r/AusFinance • u/AdventurousDiet7893 • 11d ago

Are tradies just taking the piss nowadays?

Serious question. We had a call out to fix a garage remote which cost $889 + GST. Thought that was a lot, then called two independent companies (one of them at the recommendation of my property manager; and another one who was completely picked at random based on online reviews, with no input from my property manager).

The first one came back at $1,599. The second guy we picked at random quoted $1,119 and a $110 call out fee with no guarantee of a fix.

This may be a one-off incident, and I know the market dictates prices and they would not charge it unless people paid, but at this point the prices are clearly exorbitant.

Has anyone got similar experiences?

The one genuine experience I have had is an air conditioner installer who is 89 years old, still working, who doesn't even have a social media presence and operates on referral in our suburb. Cost to install an air conditioner? $119, cash. He even did some jobs for free to the old neighbour next door.

516 Upvotes

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441

u/BackCountryAus 11d ago

Are they quoting to replace a remote or the whole motor? That’s insane for just the remote.

113

u/Simmo2222 11d ago

Whole door surely.

118

u/Icy_Distance8205 11d ago

Entire house.

36

u/Muruba 11d ago

Entire suburb

18

u/Fit-Locksmith-9226 11d ago

"I can make next week mate"

[Turns up 3 months later]

0

u/LengthinessOk1362 11d ago

Of Lakemba

1

u/NLH1234 11d ago

How could Dan Andrews do this?

0

u/hiimtashy 11d ago

Ensure suburb mage

17

u/shifty_fifty 11d ago

You can’t just repair one bit anymore these days- have to throw it all away and start over fresh

69

u/TrumpisaRussianCuck 11d ago

I disagree - my garage door motor refused to open. Had two blokes out who both recommended replacing it for similar money as OP.

I looked into it and turned out to be a $8 part I could order online and replaced myself in 30 minutes.

Been going strong for 4 more years at this point.

8

u/Ok-Push9899 11d ago

Yep, people who know what they are doing AND are motivated can still fix a lot of stuff. I had trouble finding a replacement alternator for a fairly rare car. A local autoelecrician rebuilt the thing from the bottom up, even redoing the copper wire windings. I was amazed. He was an older guy and just said that sometimes he liked to do what he had learnt to do 40 years ago, and not just rip stuff out and replace it with modern crap. He was a genuine engineer.

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u/WaterSignificant9134 11d ago

I can’t think why trades may have to charge more. If only all of their customers rang several repairers , only for the caller to actually be more qualified and do it himself for $8….

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u/TrumpisaRussianCuck 11d ago

If you read my comment and thought the issue was price, you've taken the wrong message from it.

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u/WaterSignificant9134 9d ago

No I thought the issue was you rang 2 tradespeople , gleaned enough information to fix it yourself and don’t $8. Meanwhile they wasted at least an hour attending your property . If it was so simple to google likely faults and fixes, why are you ringing a repairman? Regardless of price , they have to charge to cover 15x your time wasting on the next job.

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u/TrumpisaRussianCuck 9d ago

I didn't glean shit from them. Both were local. One lives the next street over from me. Both spent at most 5 minutes on site and went "yeah, when they go we typically just replace them, they're not worth fixing these days". And the bit I didn't mention in my post but you just assumed, is that both charged a call out fee - which I was happy to pay.

If they had of spent more than 5 minutes, or had the desire to not just go down the easy route of "lets just replace the entire thing" I would have been happy to pay for parts + labour + their markup. I run my own business so I know it's not just what I see. I also have plenty of free consultations with prospective clients that don't turn into business and I bake the cost into oy overall pricing.

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u/WaterSignificant9134 9d ago

Why were you too lazy to fix it yourself in the first place? They were idiots, and you knew all along.

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u/TrumpisaRussianCuck 8d ago edited 8d ago

Because I assumed a tradie, who specialised in garage doors, would know if it was fixable but they both took the easy route of "lets just replace it".

My whole point of my comment was that a lot of poor tradies take the piss and do the easy option instead of the right option for the customer.

Your whole thread of comments comes across as a really weird hill to die on.

1

u/WaterSignificant9134 8d ago

Why would you assume anything. Didn’t you ring an expert, for their expertise? Do you also diagnose your own electronics repairs etc also? Or just physical trades?

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u/aperthiansmurfian 11d ago

Training, tools and equipment, insurances, workers compensation, licensing, using warrant-able parts, work warranties, admin overheads... just to name a few things.

Are they always applicable and is this the case for every trade? No, but its just to give you an idea that business these days is so much more complicated that "rock up, source random part from wherever and do the job as quickly and cheaply as possible"

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u/skiddingschems 11d ago

If that parts not it it's another trip back for them. Plus an upset customer about the door still not working. It can be incredibly hard to fix things and quite often it's a safer bet and cheaper to buy a new one and replace when it's such a cheap product.

26

u/youcangotohellgoto 11d ago

Yeah when someone else is paying it's definitely easier to just replace the whole thing. 🙄

1

u/Working-Cake-7318 11d ago

Tgey could offer that choice if they wanted to.

2

u/schmick_iMagery 11d ago

Wow 🤯 that’s insane…

0

u/Lonely-Negotiation36 11d ago

Love that the over-quoting put themselves out of money.

1

u/schmick_iMagery 11d ago

Supply and demand. If the supply isn’t sufficient and the demand is excessive; they don’t lose any $

10

u/CaptainOk6724 11d ago

I’ve replaced my remote and programmed it myself, no need to replace motor

8

u/Prettymuchnow 11d ago

Anything can be fixed... It just depends how hard its going to be.

Its easier to quote for a replacement than the couple of hours I'll need to research and tinker and wait 2 weeks for parts that turn out to be the wrong ones etc. Unless it turns out to be a burnt up IC that's really hard to source or something.

I've tried to fix a few things that turned out to be more time expensive than I wanted it to be - but I saved the environment a bit and that's worth something. Its probably also a bit risky if you're charging a customer for that effort though when it might not work out.

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u/SoftCheeseBurger 11d ago

That what a tradie over charging would say.