Hourly rate of auto repair

Yoav Ben Zvi

So I rented a car at Avis for a couple of weeks. Had an unfortunate accident and scratched both doors.
I returned the car and got an estimate for 800 Euro - 200 for parts and 600 for works.
I'm not Irish so I'm not familiar with prices here. Is this reasonable. How much time does it take to fix that - 4 hours maybe. What is the rate here for a mechanic hour.

Thanks,
Visitor in Ireland

Heroditas

The doors will probably be resprayed. That price sounds right for respraying one side of a car.
There's probably a full day's work involved in it, ensuring the surfaces are sanded down properly, surfaces prepared for undercoat and main coat and ensuring it's blended properly to match the rest of the car.

homer90

Did you arrange insurance with them when taking the car ?

Yoav Ben Zvi

Unfortunatly it was basic insurence, with 1,200 Euro minimum access (or something like that - means I pay every up to that).
I guess I shouldn't have been cheep on that

unkel

Welcome to boards.ie and fair play to you for finding this forum, Yoav Ben Zvi

Unfortunately, having no zero excess CDW (collision damage waiver) when the car is damaged - you pay dearly for it. The rental firm has no interest in finding a cheap fix, they want a perfect high standard professional repair and you're paying for it (up to your excess)

This practice is the same all over the world.

Whenever I rent a car on holidays, I get zero excess CDW. Mind, you pay dearly for this and the chances of me damaging the car are miniscule (I'm driving nearly 25 years - never had a claim) but having to pay €1000 after putting a minor scratch on a car would kind of ruin my holiday...

anthony4335

Check with your credit card company, (if the car was rented using a credit card) ,as some cards insurance covers this kind of damage/loss.

Trixielicious

Rates for bodyshop repairs usually start at €60 an hour and go up from there. Heroditas is right, there is quite alot of labour involved in repairing scratches, it is not just a matter of filling in a little scratch, the whole of the door has to be re-sprayed in order for a proper job to be done on it, the door has to be removed, stripped, sanded, primered and then painted and the paint has to exactly match the rest of the car. Blending paint can be a nuisance, even with the exact paint code off a car the paint may not completely match the rest of it so the panel beater will have to blend it better.

Going to main dealer garages are more expensive than the smaller local panel beater. Try to find somebody local if you can while you are here.

Lex Luthor

its the car rental companies choice where to get the car repaired so is it in their hands...price sounds about right but I'm sure if they let you shop around you might find it a bit cheaper

Yoav Ben Zvi

How much does is cost to have a periodic car treatment (oils, plugs etc). It seems like owning a car here is quite expensive.

Trixielicious

Depends on the car and whether or not you go to a main dealer or a non-franchise garage. Also genuine parts are usually more expensive than regular parts you pick up in a motor factors. €120 is usually the cheapest service you could get and that would only include oil, oil filter and air filter. If spark plugs, fuel filter, wipers, pads, discs or anything else is needed then it bumps up the price considerably.

Yoav Ben Zvi

Well that's not to bad.

Trixielicious

That's the cheapest price but most garages are alot dearer! Some are doing good deals at the moment because there is so little work out there and they are desperate for cash.

ARaff

Just had same problem. Last night of trip put a major paint scrape with a ding and am being taken to the bank. But there is no credit card I know of that covers car hire in Ireland. My American card covers anywhere in the States and most of the rest of the world ... except Ireland (and war zones).

Hertz didn't offer a zero CDW it was a 1900 Euro deductible take or leave it. They also piled a lot of b.s. charges onto the bill: towing fee?! It was a scratch. Loss of use? Really? Weatherstripping at 50 Euros? F*** me. 25 years driving and never hit anything in my life--except for you wee stone bridge--kind of wish now it had been more. Would have loved to have seen Hertz dredging it from the bottom of the Shannon.

cormie

They are some high prices alright. I've pointed this risk out to a few potential customers who were contemplating renting a van themselves over using my service. It's a lot more risky in a van that would be a lot larger than what the driver may be used to. The very first van I bought I scraped the whole back side off a low wall taking a corner on a country road. I was used to driving a fiesta so wasn't even aware of the extra length requirements at the time with taking corners etc, this was about 4-5 minutes after buying it too

I guess if that's the cost of the repair, that's the cost There's probably not a lot you could do unless you plea with them to give you it cheaper.