My engine drop make over is done...

[Greyyork]

Finally...after 18 days, my car is finished. I replaced pretty much every gasket, ring, sensor, bolt...the 20+ missing random screws ect. I had the oil cooler rebuilt, switched to an oil that actually runs good with the car...timing belt, power steering pump, water pump, EGT...you name it. I even had it rewired and cleaned. This is the problem...I totaled up to $1250 in parts, but the shop wants to charge me like 4,500 in labor. The audi manual says 20 hours for engine drop and for all the other stuff and it doesn't add up to the "46" man hours they are charging. Then they are tacking on air conditioning service and refill/flush and they did an alignment without me saying so. I gave them exact instructions of what I wanted done and the alignment and stuff, if you're curious I was going to have done at a friends garage for free. What should I do??

Side note question. My car use to run at the oil temp first marker when driving for a decent amount of time and then slightly above when I was driving faster. After I put the new oil in (old oil 5W-30 audi spec and new oil liquid moly or whatever 5w-40) just driving regularly the car is running at slightly above the new marker...I haven't even driven it rough yet. I did replace all the sensors, but what's the deal with the increase in engine temp?? I can post some pictures soon. After they fix my car..they broke the oil cooler splitter thing..scrapped the shit out of 1 front fender and scraped the drivers side skirt/ cracked it. along with scraping the hood a bit....Dealer wants to take $250 off for damages..

[lswing]

Well, if they're not the most efficient it will take lots of time.

I just had my cam adjusters done, gaskets, rollers, engine stayed in and it was 21 hours. I could see it being 15 hours if someone really had it dialed in. So it was $2,100 for the labor. I'm assuming yours isn't too far off, but you could argue they should have been quicker and done it in 30 hours.

Actually, with all the little stuff you had done 40 hours might not be the worst. Sure drop the engine is 20, but you asked for a lot of other things to be done. And sometimes things like AC and PS get disconnected, although mechanics that know better can sometimes keep it together.

Most importantly for me the car came back tight and running excellent.

Edit; for the damage I'd tell them to F-off and hand over around $2k for repairs and paint.

[Dmb408]

So the coolest i ran was with Redline 5w-40, BND runs with exactly the same characteristics as you describe for the moly. I ran Audi/VW spec Total, Total ran cool too.