MOT time. What kind of bill to expect?

Hi guys,

Its been a while since I posted last (I knew things where too good to be true)...

Sent the old girl for an MOT and she failed on the following:

1) Pads worn (not bad I thought - normal)
2) Front wheel bearing excessive play (oh **** I thought - but ok they go)
3) Rear brake pipes corroded (I knew about anyway)
4) Front CV gator loose (just a lost clip he said)

5) Advisories where pads on rear wearing (so I said do them aswell)

Toted all this up in my head and thought... yep lets go and handed her over.

Went today to pick her up and got told that the bearings where seized in and now they are out he cant press new ones back in (been on 20T press)... but new parts ordered. Silly me didn't ask any more about it due to him also saying that he has put two calipers on as the calipers where seized as he did work on the pads. I though this was odd so commented on if the pistons had seized... he said yes, they where rusted and the rubber had dis-integrated.

I then asked whats the bill was so far then.... "I don't know", so I asked for a ball park. Again he refused to give me a price, and said it will be ready with the car Wednesday.

I'm now trying to establish where I stand. I had authorized the items to be done but not new calipers. I received no phone call to inform me that additional items where needed .... I'm now worrying about the BILL.

I've sorted out the parts costs using online searches as if I was purchasing them (and expect him to charge very similar parts costs) but have NO IDEA how long each job requires or is fair to pay for... do you pay a mechanic for seized bearings etc or is that a haz of being a mechanic and therefore simply pay the fair expected... any help with loose expected billing hours for the jobs above points 1 to 5 PLZ!!!!!

I've currently got £277 in parts and 8rs labor (guessing) at I expect around £30p/h plus VAT of course.

comments welcome....

£30 ph seems quite cheap, have they given you this price?

My garage are £35 per hour, and they keep very quiet about that fact that it's an ex-vat price!!!!

I'd be surprised if you had change from £400 for that lot.

If honest £35 seas more like it p/h.

No costs (other than £50 MOT) have been given so far... parts, time or anything. I'm trying to quantify the time for the listed work so I can have some notion of whats fair to charge me when I'm presented with the bill... at the moment you could say 5hrs for the Hub and if honest - I wouldn't know any different.

Hence my request for advice... I hate feeling like a Blond!

jwaldron said:

If honest £35 seas more like it p/h.

No costs (other than £50 MOT) have been given so far... parts, time or anything. I'm trying to quantify the time for the listed work so I can have some notion of whats fair to charge me when I'm presented with the bill... at the moment you could say 5hrs for the Hub and if honest - I wouldn't know any different.

Hence my request for advice... I hate feeling like a Blond!

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ok, 5 hours labour for the hub - that's £175

hub parts - cost £40 ish, so they'll prob charge you £80

renew brake pipes - call it another 3 hours - to allow for bleeding. £105

brake pipes!?! dunno how much they cost - call it £40 if they're cheap

then, was it front and back brakes? £30 per set of pads to you I reckon. (£15 cost) so that's £60, plus 2 hours labour which is £70. £130 in total.

was that it?

£530


EDIT: forgot cv gator... not sure... another £60 for part + labour????

regarding the wheel bearings, they are tight to come out. Obviously the press is short on power, I have had no problems using a 30 ton hydraulic press..it takes a few minutes to remove them and the same to refit the new ones. I have never been beaten by them!
New bearings (Genuine Timken) are around £80 apiece.
A new hub complete with bearing, which is what LR supply will cost around £320..remember that the hubs are handed. You could of course go the second hand hub route but remember that you are buying sumething which is an unknown quantity lifespan wise.

my local landy indy charges £45 an hour labour including the vat, i do think its quite a bit but i only take it to them when i cant do the work myself. they do charge to the nearest hour half as well which i think is pretty nice of them, plus they are a really nice bunch of guys and dont try and rip you off. Plenty of places in the past have charged me an hours labour for a 15 min job!

burn it.

i genarally give a bit off leway on bearings with a bit off free play as long as they are not noisy, any thing above 1.5 mm on pads is an advisory any thing below 1.5 is a fail and as for brake pipes i usally give them a scrape with a knife and if its shinny under the rust i advice on them as will a lot of rusty brake pipes they come shinny again with a bit off rubbing

I'd estimated that 8hrs should cover all the work.... which at internet parts cost (can't see why a garage should charge more). Trade prices are cheaper for him which allows his markup. If he's charging more (above +10% say) than retail prices its (my opinion) a rip off.

I've come to about £630 parts, lab and VAT. Does this sound fair.

Farmershot: your list came to around the same

Irish: If he places new Hubs after spending 3hrs with the bearings and charges me I'll be ****ed. I would expect a mechanic to do a quick cost analysis and pick the most cost effective method of doing things not just try everything and charge for it all (or am I wrong here?)

Tomo: £45 sounds high... but if work is done in less time and better then a job may be cheaper in the long run. I think Garages should have to publish a schedule of rates for inspection. Every other service you buy has to let you know the costs BEFORE committing. Why is mechanics different?

Beast: Burn it..lol

Cossie; I take it the bearing could have been rumbling away for a while. I run MT's so all I hear is tyre nose, which is probably why I haven't noticed before. The pipes if I'm honest did need doing. If it wast MOT time I'd of been doing them anyway and the fluid needed changing aswell so at least with the brake works things will now work as they should.

