shops in town and we send some business to them. However if you see what we sell we have a full plate. Everyone in our organization knows that our store's main goal in the service dept is Quality, Fast and efficient service brings customers back Happy.

 

[ciscoguy01]

Yep

musch, If I understand you correctly you would not be offended if you brought your saw in to be serviced and I asked for an upfront fee on the 575 you just bought from me.( for the record he has not bought anything from our store, just using this for a comparison if he were a customer of ours ) As for the cheapo saws and an upfront fee and an expensive saw, you can't charge one guy and not another. You have to treat all customers with the same respect and not discriminate because one saw is worth more than another. If a guy leaves a $600 saw he deserves the same treatment as a guy with a 179.00 saw.

I was thinking what you had said first also. Butttt, he does justify it very well. Point: Service dept.'s refuse business all the time because a saw isn't purchased from them, they can do it, it's their store. I could see if some dude brought in a 5 yr old pull-on that was beaten, he's gotta pay a mechanic to figure out what's wrong with it, who's paying that labor if the dude doesn't want it fixed? I buy all my auto parts from my neighbor's store. I pay more sometimes, but it's usually only a little bit. Last night when I had a nail in my tire coming back from hauling wood and I kept having to put air in it, I called him, went next door at around 830ish, and he got me a plug and helped me patch it. You don't find service like that normally. This is a little off topic, but still, we're back to ma and pop shops again. Find a dude from slowes or HD that will get off their lazy azz to even help you load a bag of concrete. Not a chance. I loaded 50 bags of 80lb sakrete ready mix at slowes a couple weeks ago and couldn't get one schoolkid to gimme a hand. A couple months ago I bought 10 bags of the same stuff at my local hardware store and the owners daughter, she is bangin too LOL, helped me load it all. I'll bet Dolmar dude would in a second if he's like other small biz's... They have to make sure they make money or they'll be out of business before you know it...

 

[DOLMARatOs]

UWHarrie

I totally agree with what you did for that customer. Most pieces of equipment get a quick check when they come through the door (time permitting). Like checking the oil in a mower when it comes in.

I understand about servicing what you sell. We keep a huge parts inventory for what we sell. I've never had to chase parts very far (not more than 3 days if in stock at distributor). Then again, technically we are a dealer for a huge amount of equipment, we don't sell them but we service them.

I dunno if I could make a living servicing only Snapper and Dolmar equipment...they don't really break. Routine maintenance is something most customers take care of on their own.

Anyway. I hear you on the 46 year thing. My dad started our shop 14 years ago, previously he'd been in the industry since 74. I've been doing this full time for 10 years. I finished Briggs school when I was 14. I can't think of anything better than power equipment. Being my own boss is great.

 

[musch]

musch, If I understand you correctly you would not be offended if you brought your saw in to be serviced and I asked for an upfront fee on the 575 you just bought from me.( for the record he has not bought anything from our store, just using this for a comparison if he were a customer of ours ) As for the cheapo saws and an upfront fee and an expensive saw, you can't charge one guy and not another. You have to treat all customers with the same respect and not discriminate because one saw is worth more than another. If a guy leaves a $600 saw he deserves the same treatment as a guy with a 179.00 saw.

If I trusted you, and knew you would do a good job, and treated me fairly, I'd probably have a line of credit with you from buying so much stuff!!!!

By the way, I am not easily offended. I'd pre pay the whole thing.
But see, I understand the way it is today. I dont write checks at all anymore.
I just wont jump through all the hoops.
But as a business owner, I understand the business owners, its not them, its all the dishonest scumbags that will stick a business owner with a bad check, or a dead saw, or whatever.
What sickens me is the lack of honor in our society.
Say what you mean and do what you say.

So to answer your question, I would not be offended, but I would APPRECIATE if you treated me the way I am, which is, a man of my word.

 

[DOLMARatOs]

Musch

With the exception of 2-cycle equipment everything is on the honor system.

My long term and stand-up customers know they don't have to pay any deposit but they do anyway.

I have customers that can order a 2600 engine with no down payment, pick it up and pay me later....cuz they know if they stiff me they will wake up in the middle of the night to a shell being pumped into a 12 guage.

We have great customers. But we also have people that will stick us with a junk saw. Or come back after 60 days wondering where their equipment is.

We've helped this out by charging storage after 15 days from a piece of equipment being done and the owner contacted via phone or 2 messages left on different days and no return call or no arrangements for pick-up made. After 30 days we liquidate the equipment for the bill. No one has left a piece of equipment that was worth fixing to be liquidated.

Yet again, i guarantee that this won't work for some shops. But it works well for us.

 

[Uwharrie]

musch, You are like one of our regular customers, and Yes we do have a running tab for our customers who buy regularly. We also have a credit card and we run specials like 12 mths same as cash for any purchase with no minimum, this is for walk ins only. Thanks Tony

 

[Lakeside53]

UWHarrie

I dunno if I could make a living servicing only Snapper and Dolmar equipment...they don't really break. Routine maintenance is something most customers take care of on their own.

Ha! You just need a bunch of commercial customers - they can break or wear anything out, no matter the brand! Second, "high end" residential customers - fuel that's two years old won't work any better in a Dolmar than a Husky or a Stihl... and I can go on... and on, and on..

Seriously.. Stihl pretty reliable too, but we do 1000+ services a year on Stihl only. Helps to have a bunch saws stretching back 30 years still in use.

For other parts of this discussion - I don't know anyone around here that asks for a deposit for service work (except Sears who wants a credit card, but they ship them away to a third party). Sure our shop time is expensive ($60/hr), but we are cautious about spending more then reasonable (for the customer's sake as well as ours), and can always recover our cost from abandoned saws. Being Stihl only helps - there isn't much we don't know about any stihl product and can quickly estimate cost if it looks like a bad unit. If a saw has a bad piston, we call the customer and tell them immediately. They get an estimate and we tell them if it's worth repairing. Some we just buy for parts or "winter projects". If they want it back, $25-$30 is a typical "evaluation or estimate fee".