Best mechanics bill

[Bax]

Coming back from a recent trip to the mechanics to pick up my car, I thought I'd share my bill. And ask what the best mechanics bill you've ever had was.

Mine... 8,664 bucks. 3k labour the rest in parts. All grossly overpriced and unfair. Labour is overdone and I will be arguing it tomorrow when I go to pay.

They never cease to amaze me.

[Kikki]

I have never paid for any repair to my car, we buy parts thats it. God if my hubby charged me for labour I recon I would shoot him LOL!

They do rip people off, when we had our business we had people finding it cheaper to travel 400kms to us, pay motel accommodation and stay for 2 days while there car was repaired, 1 guy got quoted $2200 for the same job we would do for $850. Difference is most places charge between $65-$80 per hour and we charged $25 per hour, and it helped we didn't have the over heads like other companies have to worry about.

Hope you sort it out. Hubby comes home and tells me about some of the accounts where he works, and lets say yours is nothing lol.

[vlv8vic]

$2

Used to work next door to a mechanics. Knew them very well but didn't know their accounts person. Paid one of the guys one day but he didn't have the accounts handy and we didn't know exactly how much it was.
Couple weeks later i get an account for the $2 i was short when i paid what i thought it was.
Walked in (on shift) and gave them the account with the $2, they guys thought it was pretty funny, stupidest part was i got the account twice more through an 'error' which would have cost them more than the $2 i owed.

[TheForgotten]

the gardener in my unit block just paid about that for his ute. one of the things it went in for was the AC fan didn't work. i remember him saying that THEY blew the turbo on a test drive, and weren't chipping in for a replacement
I forget the list of parts they needed, but one thing they said was they needed to get a bolt from japan! in the end, the amount he had paid for a handful of second hand parts (including 1400 for a used turbo) he could have easily sourced a replacement enigne, with less k's, had in fitted by a mechanic, and had change left over

[jules]

i would never approve any work until i knew the cost. if it varies, which it often will, the mechanic should know they aren't getting a cent unless they call and get it approved with me first.

having said that, i don't go to the mechanic unless it's really necessary, and it rarely is.

[DANNY8]

If we ever take the car to a mechanic (which is unlikely) we always ask for a price first. I guess some jobs can get out of hand if something else goes wrong, but that hasn't happened to us yet.

When I was building my 173 up, the bill for that was about $900 for boring it out 130tho (to a 186), balancing up the bottom end, shaving the flywheel, shaving the head, getting the bottom end put together and a few other small bits and pieces. The guys didn't mind me paying off $100 a fortnight so that was kool, I was only on the dole at the time...so now that I got a job I spend a lot more. At the moment they're doin a little bit of work on my L300 van. I took it out to them so I could do the head gasket there (so they were there if I ran into problems), and I've pretty much finished it off but dunno where the fuel lines and vacuum lines go, and a few other small bits, so I asked them if they could finish it off.

[Spaced]

I have never paid for any repair to my car, we buy parts thats it. God if my hubby charged me for labour I recon I would shoot him LOL!

They do rip people off, when we had our business we had people finding it cheaper to travel 400kms to us, pay motel accommodation and stay for 2 days while there car was repaired, 1 guy got quoted $2200 for the same job we would do for $850. Difference is most places charge between $65-$80 per hour and we charged $25 per hour, and it helped we didn't have the over heads like other companies have to worry about.

Hope you sort it out. Hubby comes home and tells me about some of the accounts where he works, and lets say yours is nothing lol.

And that's probably to do with remote locations. Supply and demand. I know a guy who lived in Emerald and it cost him 10k to get a concrete slab layed for his driveway because that's what the going rate was.

[Spaced]

Worst quote I got is for $550 to fit front and back rotors, new front calipers and new pads. That was just labour as I supplied everything. Got a second quote was approx $200, which one do you think I went with.

I ask the first guy how much for the parts and labour and quote was close to $1800.

[Bax]

I did ask for a quote, I always do - but I'm sure every business in this town has a pact to not give out quotes. Due to not being able to quote on such a large job or some crap, I can understand where they're coming from. But I still think it's bull****. You take your best shot and go from there.

I was going to do the work myself but after 6 months of it being locked at another mechanic I decided I just wanted someone to do it for me and have it done. 7 months later here I am with this bill.

[jules]

tell them you're not giving them the job unless they quote.

that's a s***load of money. i don't mean to patronise you but i wouldn't dream of just letting someone go ahead without quoting. even if it means not getting it done at all.

[VLDavo]

what did u get done for that kinda bill

[Troy711]

my story... i had my old VS ute in for a service at one od the dealers in canberra and they decided to change a number plate bulb and charged me 15 bucks for it.

my girlfriends parents went to the local rip off merchant and bought 4 new 15 inch tyres for their car and got charged 120 bucks per corner. three weeks before i went to jax and bought exactly the same tyres for my ute (cos i had stockies on at the time) and was only charged 50 or 60 bucks each.

[jules]

my story... i had my old VS ute in for a service at one od the dealers in canberra and they decided to change a number plate bulb and charged me 15 bucks for it.

it was probably a genuine bulb

[Grennan]

Ive never been ripped off by a mechanic yet, Touch wood. The guy i usually goes to is privately run and works out of the local servo where im a regular, and where one of my best mates works in the servo... Theyve always been able to give me quotes on work and from what i can tell its reasonably priced. The last thing that got done there was my harmonic balancer which cost me 180 inc labor.

