Sublet repair

A sublet repair is work a shop sends to an outside vendor and then bills to the customer on the shop's own repair order. The machine shop, the driveline shop and the transmission builder never meet the customer. The shop stands in front of all of them, which is the part that decides how sublet should be priced.

What kinds of work get sublet?

Whatever needs a machine, a certification or a specialist the shop does not keep. Cylinder head resurfacing and pressure testing. Crankshaft grinding. Driveshaft balancing. Injector pop testing and rebuild. Turbo rebuilds, radiator recores, glass, upholstery, mobile welding, key programming and heavy-truck alignment all show up on sublet lines in independent shops.

Diesel work drags more of it in than gas work does. A head that goes out for magnafluxing and resurfacing sits on somebody else's schedule while the truck holds space in your lot, and a DPF sent out for cleaning follows the same pattern. Get the vendor's turnaround in writing before anybody promises a date.

How does a sublet line get priced?

Vendor cost plus a markup, on its own line, with the shop's own removal and reinstall labor billed separately at the shop's labor rate. Those two halves get confused constantly. The vendor's invoice covers what the vendor did to the component. The remove and replace time to get the component off the vehicle and back on it is your technician on your lift, and it prices like any other labor operation.

Shops that pass sublet through at cost are subsidizing the vendor with their own overhead. Scheduling, transport, the follow-up call and the risk of the vendor being late are all shop costs that show up nowhere. Whatever markup you settle on, apply it the same way every time so the number is defensible when a customer asks why the machine shop invoice they found online reads differently.

The number you quoted is the number you are held to once the estimate is out, and a vendor bill that lands higher than the quote is the shop's problem. California states it directly: no charge may be made "for work done or parts supplied in excess of the estimated price" without the customer's consent, taken after the shortfall is known and before the work is done. A head that goes out for a resurface and comes back needing a valve job is that call. Make it while the head is still on the bench at the machine shop, because the same call after the head is back on the engine is a much harder conversation.

Who carries the warranty?

You do. The customer bought a repair from your shop and your name is on the document, so the comeback lands in your bay whether the failure was your work or the builder's. That is the argument for a written agreement with every sublet vendor covering their warranty term, what voids it and how a claim gets paid.

Get the vendor's paperwork onto the repair order as well. When a rebuilt transmission fails in month five, the claim moves fast if the ticket already carries the builder's invoice number and warranty terms, and it stalls for a week if somebody has to go digging through email.

California says out loud what a customer assumes. The repair dealer is answerable for outside service "in the same manner as if the dealer or his or her employees had done the service", so the builder's warranty is a document the shop needs for its own protection. A vendor who will not put one in writing has told you something about how the claim will go.

Check that the vendor is entitled to do the work at all. The machine shop that resurfaces your heads is performing automotive repair under your invoice, and California makes it "unlawful for any person to be an automotive repair dealer" without a registration that is currently valid. Ask for the registration number once and file it with the warranty terms. It costs a phone call now and answers a question you do not want to be researching while a customer waits on a claim.

Where does sublet leak money?

Four places, and they all look small until you add a year of them together. Labor that never got billed because only the vendor invoice made it onto the ticket. Markup skipped on a job somebody was in a hurry to close. Sublet cost posted into the parts account, which quietly drags reported parts margin down and sends an owner hunting for a problem in the parts department that does not exist there. And the vendor invoice that arrives after the ticket closed.

The timing one hurts twice. While the component is out, the ticket stays open and the vehicle stays in the lot, so the job counts as work in progress with your money already in it. Cycle time on a sublet job belongs to somebody else's schedule, which is the honest reason to quote a longer promise date on anything going out the door.

How should sublet appear on the estimate?

As its own visible line with a plain description of what is being sent out. Customers accept sublet without much argument when they understand it, because most people know a machine shop exists. What they will not accept is discovering it after the fact, on a vehicle that sat with no explanation attached to the delay.

California names sublet on the estimate itself. A repair dealer "shall include with the written estimated price a statement of any automotive repair service that, if required to be done, will be done by someone other than the dealer or his or her employees", and nothing goes out to a vendor without the customer's consent unless the customer cannot reasonably be notified. The invoice rules point the same way, requiring that "all work done by an automotive repair dealer, including all warranty work, shall be recorded on an invoice and shall describe all service work done and parts supplied", with service work and parts listed and subtotalled separately. A sublet line described as "sublet" describes nothing, which is how a compliant invoice and an unreadable one end up being the same piece of paper.

Naming it on the estimate also sets up the promise date conversation before the customer builds an expectation nobody can meet. That single line is worth more than the markup on it.

Name the kind of vendor as well as the work. A customer who hears the head is going out to a machine shop understands the delay, where a line reading sublet explains nothing and invites the question anyway.

Back to the glossary, or read how an estimate gets priced.