fuel pump rip off

[rockcrawler31]

so i just had my injector pump overhauled, because the fuel companies have been steadily sneakily reducing the amount of sulfur in the fuel and it leaked like a sieve

was charged 1500 dollars to get pump rebuilt, and 6 hours labour for remove and refit costs at 70 bucks an hour.

70 bucks an hour!!!! christ, that's daylight robbery!! is that normal? what are you being charged for tradesmans prices around the place

and then found out that when they send the pump away to get rebuilt the mechanics then charge an amount on top of what the diesel pump specialists charge for the rebuild. so instead of getting charged for the costs of parts they then add their own costs? sounds like free easy money to me. When i asked for a copy of the subbed out receipt, he refused to tell me what the original cost was, and tried to tell me a sob story about how workshops can't survive on labour charges alone. At 70 bucks an hour i find that very hard to believe.

they reckoned that it took an hour to get the pump out and 5.5 hours to get back in and adjust. doesn't sound right to me, do you reckon it takes 5.5 hours to refit a fuel pump?

gonna be sending this bastard a nasty gram in the mail and let him know what i think of him and mechanics in general.

My rant for the day

MILO

P.S. in light of all of the above, i would prefer to remove my injectors my self in a few weeks to get them serviced. how hard is it to refit these properly and what tips do you have

[plowy]

how much do u think it should of cost ?

how long would it have taken you n would it have been done right?

havin the pump transported to the pump shop cost money and if the mechanic had to pay for everything he would not have a buisness and you would not have a mechanic to take it too

60 to 70 bucks n hour is a about right these days you would not like to own a prestiege vechile then the price is around 90 plus in the city

what kind of buisness r you in and have a close look at what how youre company makes the customer pay for all the runnin around


and now youre askin how to do the injectors

[giantracing]

people like you s**t me. it is ok to bag mechanics untill you need some thing done again. for a start what car do you have. what did he replace in the pump. most of the time it destroys the rotor and housing in the pump. where it can cost 300-500 just for these parts. as for labour it does take longer to put s**t back together. i hope you brake down one day, and he passes you by. dont bag some ones work you should of got a approx price, then called around. learn by this.

[rockcrawler31]

first of all, i did get an approximation of costs, and i have always known that it costs a bit and is quite involved in the actual rebuild of the pump.

my gripe is when the workshop that the vehicle is at, then charges a premium on top of the works cost of the sublet work. this is the free money i am talking about.

i already knew the cost of the freight, and it was fairly insubstantial anyway.

if labour is 90 bucks an hour in some places then fair enough, but it's not exactly a prestige vehicle either, it's a toymota. I am a directional driller/engineer inthe oil and gas industry, and even i don't charge half of 70 bucks an hour to my employer/clients. I also havn't paid for work to be done in a while so the amount came as a shock. I also asked for an estimation of time to get the job done, and about 3 or 4 hours on the outside was the answer, not 6.5 hours

I knew that the job would be well over a grand, but 1850 in total?? before i go and pay who knows how much for injectors too??

however, in deference i will consider myself flamed and put back in my place

MILO

[Daisy]

if it grieves you so much on the charges they put out.

then do it yourself like most people i know.

invest in some tools and some time aside to do the job yourself.

remove the pump.. presto... labour costs saved.. 70 bux an hour charged to yourself for number of hours to do job... overall cost $0 . Experience gained - heaps.

send pump to a shop to do the job for you woudl have ended up costing less than the overall cost.

to do injectors - fairly easy.. buy yourself a copy of gregorys.

One thing to mention.

Sure you paid a fair price of 1850 dollars for the whole kebang.. would you rather pay that much.. or pay say... 1000 which is really cheap for some dodgy mechanic to touch your car and probalby mis-time your pump and perhaps cause further problems and time down the run for you.

Sometimes its worth paying more at the end to get the job done properly and for once and all.

TOM

[CHILLI 2]

I'm a mechanic and agree it sounds a little unusual that it's taken 4 times as long to refit but sometimes it can be hard to refit lines etc,remember that being in the trade your mechanic would be supplied the pump at a reduced cost allowing some sort of mark up for his trouble if you were to go straight to the source you would probly pay the same price anyway.Also remember he has overheads to cover i'm sure his landlord doesn't reduce his rent because he reduced the price of a pump for you !!!!

[Bad JuJu]

How many kms on vehicle ??

I have a 2003 3.0TD Nissan and have been told that most places cant service the pump on those.
The next gen 6 cyl Nissan Diesel is going to have the same pump.

