Number Of Hours Required?
 

I just had 2 shifter cables replaced replaced on my 39 Donzi, received my bill and am shocked at the number of hours charged. Twin 496 HO motors---I removed the tie bars, saddles and removed all nuts and washers on the drives except one nut on each drive together with the upper cover plates as well as the props--they were ready to come off. I also removed the top covers on each engine. There is a lot of room in the engine compartment to get around each engine. My question is what is a reasonable number of hours to change both cables?

If your talking bravo and they know what they are doing, I would guess about 1 hour for each one.

Shops have labor hours recorded for each individual job.
So Probably set labor hours for that perticular job and even if you prepaired them for quicker job they used their set price.
If so, maybe you should have negotiated price per your prep work.

Did you have both cables replaced. One from shifter to the adapter (do not what they call it) and from the adapter to the outdrive?

How many hrs did they charge?

If its like automotive, they go by book hours.

In the auto industry several companies publish book hours, the amount of time expected to do a job... This is how shops and mechanics actually make money.

If an oil annd lube schedules for 1 hour, and the shop and mechanic can do it in 15 minutes they are profitable. Some mechanics gets paid his hourly rate on book hours, so if he is a good and fast mechanic, and can do 4 one hour oil changes in an hour, he gets 4 hours pay.

It can bite him too.. If a job takes over book because of problems, a 1 book hour job that takes 2.5 hours, the mechanic only gets paid 1 hour.

Most mechanics I know would rather you bring them something complete. as they take it apart, put it back together, and trust themselves. important if it has to come back for any reason.

One cable from each drive to the engine bravo shifter assembly. I was charged 8 hours which I thought was excessive.

rediculous......:bsflag:

I haven't done it regularly for over 10 years but it takes longer to set up and break down than it does to change the cable.

Nice $1000 bill you got there! :eek:

That is a bit excessive.......

My bud just had both cables changes on his scarab , one broke , the other was preventative maint. He was charged 3 hrs each including removing and servicing the drives. I mean the cable from the shifter block on the engine to the transom.

It only takes about 10 min. to pull drive and a buddy. Done my quite a few times. I would say they got you,dont give them anymore bussiness

And you had most of the work done!

OK, I'm in agreement with all of you. Nonetheless, the bill still needs to get paid and I'm going to sit down with the proprietor and I need some hard numbers. How many hours is reasonable for this job.... Thanks

no more than 4 hours total....call a few boat shops and get quotes. Then goto him with your info. Tell him you ll pay the bill but never do business again unless the price is more resonable. That is if he doesnt want to lower the price.

Thanks for all the replies. I was present when most of the work was done--(it took 3+ weeks to complete) and the best I could recollect is slightly over 4 hours. The mechanic who did the work is no longer employed and may have exaggerated his hours. I certainly want to be fair about this billing and the shop owner is a stand up guy so I think this will be resolved without much difficulty.

was the tech in training ??if it took that long...sounds like he was using your boat as on the job training ??

Only question I have is if they did anything else like change the shift boot, water supply hose and/or anything else while they were in there?

Figure an hour to R&R each drive, then an hour for each cable billable because a lot of shops don't charge partial hours (4 hrs), then o-ring kit for each drive and cost of shift cable plus misc. shop supplies. Add an extra hour plus oil if both drive fluids where changed. I think that's reasonable.

I changed the gear lube in both drives as well as greasing the U-joints and gimbel housing zerks. In addition, I ran a die on all stud threads and replaced and installed all drive nuts, washers, trim cylinders, tie bar saddles and tie bar. As you might recall, I also took off these parts prior to the Tech going to work on the boat. There was only one nut holding each drive on when the work commenced. I wouldn't think that taking off the one nut and removing and reinstalling the drive and one nut would take an hour but I am not the expert here. The tech did replace the small shifter arms behind the the top back cover plate of both drives althought the old ones with 31 hours on them didn't look bad to me. Some water had gotten into the shifter arm compartment and although not rusty or worn out such were changed as a preventative measure. The shifter boots were changed as they were part of the ordered cable kit and I thought it was a good idea. The water supply hose was not changed and no other parts were replaced.

the shift boot needs to come off and be re-installed when a new cable in installed. so regardless if it was new or not, that is part of installation.

I replaced both of mine this year. One side took all of 45 minutes. the other 5 hours. I usually tape a fish to the top side of the cable and pull the cable it out of the transom housing. I then tape the new cable to the fish and pull the new one back up to the motor. With the 5hr job, the fish came un-taped when I was pulling the old one out, and I couldnt get the new one routed properly. Once I did, I realized I forgot the shift boot :lolhit: so i had to pull it back out and do it over.

point is, maybe they are trying to make you pay for his mistakes that were made.

I was present when the old cables were removed and the new ones pulled. Similar procedure as you described but new cable was taped to the old and it went off without a hitch althought one side took slightly longer. I would estimate about 45 minutes for both sides at the most.

We are all forgetting one thing here.......
B.....break
O.....out
A.....another
T.....thousand

sorry I had to slide that in....sounds a little excessive to me..........I hope you get this worked out with the marina.........good luck....!!

It is typically a 4-5 hr job. And I'm 65/hr, so that's about $300.
Eddie

Alot of states require them to charge the book rate as other have stated Regardless of how long or short it takes them, again it could take longer or shorter.

Next is just because its a boat double it, because its performance triple it.

Not true. It's part of the kit but you don't necessarily have to put it on. Most people usually do but it's not "required" per-say. ;)

WOW young performance you only charge $65 an hour? I live in Florida and they charge $89 and hour plust tax so its almost $100 an hour!!! its ridiculous, anytime I have to work on my boat it takes me longer and a lot of headaches but I end up savin myself a lot of money as opposed to taking it somewhere. I learned by getting ripped off by marinas until I was tired of it. Sorry to hear about that hope it gets resolved