My son's truck is getting serviced by a local repair shop. When the owner went over the work and parts it needed he gave me a $400 price on one of the needed parts. I searched around and found I could buy the exact same part for $200 (even cheaper if I went with an off brand). So the mechanic is tacking on a 100% fee for supplying the part. I called him back to discuss this and he acted like "duh, of course we charge for parts." I expect to pay them for the service of handling parts but didn't think it was that much so I did some googling to see what standard fees were and turns out 100-300% tack-on for parts is normal. I guess I'm naïve to it because in my line of work any pass through fee over 15% is not allowed by the government. Sure seems excessive. I'd rather pay a higher hourly shop rate than get gouged for parts. I look forward to the day I have the time to do my own maintenance, or better yet, own brand new vehicles all the time.
Rant over.
Rant over.