Guys - thank you for the input. I think the most important thing for me here is that no-one (yet) has said I'm way off and that I'm looking at 12 or 15hrs labor charges.

I'd put £500 aside for the work before I heard new calipers (which I'm still a bit scathing about as I did not authorize)

IF i was you i would double that final cost with the brake pipe if its the one that goes behind the fuel tank! had mine done earlier this year and got stung for £350 cos they recon they had to tank air tank and fuel tank out to replace pipe.

if i was you id be learning to fit brake pads myself even a caliper is easy ask to have all old parts returned to you for inspection, if your not happy with the price refuse to pay for work you didnt authorise, contact trading standards if necessary

John lad... thanks. I may be doing that if the bill is excessive, which if I'm honest I'm truing to establish. I really would like to be in the position of having some notion of what the price should be so I know if its fair or not....

I'd let the MOT run upto the date you see so I was a little stuck, hence just saying yep - do the work; otherwise I would have done the pads myself.

Enough copper brake pipe to do the jopb will cost around £20, add another £25 for a flaring kit and small hand pipe bender, £15 for brake fluid, £10 for new brake tube nuts and that's the parts covered.
The job is comfortably done in a day, but prepared to have loads of ****e and muck fall on you whilst you are underneath pulling the old pipework out!! The run from left to right at the front of the fuel tank is a bit awkward but not as bad as you think. There is no need to drop the fuel tank, but dropping the air receiver for the EAS helps.

Got the vehicle back with a bill for £981!!!

Pads front and back. 1 caliper on the front and 1 on the back (£65 each), rear brake pipes both sides and Gator.

The bearing was a fiasco. He put a bloody brand new hub assy on at £460 part... probably coz he couldn't get the bearing out. Only thing is, he didn't tell me about it or I would have gone for an OEM hub at £225.

Went to trading standards but pretty useless. I could have forced him to return the car to org state or do all but the hub but would have to be without the car for at least two weeks plus sort it out afterwords so all in all would have saved about £200 but 2 weeks down the line without transport....

:behindsofa:

No surprise, it's all about "Replace" not "Repair" nowadays.
Learning excercise for next time perhaps.
NEVER give a garage an "Open Cheque" !!!!

jwaldron said:

Got the vehicle back with a bill for £981!!!

Pads front and back. 1 caliper on the front and 1 on the back (£65 each), rear brake pipes both sides and Gator.

The bearing was a fiasco. He put a bloody brand new hub assy on at £460 part... probably coz he couldn't get the bearing out. Only thing is, he didn't tell me about it or I would have gone for an OEM hub at £225.

Went to trading standards but pretty useless. I could have forced him to return the car to org state or do all but the hub but would have to be without the car for at least two weeks plus sort it out afterwords so all in all would have saved about £200 but 2 weeks down the line without transport....

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Well and truly screwed. Has he never heard of the mechanics number one tool? HEAT.

How did he get £460 for the hub? I thought new ones were only £250ish?

Is it gold plated or something?

Just to close this out guys...

Paid the bill in the end to get the car back. The Hub was Genuine LR part... showed me receipt and box.

Got trading standards on the case, but useless. No teeth and didn't really want to know. I could of requested one of two things.

1) return the car to how it came to him (not practical at all based on the work done)
2) only do work agreed.

However. If he didn't have any of the parts, he could only retard the work as far as practical.... but he'd have the full 7 days to try this. Trading stds could then explain how 2 options actually turned onto 3 (3rd being do what you want to and just say you don't have the parts anymore for what you don't want to do).

So... seeing as I NEEDED the bloody thing for work. I paid and let him know I wasn't happy.

I could of made him remove the new HUB and fit one of my choice, but the MOT would need to be redone (and paid for) and would have been the week plus new work... I'd of saved about £100 in the end and lost car for another 2 weeks. Not worth loosing job over £100 so paid up.

I'll now (due to this tit) treat every mechanic as I do contractors at work... EVERYTHING in writing first. Shame... a mechanic should be a some one you trust.

He used to be family mechanic. Not anymore. He's now lost 5 cars for ever. He didn't twig I was now part of the local family that used him for the last 20 years. Now none of my friends that used him will use him either. So in all - he's lost about 7 cars (quick gain, long loss).

You know the worst of it - he said "Its a Range Rover, you should expect big bills you know".

That really got my goat. Its a Range Rover.. Yes. Its also 13 years old, and because they used to be expensive to fix (and will always need something), you will find many good OEM parts available at very reasonable prices.

I took great pleasure in letting him know that the calipers on the Mazda he had in next to mine where much more expensive than mine, and that Mechanically they are cheaper than most cars. Electrics granted; they are expensive, but even then its down to fault finding - and about 20 different things that could be the issue.

Anyway - done now. Thought I'd update for the benefit of others.

jwaldron said:

You know the worst of it - he said "Its a Range Rover, you should expect big bills you know".

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Glad I fix my own now, that sort of attitude ****es me off.
Just because you drive a Range Rover, shouldn't lead to an automatic assumption you have a bottomless pit of money to repair it.

Mine now stands me at around £1500 for a '97 4.0 SE but looks a lot more and for someone to assume I'm loaded because I took the plunge, really gets on my tits.