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Found out my mechanic bills labor at $145 an hour, so I did the math on my own oil changes
I was sitting in the waiting room at a shop off Wornall Road in Kansas City last month and happened to glance at the labor rate sign on the wall. $145 an hour. I knew shop rates had gone up but seeing that number hit me different, mostly because I've been patting myself on the back for years about doing my own oil changes at home. So I did the actual math when I got back to my garage. The oil and filter for my truck runs me about $38, and the whole thing takes me maybe 45 minutes start to finish including getting the ramps out and cleaning up. At $145 an hour my 45 minutes is worth roughly $109, which sounds great until I subtract the $38 in parts and realize my real savings is $71 per change. Then I factored in the four changes a year I do and it comes out to about $284 annually. Not nothing, but way less than the $600-ish I'd been telling myself I was saving. The part that really got me was when I added up what I spent on ramps, a drain pan, gloves, and the two trips to AutoZone for the wrong filter size. That first year I probably barely broke even. Curious if other folks have done the real math on their DIY jobs, because I think a lot of us are grading our own homework on the savings.
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