RV Labor Rate ?

[jcnit2winit@aol.com]

Hello, everyone. My name is Joseph Cannon. I have a mobile RV repair business. I'm looking into starting an RV repair shop and thought what better place to ask for advice than the FMCA community.

What is a Fair labor Rate? And what do you currently pay in your state? Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks

[wolfe10]

Joseph,

Labor prices currently charged varies widely around the country. The same goes for charges on auto repair, etc.

So the geographic area probably dictates the price.

What area are you considering for your shop? If somewhat open to locations, one criteria might be to look for an area you want to work in where one or more RV facilities have recently closed. With the downturn in RV sales, many dealerships have closed their doors. This leaves their service customers needing an alternate place to get service.

Another approach to getting service business until word of mouth brings you business is, once you have established your shop is to talk with companies whose products require techs to install them. Source Engineering (Monaco trailing arm replacement on 4 air bag suspension) comes to mind.

Brett

[tbutler]

We were in the Las Vegas area this fall and our house batteries were crying out to be replaced. I've done it myself but we were on a schedule so this time I needed a shop. I've been getting ads from a dealer in Las Vegas for years so I went to their web site. They were out of business but their website referred us to Las Vegas RV Doctor. We called them, they got us right in on a Saturday morning. They went right to work, three techs working on us in their air conditioned shop and had us out the door in under two hours. The bill: $730.

They had a connection with a failed dealership, hired many of their techs so brought a lot of experience over. I'm betting they were picking up the bill for the dealers web site. They had a very large shop in what had to be a high rent district but with Las Vegas real estate woes, I'm betting they were getting bargain prices on the rent. After you take the cost of the new batteries out of the bill, I probably paid $250 for the labor, about $125 per hour but having as many as three people working on our rig during that time it seemed like a pretty good bargain.

They had a dozen rigs in the shop, all high end, several with custom paint jobs. I asked if they were new coaches that came from the dealership but they said no, these were privately owned coaches. They were doing a land office business. So the business is out there if you find the right "hole" in the repair community. Good luck in your search.

[jcnit2winit@aol.com]

Thanks for the great advice. The highest shop rate here is $119 an hour. I am going to keep it at $85 and open up in Vancouver Washington hopefully somewhere off the highway with easy on and off access My ultimate goal is to one day open a shop with 12 Bays and a RV parts store as big as one of Campingworld stores.

[lpfdon]

$95.00 per hour was the latest we paid at a highly rated shop but dealers quote rates of $110

[fredkeen@ymail.com]

$75. to $85. in the smaller shops is what we've seen around DFW.

Good luck on your endeavor.

[kingfr]

Tiffin has just raised its rate to $95/hr in their Red Bay service center. Also raised the rate for the Allegro Campground to $20 per night for non warranty work.

[Guest Wayne77590]

I just inquired today what a rate was in a local shop and the stated $100.00 per hour. That is about the cheapest I have seen it in this area of Texas. Typically the dealer charges $115 to $125 per hour.

Your $85 an hour seems very reasonable. Personally, I'd like to see $50 an hour, but I'm selfish. One must consider what it is going to take to make a decent living and be able to save some of that living money. At the price you are going to charge I would hope that the word would get out and the demand for your services would be high. Then you would make a great living at that rate.

Good luck to you, and keep us posted where you set up in case we need you in that area.