Marina Service Gouging

[fstbttms]

Originally Posted by Pelagic

Why does someone call out for a professional service?

1 They are too busy or lazy to do the job themselves.

Or are unable or unwilling to do it themselves.

[donradcliffe]

In some of the nanny states, the tradesmen have bribed the government to say you can't do things yourselves, like propane, refrigeration, and electrical systems. Then you're really at their mercy.

Dishonest tradesmen are pervasive, not just in the boating industry. Like the guy who quoted me $1400 to fix the smog system in my truck--after a google search it cost me $7 and 15 minutes work. Or the guy who wanted $300 to replace the pilot burner in my furnace, which really only required cleaning.

[fstbttms]

I had a guy come out to suss out my leaky water heater. Told me I needed a new one at $1200. I didn't pull the trigger right away, trying to find the warranty, hoping it was covered. Decided to have my plumber buddy come have a look. One $.15 garden hose washer later, problem solved.

[sww914]

I used to specialize in Porsche repair with a sub-speciality in 914's. Even after I specialized in a single model of car there was a huge variation in the time it took to do the same job on a different car. Replacing tie rods, for instance. On a very clean car with few miles I might be able to replace them in 40 minutes. On one car they were rusted on and I had to remove most of the front suspension for access, cut them off and weld big nuts on the stubs and it took me 6 1/2 hours. The book said to charge 2.1 hours.
I can't imagine the **** you'd run into in a boatyard with all of the hundreds of boat models, in a marine environment, with the most widely varied maintenance and repair history imagineable.
Every boat job is a custom job, from my perspective.

[Steve W]

Honest tradesmen are worth their rate. Finding them is the problem, though I have had good luck over the years using references from friends. Just last week, the Ford dealer tried to charge me $960.00 to "repair" (not replace) the electronic digital climate control unit on my Grand Marquis LS. It was only sending air out the defrost vents. I googled the symptoms and found that it is a common problem for this car, a simple o-ring that wears out and leaks. NAPA ripped me off by forcing me to buy 4 o-rings for $1.12 and I fixed it in 30 minutes. Nice savings and I had fun doing it. A little research can go a long way.