A new one is apparently 6000, or rebuilt by the few places that can work on them is 3000-4500 plus fitting.

Mine was just replaced under warantee, along with Airflow meter and other induction gizmos even though there was probably nothing was wrong with it, I just complained of really bad economy and let them do their thing.

Dude I think it could have been worse.

[oozuk]

dude!! take a step back and look at what your saying!!
For starters thats a pretty standard labour rate (we charge $66 pr hr)
I completely agree with what giant racing said, It's easy to dissamble something any monkey could do it (even you) Thats why it was done so quick.

BUT it's the care and presizion that the mechanic takes in setting everything up correctily the first time so your 4wd runs prefectily 1st time
AND THATS WHAT TAKES THE TIME

and if your not happy with that then do it yourself and screw it up tring to save a few dollars and when you have to come back to us mechanics EXPECT A BIGGER BILL !!!

99% of mechanics out there and on this board will agree with me (and there's heaps on OL so be careful what you say)

if you cant afford to maintain a vehicle then WALK

Maby the best thing to do would of been to is to disscuss it with your mechanic and work something out

and not come on here and voice you negitive opnions like a dick that you've been

i feel better now

[ozy1]

dont forget, that paying a good mechanic to set up your injector pump is money well spent, as incorreclt adjusted could cost you an engine rebuild, dont forget, what you paid should also cover some warrenty,

[Doggy]

I have to rant as well....$60 - $70 bucks is around what most tradies work at per hour. Im a sparky and the company I work for charge out at $70/ hour. You have to remember that out of that money the company has to pay office peoples wages (if they have them), rent for the workshop if they dont own it, insurance costs and numerous other things. Like the others said if you dont like the cost....do it yourself.
I myself dont have the time to do the big work on my shorty so I quite happily take it to oozuk and his w/shop because I am usually flat out with my own work. I dont mind paying that price cuz they do good work and the chances of it being farked up have lowered severely with me not being near it .
Just bearing in mind if you do it yourself and screw it, it could cost you more in the long run.
For example: I was on call for emergencies a couple of weeks ago... friday arvo and a guy rings me saying hes got no power. I go to his place to discover he tried to wire up his own stove top/oven and did it incorrectly. The result being he took out the fuse to his place up at the power pole, I went to replace it only to find that the fuse holder has shat itself as well and I couldnt do anything about it so I had to call energex and explain the circumstances to them.
End result being that his fark up cost him around 5 times as much as it would have if he'd called us during the day for us to hook it up in the first place and I got a good pay packet that week


Hmmmm come to think of it....wire up your own shite then I can come and fix it and rake in the money

[giantracing]

ok. me doing this for a living i would charge you $77 per injector plus $66 per hour for 3 hours. reason being i would re do your pump timing and change your fuel filter , if it has not already been done. thank you....


if you are going to do this your self, be careful make sure you use 2 spanners to undo the injector pipes or you will screw the pipes around and f**k them ok.

[CRUSHU]

I charge my mechanics out at $98 per hour, which is pretty cheap.

Sublets and parts always have a surcharge added. We get them at trade price, and if we feel nice, we only charge you recommended retail. If we don't feel nice, we charge you what we think retail should be.

There is no such thing as free money.

What do you do for a living? A volunteer at St Vinnies?

[rockcrawler31]

hmmm. fair enough.

i have had plenty of automotive tradespersons do work for me for greatly reduced price through work, and got a bit of a rude shock at real world prices. There have also been a few guys around town who have done work for beer, so i'll be big enough to eat my hat and words.

in my defence however, my father and i have had a family cabinetmaking shop business for some years, and we have only ever quoted for our own labour, COST price of materials and COST price of sublet assemblies. While we don't have staff, or much of a premises, he has always been able to make a fair margin on way less than 70 bucks an hour.

Further to that, remember we can't all be experts at every trade under the sun, and joe public gets sick of being stung extra just because we didn't decide to go to trade college and become a mechanic/plumber/sparky.

You all like to tell us that we should get in and have a go at learning to do it ourselves, but when we do, and inevitably stuff it up from time to time, all we get from qualified tradespersons is smirks and remarks about how we should have just taken it to them.

Of course having said that, i would agree with the sparky and not work on power. sounds kinda dangerous.

