My (Bob) Norwood Experience

Point well received. But if we were to "charge" every time we had to search for parts that have been discontinued for 30 years I could retire I haven't a clue what the percentages are for the parts I look up, that take days to find, that never get sold. However every part I search for, if it's an extremely hard one to find, and don't end up selling it, I take it as knowledge regarding said part I didn't have before.

 

I get the shop towels or supplies charge at all the current dealers I use (Ford, BMW, VW and Hyundai).

Sid

 

Yep. Makes it far easier for accounting purposes.

And that Service Writer... the one who makes all the calls, writes the emails, writes the estimates, and orders the parts - they don't work just for tips.

 

And this is one main reason larger businesses must charge more than garage, back yard operations - over head Once in a while I need to explain our pricing structure to a prospective customer as they don't realize others are not working out of large buildings with expensive equipment, materials, employee's etc.

 

There are always going to be difficult to near impossible to find parts for these cars due to the obvious availability. I will never dispute that.

My point is not that - it is that FINDING those parts is infinitely infinitely infinitely easier than ever before. Back in 1978 how could some guy in Fulda Germany let me know he had an extra power mirror switch for a 76 glass car lying around in the back of a drawer upstairs in his bedroom? Magazine ad - in America?? Like I would even see that magazine...

Today he takes a picture of it with his phone, posts in here or somewhere else and I find it by typing in power mirror switch fiberglass 308. It takes, what? 0.0007865 seconds to located it? At 2 am Sunday morning when I am up taking a piss...

But you already knew all that.

 

Maybe we can sticky a thread and have all the shops here post their policy on charging for emails, pushing cars around a shop, ordering a part and - most importantly - how much they will add to a bill to learn how to do something they never did before before you are the first they try in on.

What is wrong with that? If that ******* dip**** thought it was so great to charge me to figure out crank position sensors on a 84 308 because he didn't have a clue - he should have been proud enough and not afraid of that fee to tell me up front before I delivered the car. If it is a fantastic and well worth the fee service to google "where are the crank position sensors on an 84 Ferrari 308" and "crank position sensor function 84 Ferrari 308" he should have told me in the beginning. Why not tell me in the beginning?

2 Questions:

1. WHY not tell me there would be an added fee to figure out how to do it IN THE BEGINNING?

2. After I leave, does the next Ferrari 308 crank position R&R that comes in have to pay the same added fee even though he already knows how to do it? If not, looks like the first guy is the only one that gets screwed, right?

I would really like to hear an honest serious answer to both of these questions by a tech.

 

But in the meantime, let's not get to far off on a tangent here and let Bob unknowingly get us all pissed at each other!

 

Alright Russ, what is the next chapter?

 

That was my thought as well but Norwood should have made it VERY clear that was the case and if he did decide to take on the "project" he should have given OP a high ball park estimate to start and kept OP up to date as issues arose and what he projected the NEW cost to be.

My guess is that Norwood didn’t have a lot of work going when the car came in and as he got into the project there was more involved than he expected but did not “manage the expectations” of OP and acted as though he had a blank check. So neither party were ever really on the same page. Unless OP is some kind of auto tech expert he would have no idea of the issues and costs involved. Norwood obviously did not do any kind of job keeping OP up to speed. Consequently both parties had a very different opinions how the work is progressing.

Still I have to put shame on Norwood as he is one in charge of the work and communication with OP. Had he acted in a reasonable manor I think much of the misunderstanding could have been avoided or OP would have taken his car back and paid for the part of the work that was completed and agreed.

 

Dr Cosgrove, you keep mentioning common or routine maintenance or repair items. This was not the case. This was an incomplete 308 getting an unknown condition 355 drivetrain and rear suspension. I think some research into it was merited.

Also we've gotten so far off topic that I don't remember how many hours Bob charged for research in this case.

Aaron

 

http://findclassicars.com/ferrari/128662-ferrari-288-gto-308-based-speedline-wheels-brembo-brakes-ap-racing-discs.html

I think this was the car and apparently the rear wheels are not actually attached to anything in that photo.

It is pretty though.

Aaron

 

This certainly is a special situation. Much different than routine maintenance etc. I agree

 

If the provided motor was from a OBD2 355 then I would have also leaned towards an aftermarket ECU as well. OBD2 has so many emissions related sensors that you may have ended up with hours upon hours of troubleshooting trouble code diagnostic time.

