Recommended service centre labour times

Were these 'ready struts' or the struts were you have to compress and swap out the coil springs?

Monroe ready struts.

A1 wants to sell parts, everything looks so easy and quick on those Y tube videos.
In the real-world shop takes your vehicle in, puts it on the lift, looks it over to see what's really needed, calls parts store to have parts sent over, does the job and gets the rack cleared off for the next job. 3 hours is easily a fair chargeable rate.
Shop is a business with overhead, not some internet goofs making things look easy on YT.
In my former life as an on-site tech, I've told many a customer if it looked so easy on YT why didn't you do it yourself when the charges questions came up.

Thanx, understood. Autotrends magazine suggests 1 to 2 hours but you are correct, I should have done it myself, ready struts are not a difficult task. I wanted to know what the GM labour manual or equivalent suggested.

A lot of local shops charge book rate, they need to in order to cover overhead and pay a livable wage to the mechanic and keep good talent. I believe the dealer does go overboard, imagine they charge two hours labor to change a headlamp for something that takes 15 minutes. The book says they need to remove the bumper, but all they have to do is remove a few the wheel well screws and feel their way to the connector.
Three hours is reasonable. What was the labor rate?

$125/hr...the garage charged $875.5 plus tax for the pair of Monroe struts. OEM garage quoted me $694 plus tax & a local Partsource (Ottawa, Canada) quoted the same for exact Monroe product.

Reminds me of the sign in my local motorcycle shop back in the early 1970's:

Labor Rates
$10/hr
$15/hr if you watch
$20/hr if you help

3 hours is probably not unreasonable in my book as a shadetree guy to do the front struts. Did that also include alignment?

A1 stuff is a good guide for the DIY-er, but yes it's edited, and they're also never fighting with rusty bolts for those of us in the salt belt (which I assume includes almost all of our neighbors to the north like yourself ). Something as dumb and annoying as a rusted solid swaybar endlink bolt adds an extra hour when you end up having to cut it in half with a sawzall to remove the endlink and get at the control arm you were working on (wasn't a Traverse at least!).

Alignment was extra...

I have never tackled a strut job but I did bring my own purchased struts to my mechanic as I was planning to do myself but never got the courage. The mechanic was appreciative I bought the assembled set.
The parts price is a bit high, Rockauto has them for less then $110 each.
I just had a rear differential done on my daughters Equinox, I was quoted, before the job, $1400, when she picked it up it was 2K . Dealerships.
Some of the rear shock prices are outrageous, If it take a dealership mechanic 20 minutes per side, they are slow yet they charge like $200 per side.

I think the bigger problem here is the hourly rate and absolute killing the shops make on parts. I think 3 hours is maybe 1 hour conservative but I think a labor rate of over $100/hour is insane. These guys make $20, maybe $25 per hour? Maybe the supervisors or 30 year guys are into the $30's... so say benefits are 100%, $60-$70/hour. That means basically half the rate is to cover profit and pay the landlord. Shops around here all tack on the "misc. parts" fee so that covers any hardware/grease/whatever needed.

I have absolutely no problem with these guys making good salaries, I have problems with the parents companies taking 5 pounds of flesh to go with it.

Some of the dealership mechanics are unionized so they do make $35-$45 per hour, but, since they do work on book rate, they are billing up to 12 hours in a 8 hour day. Nice gig if you can get it.

Travchap said:

Monroe ready struts.

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Travchap said:

Looking for standard labour times for repairs. Local garage charged me 3 hours to change front struts. A1 Auto video on YT did one in half hour!

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Travchap said:

Monroe ready struts.

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I installed these on a Trailblazer about 7 years ago and at the time they were $112/piece (currently $68 @ RA) and it took me about 90 minutes to do both sides. I believe it's a little more difficult to do on the Traverse, but a lot of shops are going to charge you book hours even if they finish in less time.

What did they charge you for the quick-struts?

g8a550 said:

I installed these on a Trailblazer about 7 years ago and at the time they were $112/piece (currently $68 @ RA) and it took me about 90 minutes to do both sides. I believe it's a little more difficult to do on the Traverse, but a lot of shops are going to charge you book hours even if they finish in less time.

What did they charge you for the quick-struts?

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Sorry for delay, charged me $875.90Can for Monroe 172949 quik-stuts & three hours to install $375Can. Local OEM Chev dealer sell same struts for $696Can. It does n't take three hours to install; I've seen plenty of YT videos with folks only having rudimentary tools do both in less than two hours. I was hoping someone with a Chiltern Guide could give me a time....my local library no longer has the guide? Ideas?

nhrata01 said:

3 hours is probably not unreasonable in my book as a shadetree guy to do the front struts. Did that also include alignment?

A1 stuff is a good guide for the DIY-er, but yes it's edited, and they're also never fighting with rusty bolts for those of us in the salt belt (which I assume includes almost all of our neighbors to the north like yourself ). Something as dumb and annoying as a rusted solid swaybar endlink bolt adds an extra hour when you end up having to cut it in half with a sawzall to remove the endlink and get at the control arm you were working on (wasn't a Traverse at least!).

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Thanx, no rust on mine as I did the brakes so I have seen underneath. Plus I soak the frame each year in Rust Check or kind.
Alignment was $145....again on the pricey side....

repairman54 said:

A1 wants to sell parts, everything looks so easy and quick on those Y tube videos.
In the real-world shop takes your vehicle in, puts it on the lift, looks it over to see what's really needed, calls parts store to have parts sent over, does the job and gets the rack cleared off for the next job. 3 hours is easily a fair chargeable rate.
Shop is a business with overhead, not some internet goofs making things look easy on YT.
In my former life as an on-site tech, I've told many a customer if it looked so easy on YT why didn't you do it yourself when the charges questions came up.

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A1 does informative & very helpful videos but you have to see through the sales-pitch however. I agree, others might be goofs. I guess it boils down to how handy you are & as many auto parts stores loan tools; I expect more of us will DIY....certainly seems that way! The bottom line: there's a reason they are called quik-struts. My grand dad said he could change both in less than 2 hours...no YT video or putting on the lift time needed......but he lives 5000 miles away.
Thanx for the feedback.