[BANKS]

I paid $570 for my last service. our family has taken our cars to the same guy for 10 years. never failed us and goes out of his way all the time.

New rear shocks (not supplied)
Front slotted discs fitted (supplied)
All brake pads changed (bendix- not supplied)
New leads and plugs (forgot the brand but they were good ones- not supplied)
Full engine, gearbox and diff service (inc filters etc)
Fixed number plate light
Fixed oil pressure guage problem
and an air freshener
washed and cleaned the inside aswell!

[Bax]

Break down of my bill is massive to be honest.

But Engine/Gearbox install. Swapped my diff over. Fitted intercooler/piping/exhaust. Fixed some wiring with my rear taillights. new headlights. front and rear glass. fixed my door lock mechanism. fitted new door locks/boot lock/ignition barrel.
new fuse rail.

basically a heap of things to get it up to roadworthy condition.

but i laugh because there are things like..
fit tailshaft - 80 dollars (1 hours labour) - who takes 1 hour to fit a tailshaft with a hoist.

i paid for 25l of fuel and dropped it around to him so he could start the car, he's charged me for that fuel @ 1.74/L

he's charged me for two lots of gearbox oil.

he's charged me for numerous MISC expenses which I'm not going to pay unless he can provide receipts.

he's charged me 490 for headlights when i wanted non genuine 170 ones.

he's charged me 860 for misc wrecker parts when you could have a whole vl for that cost.

basically i've been screwed.. i'll be doing my best to talk him down.. if he fails to drop the price im not sure what i can do.

[Reaper]

$8.5K???? WTF did you have done???? That is ***HUGE***

Reaper

[crazyspoon05]

my story... i had my old VS ute in for a service at one od the dealers in canberra and they decided to change a number plate bulb and charged me 15 bucks for it.

I had something similiar with my roadworthy, as they had the car anyway I just said to them change the globe as well, they charged me $12 for a combination stop/tail light globe

Worst mechanics bill I've had would have been the wagz first RWC quote from a large chain of service centres, was going to cost me $2800 or so to fix, went down the road to a local service centre (the one that charged me 12 bucks for the globe and it was $480 including the $70 RWC charge)

The only other large bill I've had was when I had the VB Commodore and we replaced the entire braking system with much better parts, that came to $1200 including labour

Worst bill I've heard of (and thankfully covered by warranty) was a lady bowlers 2005 Vectra on which the auto had died, $8500 to replace auto...

[MaN|aC]

Worst quote I got is for $550 to fit front and back rotors, new front calipers and new pads. That was just labour as I supplied everything. Got a second quote was approx $200, which one do you think I went with.

I ask the first guy how much for the parts and labour and quote was close to $1800.

was that Craig?

anyway ive charged you two second hand rims with tyres for your rims

[Low_VX_Taxi]

Biggest bill was for the Vr (sold now)

$1400

Second hand auto box (reco)
New ECU
All wiring from engine bay to loom
Every piece of piping in the engine bay with brand new piping
All new belts
Head crack tested and new gasket
New radiator (genuine)
Also cleaned the engine bay and cleaned and painted all the crossmembers and anything not looking 100% in the engine bay

[LeojVS]

rebuild the 5 speed and the diff due to Holden putting the wrong diff oil in, and I cannot prove who put auto tranny fliud in my manual. That was a good couple of grand.

[BANKS]

Break down of my bill is massive to be honest.

But Engine/Gearbox install. Swapped my diff over. Fitted intercooler/piping/exhaust. Fixed some wiring with my rear taillights. new headlights. front and rear glass. fixed my door lock mechanism. fitted new door locks/boot lock/ignition barrel.
new fuse rail.

basically a heap of things to get it up to roadworthy condition.

but i laugh because there are things like..
fit tailshaft - 80 dollars (1 hours labour) - who takes 1 hour to fit a tailshaft with a hoist.

i paid for 25l of fuel and dropped it around to him so he could start the car, he's charged me for that fuel @ 1.74/L

he's charged me for two lots of gearbox oil.

he's charged me for numerous MISC expenses which I'm not going to pay unless he can provide receipts.

he's charged me 490 for headlights when i wanted non genuine 170 ones.

he's charged me 860 for misc wrecker parts when you could have a whole vl for that cost.

basically i've been screwed.. i'll be doing my best to talk him down.. if he fails to drop the price im not sure what i can do.

where did you get it done?

[Bax]

A local performance workshop in Rocky. I didn't expect them to be professional, but they know vl's and what I had in the car more than anyone else I spoke too

[1991_Vn2nV]

The wreckers parts costs I can understand, a heap of things cost less brand new from Holdens than they do the wreckers. I.e. boot rods $8 each at holdens when the wreckers wanted $22 each the other day, or $400 for a sill panel when they are $140 brand new at holdens. Wreckers are a rip off unless they are a self serve wrecker.

[Bax]

It was a self serve wrecker.

But on top of the ridiculous part prices from the wreckers, I've been charged labour for the mechanic going out to get it from the car. Ridiculous really.