When I saw the car last year, I think it was August 17, the biggest hurdle they mentioned was using the 355 rear subframe.

Oh, and I saw the other short body 288 conversion that you (Russ) mentioned in the first post. It had wheel spacers on it to make the wheels flush to the body...except the body was so lopsided that it had two different thickness spacers on it! The rear spoiler attached to the engine/trunk lid was basically all bondo, it weighed like 75lbs on it's own. Also at least one of the fog lights fell off during shipping of that car too. Norwood remakes the original 288 foglight mounting brackets, but they don't clear a normal US 308 frame without some work.

Aaron

 

Nothing is for nothing, typically non spannering elements on a job are covered by the overhead cost which is factored into the hourly rate charged, which is why the mechanic earns x amount per hour, but his time is charged out to the customer is x times 3 or 4.

If a company only adds a small % of overhead to the mechanics base hourly cost then it has to be accrued in the bill somewhere else instead.

How does Norwoods hourly charge out rate compare to his competitors? if its far less then many of the additional costs could be justified, if its similar then he is trying it on.

 

You, my friend, are missing the overall point. Norwood markets himself, and allows others to do the same, as an expert in this kind of work.... yes or no?..... we know the answer, it’s yes. Russ took his business to him, and Norwood could have said ‘wow, big job, there’s a lot of new things to look at with this one, don’t worry, I can handle it but my estimate of x is just that, an estimate, bear in mind that as I’m making some assumptions based on previous similar work, there is the chance that this set up will be different, and I may even need to reassess how I do things on this car. Be prepared for x to rise, maybe even double blah blah blah’, and then was sure to give concise updates and progress reports along the way, and Russ was given access to the shop during that time should he wish to have a physical look.

Then Russ has no case, the guy was honest, and explicit, and warned of the costs, and advised even he, the great expert on the conversions recognised this was a different case, and might cost more, certainly in research and planning terms if nothing else.

Nope, the guy has simply decided Russ needs to fund his new shop/yacht/ferrari whatever, and billed accordingly. He has hidden the car and it’s parts (how on earth he can get away with this I don’t know, I’d have him hung upside down over a shark tank until he gave me the address, but that’s me) and is refusing the LEGAL OWNER sight of it, let alone possession. He won’t even allow the owner to nominate an independent specialist to visit the car and check on its condition..... as if Russ should be trusting what Norwood says about its condition at this time, while he demands a RANSOM. if this were a person, Norwood would be part of a news story that ended with ‘then the kidnapper, knowing the FBI had him cornered, turned the gun on himself to save himself from prison, while the invoices and correspondence burned in the corner’

You shouldn’t be protecting Norwood in this case, as all that does is show that you are possibly of the same disposition as him, and I for one might think otherwise of following through if I came to be doing business with you.

 

I just get a kick out of the fact that whoever laid out Bob's invoice didn't know how to spell "mileage".

 

How would you charge for it?

Matt

 

It completely depends on the situation. If the car could roll, then we're pushing it in the shop and there's no charge, as I'm charging for diag and I need in in the shop.

If it was some odd situation (as appears with this car) - well, did i just lift the back up and put a dolly down there (an extra 2 mins), or did i have to rent a forklift? If it took unreasonable effort to to move, I'd inform the customer that the cost of diag will be increase. I would have stated as such when the car was dropped off.

The forklift fee would be on the invoice, of course.

 

I think that was the case until about September of 2017. Russ said he actually drove the car then.

Chapter two will be interesting. The initial invoice does say it's a rough estimate and that it will change. The initial labor estimate does not mention brakes, door latches, or anything about the condition of the 355 motor that Russ provided. So how does it all fall apart? Is Norwood off on his labor estimates, or does the car or customer require more work than initially thought? Is Bob too low on his parts prices? Or are more parts required than originally thought?

Aaron

 

and how do you defend the part where Norwood has now hidden the car from the legal owner, refusing to release it unless paid a grossed up sum x times the estimate, as well as a full liability release signed?

 

That part of Russ's story hasn't been posted yet. Like I said, chapter two will be interesting.

Aaron

 

No idea why he created a separate thread but her is "Chapter 2"

https://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/threads/chapter-2-my-bob-norwood-experience-axxes-and-elbows.576732/

 

Merged with this thread. Timing put chapter two up about ten posts from here.

https://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/posts/146002053/