“When you go to the grocery store, they don’t put a notice on the milk carton that it’s 40 cents higher—that’s just the price. You can decide whether or not you want to buy it.”
Danielle Vila vividly recalls hearing this quote during a work convention during her career as a hairdresser. It stuck with her, and she’s found that the hair world and the auto world are actually very similar when it comes to navigating pricing.
Do you want to be a cheap hairdresser or a quality hairdresser? The same can be said of auto repair, Vila says.
When she and her now ex-husband took on an auto repair shop, it was overwhelming, and they felt like they were drowning financially. However, they were nervous to raise their labor rate because—like most—they were concerned that it would scare customers away. However, when they began to look at it from the approach of “that’s just the price,” they were able to successfully raise the labor rate every year while retaining customers.
“We question it because we’re on the inside,” Vila says of how scary it can be to raise your prices. “But the customer doesn’t notice a $5 increase on a $250 repair.”
When they purchased the Red Rock Repair in Las Vegas, the labor rate was $125 and when she sold her shop in September 2025, it sat at $199.99 for non-diesel and $235 for diesel.
Backstory:
Vila moved with her then-husband from San Francisco to Las Vegas when she grew tired of doing hair. The duo made the decision to go into business together and chose auto repair—as her ex was mechanically inclined. They found a shop in an auto repair complex in an affluent part of Las Vegas.
“We had drive and audacious ignorance,” Vila laughs of their decision to purchase the shop.
The owner was 80 years old and ready to retire and she says on paper, it was great. At the end of day one, she says she felt like she had made one of the biggest mistakes of her life.
Problem:
Her ex-husband had some experience working at an auto parts shop and knew the basics of how the industry was supposed to run. For her part, Vila’s business experience was owning her own chair for hairdressing. But they didn’t understand profit and loss or effective labor rate, and their overhead was extremely high. The rent was $20,000 per month for the 5,000-square-foot business and the weight of the financial stress made Vila feel like they were drowning.
Solution:
When Vila started working with Elite Worldwide, the couple began to understand that they wouldn’t make money if they did not raise their labor rate. Within the first month of the partnership, Vila says they raised the labor rate from $125 to $140 and continued to make some bigger jumps in the first few years to accommodate for their lack of price increases. In 2025, she notes, they calculated the new labor rate based on the cost of living in the U.S.
How are they able to do this without scaring customers? It’s simple. They don’t highlight it. They’re not hiding it by any means, but just like the cost of milk, it’s simply what it costs. It’s up to the customers to decide whether or not they want to buy it.
“I don’t think anyone is ignorant of the cost of living and how much more expensive everything is,” Vila says.
If customers do question it, taking a few minutes to explain that techs supply their own tools helps them understand why a cost-of-living increase is necessary. Vila adds that they justify their higher labor rate by providing quality service as well as value for services they offer that their competitors do not, such as vehicle inspections, which they offered before anyone else in their auto repair complex.
Aftermath:
Vila admits that when they first took over and were considering the increase in labor rate, they were worried about losing customers. In the end, she says that the impact was minimal and if they did lose customers, they probably weren’t the clientele that they wanted in the first place.
“It’s small enough that the customers don’t really notice or care that much,” she points out.
She adds that as long as you’re upfront and there’s no surprises, customers generally understand.
“If it’s handled respectfully toward the customer, they feel in control of the situation,” Vila says.
It took roughly four years after taking over the shop to turn a profit, Vila says, and part of the reason they were able to do so was because of the labor rate increase; but it was just one part of a very complicated puzzle.
“The whole conversation around profitability is so complicated because there are so many factors,” Vila says. “You need to charge what you need to stay open because you’re no good to your customers if you’re not open and you need to be able to pay your employees.”
Takeaway:
For those who are worried about losing customers because of an increased labor rate, Vila says to give your customers the benefit of the doubt.
“They’re your customers because they trust you and they want you to stay open,” she notes.
After all, a car is at the center of most people’s lives. It’s how they get to and from the people and places most important to them. And they take comfort in seeing familiar faces when they drop their vehicle off and know that it’s in good hands. That employee retention can only occur when shop owners take care of them.
And similar to your employees, what matters most to customers is not a slight increase in your labor rate but trusting that their vehicle is safe and that you took care of them.
As for advice from Vila for those who are scared, she encourages you not to lead with fear.
“You’re taking care of business and your employees,” she asserts. “You’re not taking advantage.”
