The price he was given wasn't a rip off, and it was 850 not 900, might as well say he was charged $2,000.
Even at $850 you ain't paying for his daughters college, that's just a stupid stupid comment to make. You're paying for his knowledge and what to do when there is a situation that isn't available in a book or a tool made for the problem that just happened, then what do you do when you can't set it up? ? ? what do you do with your 5 minutes of knowledge from the internet that doesn't have the answer.
I find it funny how people are so quick to turn into jerk offs and make f'ed up comments, he is going to a professional shop that has years of experience and if they are like mine he will get the best job done...
The professional shop has insurance to pay, workers comp, all kinds of taxes, and tools and equipment, utilities and other overhead.
A mechanic that is there for a job and salary, so lets say it takes an hour to get the rear apart, and another 3 hours to set up and put back together.
That's 85 an hour WITHOUT any bs problems creeping out of left field...
Of that 85 an hour , the mechanic gets his 4 hours salary if it doesn't take longer BECAUSE it doesn't always just come apart right, so you're being charged 350 and lets say it takes the mechanic 7 hours, he now gets paid his salary and the shop makes 175, of which the shop pays for the insurance, tools and equipment and rent on the building and taxes and the withholding tax....
No problems the shop makes 200, of which they don't see the entire 200. . .
So where is the college education coming from.....
Now the other thing i want to address and then im done.... end of story with this...
How many diffs have you guys worked on and had pull in and they sound like they just need a bearing ? customer asks you and you tell them sounds like it's this and that but i won''t know exactly till its apart and i can SEE, so you try and give them a ball park and tell them if it's just a broken spider ? or the ring and pin are bad ? or bearings you're looking at 400, or 700.... or whatever
Then you take it apart and find out the bearing imploded and wrecked the gears, ooops there goes that price thrown out earlier at $400, we just jumped another 250 or more depending.
You take it apart and find out the spiders broke, and the case cracked. . . .and the gears got caught also.... WELL guess what, lets say it was a limited slip, case atleast $500, gears atleast 220, bearings 100 to 130, with axles bearings another 60 and labor THAT's how it does come to 1200 sometimes...
I had a guy call, tells me his dump truck is making a banging noise when he turns, so in tell him stop moving it at all and lets stop you from causing more damage, so i ask him 4x or 2x, says 4x, do the axles bolt in from the hub, yes, ok unbolt them and take them out and pull the driveshaft and drive the truck here on 4x, he says ok, whats it gonna run, i said if it's just the spiders and its aam 10.5 or 11 it could be around $500...
It gets here and guess what, he drove it for miles before he called and wrecked the gears, and carrier and it was a limited slip and he put a hole in the housing, none of this was seen till it was apart...
The big AAM diffs are anything but cheap and the limited slips aren't cheap either...
So his $500 went to $1400 for all the internals and bearings and fixing the hold in the housing and his 1st words, "you said around $500" i did if it was spiders only, you wrecked everything including the housing..
The price doesn't jump because I want it to. . .
I had a guy pull in and i woulda swore it was a few teeth off the ring gear, was a D-80, pulled the axles popped the cover, removed the main caps . . . . . AND EVERYTHING fell out, carrier in 2 pieces, all kinds of smashed and ground up bearings and spiders and cross bar.... it didn't sound any worse than it was missing 3 teeth. . .
More than 70% of my customers want a price before i touch it, and none want to pay the $50 inspection fee that gives them a price to the penny.
Keep that in mind
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