Re: $188,000 Pickup
 

I spent a couple of years at a custom shop and I definitely charged for research. Every hour not spent repairing a vehicle represents $$ not made. Not trying to be an a$$, just had to make a minimum amount of $$ to stay afloat. But I was upfront and made sure the customer had every opportunity to do the research for me.

Of course, these days it seems like 1.5 hours of research would involve .25 hours searching forums for the answer and 1.25 hours looking at other people's builds.

Re: $188,000 Pickup
 

That truck was finished in 2017 but we have answered a door hardware question or two and they did use Altman latches. It did look like they had the wrong strikers for the door latches they had though. Maybe their research was one of those one time posters with a question that we answered and we never saw them again.

At 100 dollars an hour that tab equals 1611 hours and some minutes. or 41 weeks of 8 hour days for one person. Time wise I'd say far more hours than a couple of our members who build these trucks for a living daily would have had in in it while producing an equal or better truck.