As a former commercial mechanic myself. i was reading commercail motor last night and was looking at the company down south who started up from working as mechanics with a heavy hauler.
Im looking to find out, whats the mechanics rate just now? call-out rates? any other rates?
Im only interested as i might be looking to go back to my trade in the near future
this all depends on various things,
do/will you have a workshop? or work from a van?
what special equipment will you have?
Main dealers in my area charge £75ph
a local garage charges me £35ph
man in a van would charge approx £25ph
call out fees are dependant on time and distance having to travel
DafAid charge £118 normal hours and £128 out of hours, for this, you get the first hour of labour included (but, this includes the time to travel to you 
)
don’t know what other garages/man in van will charge as call out, i’ve never used them for that service.
My son is a car light commercial mechanic/MOT tester for a large company, he gets £10.50 an hour, LGV lads are on £12.00.
My Brother in law is a mechanic with a large bus company, he does both day and night shifts at around £8 per hour. It probably depends on the location as well, I was an HGV mechanic but because I was working in quarries then the rate was a lot less than in the retail side.
Pete.
shuttlespanker:
this all depends on various things,do/will you have a workshop? or work from a van?
what special equipment will you have?
Main dealers in my area charge £75ph
a local garage charges me £35ph
man in a van would charge approx £25phcall out fees are dependant on time and distance having to travel
DafAid charge £118 normal hours and £128 out of hours, for this, you get the first hour of labour included (but, this includes the time to travel to you
don’t know what other garages/man in van will charge as call out, i’ve never used them for that service.
thanks shuttle thats what i needed to know, it would be mobile if i did it for a while. no point in mega overheads if im only doing a couple of vehicles
We charge £30 an hour for doing outside maintainence or repairs.
Most of the outside work that I do is for a local haulier who has his inspections and servicing done at the local DAF dealership, leaving us to do stuff like fitting tipping gear, discs &pads, clutches, light bars etc because our labour is so much cheaper.
I like doing other peoples kit because it is normally newer than our own stuff… 
If I was doing for myself I would go mobile too. You could kit yourself out with a good van and some kit for not a lot of money. My gaffer tells me he would be looking for about a grand a month for the workshop that I work in if he was to rent it out!