[rockcrawler31]

i'd also like to note that i was obviously unaware that this is the national norm.

quote"70 bucks an hour!!!! christ, that's daylight robbery!! is that normal? what are you being charged for tradesmans prices around the place "unquote

[blkmav]

When I was doing IT Consulting I was being charged out at $275/hr

[Bluey]

I'm still classified as trainee technical officer, $105/hr.



as for paying people to work on my car, I do as much as possible to save me money but the real complex/technical things I will pay for. and gladly pay for it to work straight up

[CRUSHU]

i think it is different if you make something from scratch, rather than diagnosing, and replacing what is already there.

so if you had to repair a kitchen cupboard door, and it cost you $15, and retailed for $20, you would still charge $15 for the door, and 20 mins labour?

[Boopa]

....another thing to remember is that your mechanic...midle guy in the "pump dude v's you relationaship" is taking ownership for the whole project. If the pump rebuild goes bad, you're gunna go to the middle guy, and he's got to allow for the law of averages these thing happen.
I was a project manager in the print industry for many years and we would always "double" our input price from trade supplier to end customer, covering risk of ownership, then add profit and tax.

I think when you dig deeper, generally there's very valid reasons behind why business' structure their pricing as they do...and very few out their to rip people off.

["CANADA"]

the company i work for charges in the millions on some jobs so i need not voice my oppinion here...



bas as being a mechanic in the past...do it yourself...comon....all the tradies need the money..and if you furk up then they will get it

[CHILLI 2]

My brother in law got quoted $13000 for a kitchen 3m x 4m tell me thats not "highway robbery" no appliances.I reckon $1000. worth of wood 3 days labour should be about $1200 and you think mechanics are rip offs!!

["CANADA"]

My brother in law got quoted $13000 for a kitchen 3m x 4m tell me thats not "highway robbery" no appliances.I reckon $1000. worth of wood 3 days labour should be about $1200 and you think mechanics are rip offs!!

SIMPLE..DONT LIKE THE PRICE DO IT YOURSELF

[Meldge]

Oh this has been a good read...

When you have no idea of a price, yes it can come as a shock...

One thing I do agree with is the 'Have a go yourself' comments from people that do know...

If it was one mechanic that told you to try it, and then farked it up, should they take that into account and lower the labor cost?

If Joe Bloggs (mechanic) told me 'it's easy, have a go' and I farked it and took it to John Smith to fix, then too bad, but I'd like to think that old Joe could help out a little if it went back to him...

I am ready for a flaming, but it does depend on how you were told to have a go yourself... If it was 'F@RK OFF, Idiot get out of my shop and try it yourself' then you'd hesitate, but if you were told it was easy and would save money and told how to do it then different story...

All in all, if I don't know how to do it, I will research it, if i still got no idea, normally I pay for it to be done...

And if I don't know anybody in the trade I need, I would ask anyone here for assistance as I have done in the past.

What is needing to be realised is the labor cost, and different companies are run differently and have different overheads...

[rockcrawler31]

the above sounds like the most moderate and well argumented response to my rash posting yet.

in hindsight i have had some very good trade work done, and been treated very fairly in the past. It's the rude arrogant, smart arse ones that leave my car in a state, and double the hours they said it would take that drive me to make unthought out rash remarks that get me in the sh*%t

[Meldge]

Oh don't get me wrong, I'm not excusing you...

[chimpboy]

they reckoned that it took an hour to get the pump out and 5.5 hours to get back in and adjust. doesn't sound right to me, do you reckon it takes 5.5 hours to refit a fuel pump?

I also asked for an estimation of time to get the job done, and about 3 or 4 hours on the outside was the answer, not 6.5 hours

I don't see that $70 an hour is a really exorbitant rate these days, but I think you're entitled to be annoyed if you got told it would take 3 or 4 hours at most and then you were billed for 6.5

Also 5.5 hours seems like a lot to refit the pump, although I admit I don't know anything about diesels so I could be wrong there.

As for the "free money" for the pump rebuild that he got a third party to do, well, I don't really have a problem with it within reason, as long as it doesn't ultimately leave you in a position where you're paying much more for the rebuild than you would have if you'd gone there yourself. Same with parts mark-up; I don't have a problem with paying RRP when the mech pays trade, but I do have a problem when a six dollar set of points ends up being $25 just so the mechanic can make more money.

SIMPLE..DONT LIKE THE PRICE DO IT YOURSELF

I had a mechanic (years ago, before I started doing more for myself) who I told to go up to $1200 for some work, and ended up getting a bill for $2600. So I never got the chance to decide if I liked the price or not. This guy was a mate of my brother so I pretty much had to pay in the end, but I had some pretty loud arguments in his workshop - he scratched the brand-new paint too.

