cheaper to repair in spain

[trickydicky]

hi, we have just returned from holidaying in spain.unfortunaley, we couldn't have chosen a worse time to go (jan 4th). we arrived in dover to snow flurries and when we arrived in calais it was snowing heavily.we decided to carry on regardless, and reached le mans around 5pm,after a very slow drive.by this time the roads were treacherous and it was absolutely freezing. we had decided to stay on an aire in le mans that night (big mistake). it took us over 2hrs to travel the 2 miles through the main high street,!!!!!! to reach our destination. when we got to the aire, which was right by a river,we noticed 2 other m/h's already parked, so we decided to go for it and park alongside them. big mistake, not only were they both abandoned (we think). but the van got well and truely stuck and we spent 1 hour trying to get out, before driving straight into a concrete post (completely hidden by snow). to cut a long story short, we were eventually towed out, after another 2 hours, by a wonderful french man who owned the restaurant opposite.by now, it was 9pm, not a good start to our holiday. (only our second trip in our new m/h). with nowhere to park now, we carried on driving, very slowly, until at midnight,we pulled over in desperation, in front of a chemist and slept there. we were exhausted, it had been a very long day.the next morning, we assessed the damage to the van.it was pretty bad, the whole lower section of the front bumper needed replacing.when we finally arrived in spain, (after another 2 days of awful weather)we decided to see how much it would cost to have the repair done at the fiat garage in alicante. as most of you will agree, it isn't worth claiming on your insurance, you just get hammered the following year. a new bumper, paint job, (bumpers only come in black apparently)and labour cost us 370e, against about £500 in this country.so we went for it and had the job done. even with the low pound, it was quite a saving. thought i'd share this with you all in case anyone else finds themselves in a similar position.

[derek500]

Excellent news. That's only £250 at my 2003 exchange rate.

 

I've said on here a couple of times that Spain is so much cheaper than the UK for servicing.

 

My Fiat dealer charges 32€ + IVA (16%) per hour for labour.

 

Parts are cheaper as well. A broken rear view mirror was 23€ here compared to £65 in the UK!!

[ike]

A few years ago our van got stuck in second gear. We drove ,very slowly, to a little repair garage in El Campello not far from Alicante. An hour or so later the owner brought out a few chairs and I thought "here we go" we're in for a long negotiation about the cost. Silly me, the chairs were for their lunch break. We were charged 20 euros (£12) at that time. Well pleased. Last year we had to have a new ABS cable fitted whilst in a little village in France. The garage owner came to where we were camped to check out what was needed. A couple of days later the part arrived and was fitted. That took about 50 minutes labour. We were charged for 30 minutes. And their hourly rate was about half what we get charged here!

ike

[enodreven]

Hi,

 

A lot of the charges are due to overheads and the main one is the cost of the buildings, as we all want our houses to be worth more so are business premises and that's where a large proportion of the charge is taken, obviously property in France and Spain are a lot lower.

[BGD]

braunston - 2009-03-16 8:05 PM

 

Hi,

 

A lot of the charges are due to overheads and the main one is the cost of the buildings, as we all want our houses to be worth more so are business premises and that's where a large proportion of the charge is taken, obviously property in France and Spain are a lot lower.

 

 

 

I think that's certainly a part of the story....commercial premises leases here in Spain seem generally to be a lot lower than for comparable premises in the UK.

 

But most other business operating costs are also significantly lower here too:

Business rates (local council taxes) on those premises.

Electricity.

Water.

Labour costs...both in terms of actual euros per hour paid to employees, and also the Social Security payments the employer has also to pay on top of those wages paid out.

Corporation tax on trading profits.

The rates of VAT (called "IVA" in Spain) is also only 16% maximum, and this top rate is charged on many fewer things than in the UK.....other things get VAT added at 7%, and lots of stuff doesn't get VAT charged on it at all.

 

So in the end, the company can charge less and still make the asme net profit or return on capital because both it's direct (variable) costs and indirect costs are significantly lower than if operating the same business in the UK.

Form memory, Caravanas Ferrero (a biggish MH and caravan dealer and service/repair place just on the northern outskirts of Alicante) charges an official labour rate of €30 per hour. (But if the fitters ain't busy, a directly agreed cash-in-hand deal with one of them is always a good possibility there, if you speak Spanish).

 

 

 

Against that however, is the fact that there are only about 44 million people in Spain compared to maybe 68 million in Britain, and Spain is a BIG country (maybe 5 times bigger in area than Britain). So there are fewer concentrations of people/possible customers in any given local area.

 

Also because average individual incomes and wealth levels in Spain are much lower than in Britain, my guess is that there are proportionally far fewer owners of Motorhomes here in Spain than in Britain.

(But on the Costas at least, there seem to be massive numbers of French, British, German, Dutch etc MH's roaming around, so maybe that's where the extra customers come from to support the MH Dealers and repairers dotted around in this region).