Is this an unreasonable price?

You could also show him how to do the work (have him work with you once) as brakes are not that difficult. Perhaps if he understood what is involved he'd understand your POV?

Otherwise as suggested above, probably time to have him figure it out for himself.

Work and friendships is tough, no doubt.

Just be glad it's not a Porsche or Corvette. Sucks to be me when the parents want work done on their cars for free. Just spent over $300 doing my mom's front brakes :(

Yeah, but you love your mommy. :p

Next time, tell him you want $50 for labor, and he pays for parts. That way you haven't shorted yourself on the "up front" $100 that he thought it would cost him.

I'd bet he is more upset that you said $100 and then wanted $20 more later, than if he just paid $120 up front.

And $50 labor is pretty reasonable.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jba3

Next time, tell him you want $50 for labor, and he pays for parts. That way you haven't shorted yourself on the "up front" $100 that he thought it would cost him.

I'd bet he is more upset that you said $100 and then wanted $20 more later, than if he just paid $120 up front.

And $50 labor is pretty reasonable.

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That's the thing, I never told him it would be $100. He handed me a $100 bill and told me that should cover the parts to do the job... He must have just assumed that I would accept the remainder as the labor.

tell him to take a hike. $10/hr on book time is more than fair.

He's no friend of yours dude. You would not believe the amount of free work I have done for friends. These days I dont care to do much of anything for free unless its a back and forth deal where they help me. The hard part with that is my friends never get the opportunity to help me as I do everything alone, which is how I like it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by x2xtreme360

That's the thing, I never told him it would be $100. He handed me a $100 bill and told me that should cover the parts to do the job... He must have just assumed that I would accept the remainder as the labor.

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In that case, I'd re-evaluate the "friend" label, unless he does lots of things for you cheap/free too, or you just want the practice. Or if he controls your internet access at work. :lol:

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Originally Posted by kywhitelightning

Friends and family are typically horrible customers as they feel they "deserve a little break". Something for nothing is what I like to call it. Give him his parts and move on. You're not the bad guy at all for that and he'll get the satisfaction of spending the additional $$ on the specialized experience at the other shop and hopefully in the end learn to appreciate your work done at a very reasonable rate. Good luck to you as there are plenty of other great customers out there that really appreciate the "little guy" making side money on the weekends.

Jeff

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This. I used to work on a friend's car all the time. One time he asked me to replace the brakes for the entire vehicle. After hours of work, I got a six pack of Natural Light. I have no problem helping others out but that was a slap in the face. I've since declined on every job since then which leads to his frustration, an attempt to fix it on his own, realizing he can't, then calling over a family member who is moderately mechanically inclined.

I think the main problem with a lot of people as far as things like this go is they simply don't care to take the time to learn and do it themselves when they have someone they can have do it for them over and over. These same people also get really pissy when you start to ask for something in return for helping them out... I learned awhile back the fastest way to get people to stop asking you for help on things is to ask them for money lol. I started doing that with pc related things (troubleshooting, virus removal, hardware replacement, etc) and people finally got the idea that I actually value my time in the day...

You'd think with infinite knowledge on the internet far more people would be DIY'ers by now.