I work for a shop called Mountjoy’s and I’m trying to find labor for a 1968 Jaguar E-Type 4.2. If anyone knows where I can find this information or if someone has is and is willing to pass it on to me I’d appreciate it 1,000,000%
Hope to hear back from someone soon
Are you looking for a published “Flat Rate Manual” or estimates from those here who work on their own cars?
Well what my boss wants me to find is labor times so preferably a flat rate manual. I have some e-type books but it only gives me info on the car but no labor times.
I have about $2.2 million dollars in labor on mine. I’m not your guy, Estefany.
Seriously, you can throw a F.R. manual out the door when working on 50 year old cars. I can imagine that job times in 1960 weren’t favorable to the shop doing the work. Money was made in the sales department in those days. Break even at best on warranty work.
BUT I have no actual knowledge in the matter.
Naw. You don’t need no labour manual for working on an E-type.
You just sort of look at it, scratch your head, go over the job in your mind and estimate the amount of time it’ll take you to do it.
Then double it.
Unless it has something to do with the starter, in which case triple it.
If it has anything to do with the clutch or reconnecting the windshield washer nozzles just make sure you have smelling salts handy to revive the customer before you tell him the estimate, and a box of Kleenex for when he comes to.
This would be fine for a guy fixing cars out of a shed for cash these days, but it wasn’t that long ago that every decent sized city had 4 or 5 Brit shops, all competing for business. The people running those shops had to pay their mechanics accordingly, so you’d quickly end up in the weeds if you were just sort of “winging it”.
I have to believe they were all using some factory-issued book as their baseline, even in the 50’s and 60’s. I remember seeing job estimates issued by BMC for MGBs, Midgets, and Healeys at the shop I worked at in the mid-90’s. And contrary to an earlier comment, the estimates were VERY conservative, and not all that hard to beat.
As I’ve mentioned before, my uncle owned and operated an independent Jag shop for many years, and used to talk about how a good mechanic could “book 70 hours a week”, meaning that in a 40 hour week, the guy would get paid for 70 hour, because he was hustling ahead of the book rate.
My post was tongue-in-cheek, Ben.
I will consider incorporating a post subtext, along the lines of
“WARNING: not all readers will share the poster’s warped sense of humour!”
MADE. MY. DAY!!!
Welcome to the forum Estefany.
You ask for labor, meaning what? Do you need actual work done or are you looking for a list of estimated work times? I have two separate Guides for the E-Type. PM me to further explain what exactly you are looking for. One is the Labour Schedule from Jaguar (29 pages) the other is a Repair Time Estimate Guide (14 Pages).
Martin
As usual I didn‘t read the whole thread where you state you‘re looking for time estimates. Due to file size I cannot upload here. Send me PM with an email address I can send you the pdf‘s.
Martin
Sample pages:
Does your boss , or his crew, know how to work on e-types ? The rates that you may get probably reflect rates of mechanics who know how to work on them.
If he doesn’t, he’ll either have a garage full of them in “ship wrights” mode or a bunch of un-happy customers.
I heard a clutch replacement can go for as much as $3000…
Marco
We charge 20 hours labour for a clutch because it’s an “engine and gearbox out” job. So at our fairly cheap rate that’s $2200 Aussie dollars. Then around $500 for the new clutch and ancilliaries, a bit moreif we replace the master and slave as well, which is prudent.
A full resto of an IRS will cost you around AU$8000 of which most is labour. Maybe $1500 parts, and $500 for plating, labour etc. This includes rebuilt diff, rebuilt brakes etc and everythnig to concourse standard.
A 6 cylinder engine is AU$12 to 14k depending on machining ($4 to 6k). If you want special head work add another $2k.
As I said we’re pretty cheap too.
I ve been using the same shop for my E-type since 1999… including the 5 speed conversion from
Auto, a full mechanical rebuild after a crash and a full restoration. Every bill I got (well into the 6 figures by now), while sometimes painful, was less than expected. Never asked for estimate ahead, but never got an oh s—t surprise.
