Getting Charged Too Much For Repairs?

[MrAl]

Hello,

I had a problem with my car brought it to a garage.
He said 'diagnostics' $68 to $399.
After a couple days, he says he replaced battery and some hoses and cleaned some stuff and the car was running good
so they were going to drive the car to get the monitors to become ready. He said total cost would be $1400.00 USD.
Some of the stuff he quoted i believed had to be done so i agreed.

Later that day he calls back and says that they took it for a ride and all of a sudden it acted like it was going to stall out again.
He also said "black smoke' came out of the exhaust. Hd said total cost would now be $2800.00 USD. That's another 1400.

There were two parts he quoted at about $500 dollars each. One was a "mass air flow sensor". I checked online and the highest price i can find there is about $300 for a genuine Volvo part.

So what do you think about this. Does that sound like a reasonable price for that part and what do you think about the total price?

Thanks.

[cn90]

MAF for 1998 S70 is about $130-$150 or so.
Easy 5 min job.
Don't lose the big O-ring.

FCPEuro lists Bremi as $132. Somehow the Bosch (original mfg) MAF is not available on FCP website.

PS: Bremi has a very good name...

[manovlov]

It's time to change garage...

All maintenance operations you may have a look at are easy DIY ones . You won't miss advice from the MVS teams. Pick up you car back and give us some information about issues for ones we could help you.

I'm also a bit surprised : in general, to paint the hole car generally solves all issues... Curious that your mechanics didn't propose you this option...

[scot850]

Bosch no longer supplies the P80 MAF. So another part goes NLA. The only place you can buy it new is actually from Volvo. I bought one just about 4 weeks ago and the cheapest I could find it was around $380 CDN, but the regular price was closer to $430 CDN. Strangely I have recently found most prices in Canada for OE parts are the same as US in $ amount, but then $1 US = $1.25 CDN
Volvo parts webstore has it for $290 US.

Have you used this repair shop before and have they been reliable? Without knowing the detail of the issue you were having and what they are charging for it is hard to say if they are overcharging or not. Not sure why a battery was needed or pipes then that leads to black smoke and rough running.

What were the symptoms that needed the car to go to the repair shop in the first place?

Neil.

[abscate]

Usually you pay a small retail markup on parts and the shop runs on labor. They don’t pay retail on parts so the markup helps covers their costs. Throwing a MAF at a poor running car doesn’t speak well to their diagnostic ability


It’s less a case of charging too much as charging to guess and fire the parts cannon. No one can afford that. For $150 an hour a garage should be able to give you a working car back on a good estimate. When I do get a car in with black rotor and cap, I won’t start working on it until these parts are brought back to stage zero so I’m not chasing multiple marginal parts. That’s minimal labor and stuff that needs to be right

Can you wait a week or two ? I’m swing down through Jersey on a trip and can stop in. I think I have used but good parts for diagnostics.

Cap, rotor, plugs, plug wires, clean IAC, clean throttle body.

[MrAl]

Usually you pay a small retail markup on parts and the shop runs on labor. They don’t pay retail on parts so the markup helps covers their costs. Throwing a MAF at a poor running car doesn’t speak well to their diagnostic ability


It’s less a case of charging too much as charging to guess and fire the parts cannon. No one can afford that. For $150 an hour a garage should be able to give you a working car back on a good estimate. When I do get a car in with black rotor and cap, I won’t start working on it until these parts are brought back to stage zero so I’m not chasing multiple marginal parts. That’s minimal labor and stuff that needs to be right

Can you wait a week or two ? I’m swing down through Jersey on a trip and can stop in. I think I have used but good parts for diagnostics.

Cap, rotor, plugs, plug wires, clean IAC, clean throttle body.

Well that's extremely good of you Steve very thankful.
They did clean the throttle body that was one of the first things that helped run it up to the initial $1400. There was a lot more little things too though some of which i knew about like the evap code coming up after many miles, then id have to reset the monitors and wait for them to go ready again. Those times were times when i had months and months before another inspection date though. This time it's a little close next month.

Ok so from the other posts too he must be charging an extra $100 for each part. Not sure if that's reasonable or not that's about 25 percent markup, but it is kinda hard to say it's too much too. Maybe 20 percent but then again we always want a lower cost.

Yeah i know what you mean about an estimate what happened here is things went 'wrong' and so he said he had to do more work on it. But i did tell him the 2800 was the cap, i cant go any higher i have cataract surgery next month and so some money is going out for that and i cant put it off i put if off too long already.

If you do want to stop by in a week or so that would be cool you can maybe take a look at the car and see what you think. You dont have to do any work though
If so maybe if you have time we can run for some lunch we have Burger King and McD's and a decent restaurant within about 1 mile. I'll pay for lunch or breakfast depending on what time you get here. You'll have to let me know a day ahead of time if you can that would be better so i can make sure i am here and awake

What do you mean by parts for diagnostics? is that the rotor or something? He did say it needed a tuneup but i opted out because of the steep price already.

If you decide to stop over i'll give you my cell number so you can text me any info you need to. I find that is the fastest way to communicate and i usually check my phone a lot unlike my email. Sometimes i find it better than talking on the phone

Ok welkl thanks again and take care for now,
Al

Im going to reply to the other posts now they were nice enough to reply too very grateful.

[MrAl]

Bosch no longer supplies the P80 MAF. So another part goes NLA. The only place you can buy it new is actually from Volvo. I bought one just about 4 weeks ago and the cheapest I could find it was around $380 CDN, but the regular price was closer to $430 CDN. Strangely I have recently found most prices in Canada for OE parts are the same as US in $ amount, but then $1 US = $1.25 CDN
Volvo parts webstore has it for $290 US.

Have you used this repair shop before and have they been reliable? Without knowing the detail of the issue you were having and what they are charging for it is hard to say if they are overcharging or not. Not sure why a battery was needed or pipes then that leads to black smoke and rough running.

What were the symptoms that needed the car to go to the repair shop in the first place?

Neil.

Oh ok thanks, so it sounds like he's upping by about $100 USD. That's about 25 percent.
But i didnt like the surprise of another 1400 when he said it was running fine before that.
Also, he installed an AC Delco battery instead of suggesting i get a new Interstate battery which i can get brand new under warrenty from the other garage about 1/2 mile from here.

Thanks again for the info.

[MrAl]

It's time to change garage...

All maintenance operations you may have a look at are easy DIY ones . You won't miss advice from the MVS teams. Pick up you car back and give us some information about issues for ones we could help you.

I'm also a bit surprised : in general, to paint the hole car generally solves all issues... Curious that your mechanics didn't propose you this option...

Hi there,

Well the main issue was it was stalling after warm up. Then the battery went dead unexpectedly. So i had to get a jump two times to get to the place. It was nuts, but not as nuts as 2800 dollars.
Oh and plus i had to get the monitors to go ready there were 6 that needed that (but 4 may work too).

[MrAl]

MAF for 1998 S70 is about $130-$150 or so.
Easy 5 min job.
Don't lose the big O-ring.

FCPEuro lists Bremi as $132. Somehow the Bosch (original mfg) MAF is not available on FCP website.

PS: Bremi has a very good name...

Oh really? That's a lot lower for sure. He said he cant guarantee it though with cheaper parts.
That's a problem too.

[abscate]

You also need to buy direct from FCP to get the lifetime warranty. The garage will want wholesale in which case they don’t get lifetime warranty.