My point is that mechanics are not always the angels that everyone in this thread is making them out to be. Sure, $70 an hour is fair, and of course it's worth paying if you want it done right. But that doesn't mean there aren't some mechanics or other tradesmen who charge customers for more hours than they actually worked, or who mark up parts much more than is really fair. And in my experience nearly all of them spend more hours than they say they will beforehand, which I never do with my clients and which i think I am entitled to get pissed off about - when I give an estimate I stick to it and if I go over time that's my problem for giving a bad estimate.

I don't know whether the mechanic being talked about here is totally honest or not but I don't see why everyone is just assuming he is, and I think you're getting flamed more than you really deserve.

Anyway. If you really think this guy shafted you I guess you go somewhere else next time, and when you find one you trust you stick with him.

Jason

[djr320kw]

At my company we employ a Consultant to work on 2 software packages at $150/hour plus.

I know $1800 for what you got done seems like a lot. What I normally do is add up the cost of what it would take me to do it.

I know a lot of people say if you do it your self you pay $0/hour. But stuffing around with such a tec item like the pump would take a weekend (maybe) and my weekends are worth more to me than $77 hour saving for a professional well done gaunteed job done during the week so I can play on the weekend.

I strongly belive when it comes to such problems as this you always get what you pay for.

[Modified Toy]

whats the recovery rate on the labour
hourly rate of $77.00 per hour worked 1 charged 1

hourly rate of $50.00 per hour worked 1 charged 2

so you might get a cheaper rate but you are really being charged more.

most mechanics cost you about $30.00 per hour these days plus work shop expences.


ask for a price guidline first.

then when it's apart get a detailed quote.

and do your home work ring around and get some ball park quotes.


and at the end of the day you only get what you pay for.

[mkpatrol]

So when you go to Woollies to buy you pie for lunch do you think you are going to get it at cost? Grow up

What do you think a trade discount is?

I think you need a little time on the other side of the fence before you criticise a tradesperson, especially in this trade when things can go horribly wrong so easily.

One you neglected to mention was if the vehicle was running ok or not, but then I guess that doesnt matter.

Did your family business go broke? They would have to be the only business in Australia not putting a mark up on materials.

I am going to get flamed for this but I cant keep quiet on this one & need to stick up for us mechanics because people like you rave on about things that you dont understand.

Oh & pay someone qualified to remove your injectors as you wont be getting any advice from me

[HJ60_HEATHUS]

I had a mechanic (years ago, before I started doing more for myself) who I told to go up to $1200 for some work, and ended up getting a bill for $2600.

Now that is dodgy. You should have gone to fair trading about that one. Since you had stated that he should not do more than 1200 worth of work, he should have consulted you before continuting, to what would be more than double your origional allowed amount

[80diesel4play]

Hmmm. Diesel - definitely not cheap to have stuff worked on.

Savings to be made - Use a manual, dissasemble, follow the instructions exactly and take it somewhere to be done - then, take it to someone to reassemble, dyno and make sure it's right. Actually shocked that you didn't get the guys to do injectors at the same time as they would have made re tuning hard as they may be shot!

I've only had a couple of bad experiences, the worst being charged full non retail on expensive replacement parts used when i SPECIFICALLY requested a brand to be used. The difference between what i walk in off the street and pay and what was charged was $80 a disc (times that by 4 and you have a few words to say) - needless to say there was some heated negotiations at the end of the job... and $800 taken off the bill

In defence - the mechanic in question had forgotten my requests, requoted the job and charged me correctly even with the top end parts.. nice bloke in the end. Dont get me started about a55 hole mechanics and what they try to get away with women... I've had a few "what the f$#k" bils on Mrs cars - then turned up to collect the car with a vernier and "show me the parts you ""replaced"".. needless to say - bills were 1/4'd and hasty retreats done..

I have to get my pump tuned, new injectors and a turbo bolted on soon - I've worked out the budget, someone reputable who gave me honest advise and was prepared to hear me out in my ramblings... as well as tips on extra gains, smarter tuning and overall a great price!

I recommend anything hard - Pay for it - You will always get murphy's law... And diesels are not a cheap thing to rebuild.

Your price actually sounds like an avergae quote for the work done. for an extra $400 you probably could have had your injectors done at the same time!! and only have to get the car tuned once!