I don’t think you can go by flat rate, shop manual labor on these cars. Condition of the car will have a huge impact along With the owner expectations. Driver, concours etc
My understanding is flat rate manuals show an average time for an average car. Sometimes the work can be completed in under the flat rate time, sometimes the work takes longer. But in my experience the customer still pays the flat rate. A good friend of mine was a front end mechanic at a Ford dealership. He was good and knew how to do most of the common jobs in significantly less time than the flat rate manual the dealership service department used to compute customer’s bills. He could regularly book 60-70 billable hours for putting in an actual 40 hours at work.
IMHO, a shop today would be crazy to quote a customer the flat rate from a manual published when the car was new for work on a 50 year old car that has gone thorough who knows how many owners, modifications and conditions that could make things like fasteners a mechanic’s mortal enemy.
First, you need to stick with that shop, and follow him wherever he moves to, because your experience in old car ownership (regardless of marque) is atypical. You two are a team, and meant to be together 
But, second, saying the bills were less than you expected is very arbitrary. Everyone’s expectations are different…if you’ve previously been a Porsche owner, or a boat owner, your expectations on service bills are going to be totally different from someone “moving up” from something like an MG.
Therefore, two people would have a totally different experience at Nigel’s Studio of Jag Repair and Interpretive Dance. Having the book rate establishes a baseline. And quite frankly, anyone expecting concourse-level work on the book rate needs their head checking.
Yes, I ve been using the same shop since 1999.
We also have three classic Alfas and Wr ve been using the same shop for years now. Same thing… bills have always been as expected.
The key is to find people you can trust, who value your business and aren’t going to overcharge you. And critically who knows the cars inside out. A couple of times I’ve tried to have a different shop solve an issue with one of the Alfas and we end up paying a lot more because the guy had to learn the system. Not worth it. In the end the alfa guy solved the problem in no time. that’s why my e-type has been to one shop only in the last 20 years even though it is 50 miles away
All I know is, since I was a baby mechanics have been complaining that it’s impossible to do almost any job in the flat rate time allowed.
Now I have the Volvo dealer telling me the flat rate for a rear coil spring r and r is 1.5 hours. That sounds right for a strut but, it’s a semi trailing arm, separate coil and shock. So, two bolts, drop the arm down and the spring falls out. I did it in an hour with crippled thumbs in between washing and drying a load of laundry and also cleaned all the rust off the bolts and top hat and applied never seize to the bolts. If I had an assistant to jiggle the unit while I fed the lower bolt through it would have taken 40 minutes.
I was pretty amazed because working on the Jag has sharply impaired my impression of my own mechanical competence.
This made me think of an inspired business idea: Start writing repair manuals with inflated flat rate times and every dealer would start buying mine because they would make more money.
Sometimes there are two types of flat rate manuals. A warranty time guide that is for new equipment and clearly favors the manufacturer, not the mechanic or dealer. Then there is a more realistic labor time guide that attempts to be fair to both. But, of course never can be completely. Flat rate, based on a realistic labor guide book has advantages and disadvantages. It can help to not overcharge a customer for a slow mechanic. But it does not reward a meticulous mechanic. It can reward a fast mechanic, but it can also reward a sloppy mechanic. Most labor time guides are based on doing the job the “proper” way. A mechanic who can bill 70 hours in 40 hours has typically found many short cuts. Some are perfectly fine, and most customer would have no problem with them. Some short cuts are fine, but may cut out mechanic safety. Only a problem if injury results. But some short cuts we customers may not like. Such as cutting the body work on an E type to pull the transmission without the engine- but still charge the full rate. Flat rate is a very mixed bag.
Tom
We had a species of this conversation four years ago. I’ve never gone back to the dealership for service after being expected to pay a premium for its work.
https://forums.jag-lovers.com/t/pub-dealership-service-rates/35458
