Privatization of Pittsburgh's repair garage hasn't saved much money or improved service, acting city Controller Tony Pokora said yesterday.

Because the city underestimated the costs of vehicle repair, it must pay $1 million more than budgeted this year, and $3.5 million more than anticipated over the following two years, he said upon release of an audit of the garage.

The privatization effort, launched by former Mayor Tom Murphy, "is a failure if we look at the numbers across the board," he said. "We're seeing problems consistent with when the city operated" the garage.

"If at the end of the day it costs us more to [pay a private vendor], then it's definitely something that we ought to seriously consider bringing back" into the city's operations, said Mayor Luke Ravenstahl.

First Vehicle Services of Cincinnati, which took over the garage from the city in February 2005, issued a 35-page rebuttal. The audit, covering the first 11 months of the company's work, comes too early to gauge performance, said Jason Stack, regional manager for the company.

Mr. Pokora said the city had expected to spend $11.7 million on vehicle repairs over the first three years of its contract with First Vehicle, but is on pace to spend around $17.1 million. He blamed Mr. Murphy's administration for low-balling costs.

He said that spending levels under First Vehicle are lower than they were when the city operated the garage.

But the city would have achieved similar savings if it kept the work in-house or contracted it out to the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, he said. That union represents mechanics and bid against the company.

First Vehicle wrote that it was wrong to assume that the city would have saved money on its own or with the union.

The contract calls for most vehicles to be repaired in 24 or 48 hours. The auditors found that one-third of the time, First Vehicle failed to meet the 48-hour threshold.

Mr. Stack said his firm had a verbal agreement with former city Director of General Services Dale Perrett to count only the 13.5 hours per day during which the garage is open against the threshold, meaning 48 hours is nearly four days.

The company keeps 91 percent of the city's 981 vehicles on the road at any given time, up from 81.5 percent when the city ran the garage, according to the rebuttal.

Mr. Pokora's auditors found that some vehicles were taken to the Strip District garage with alarming frequency.

A 2002 police car, for instance, was towed 10 times in 11 months for "general repair." Two 1989 garbage trucks were taken in a dozen times each for antifreeze refills before the underlying mechanical problems were found. And one police car required 15 tire replacements in 11 months.

First Vehicle "needs to contact its tire distributor about tire quality," the audit suggested.

"We buy only premium-grade tires," said Mr. Stack, noting that police vehicles often hit curbs and travel at high speeds.

The vast majority of vehicles were not getting enough preventive maintenance, largely because city employees failed to take them to the garage for the service, according to the audit.

City Council President Doug Shields, a longtime critic of privatization, said the city may need to renegotiate the contract.