Stam- it's just part of doing business. Not only does upper management want the service techs to repair the lifts so the customers are happy, but to sell parts for added income.

@Raytech- thanks for the explanation of your parts/labor ratio- makes perfect sense. I was afraid that you were responsible for upselling parts that weren't needed just for profit. It does sound though that stam is being pressured to upsell parts that may not be needed- there are 2 choices that we as tech's have at our disposal that maybe stam needs to think about-

situation-1) a propane regualator on a FT hyster- to just replace one that's malfunctioning costs the customer around $600-700 bucks & about 2 hours on site for the relacement. Combine those costs with travel/destination/ fuel & the invoice would be in excess of 1000 dollars, but the unit would only be down for maybe 2 hours.

situation-2) the same regulator can be rebuilt. The rebuild kit is around $100 bucks, but the lift would be down probably 4 hours. Although the invoice would be less, the prolonged downtime may not be favorable for either the customer or the dealer.

I don't know if the dealers in my area advise the techs to replace whole assy's rather than indivual peices in an assy, but replacement of whole assy's seems to be the norm around here. I always ask a new customer which is more important to their business, decreased costs or decreased downtime. You never know what's inportant to them until you ask.