Your Opinion On Service Times??

[BLITZEN]

Hey Guys,
During my transmission change, my shop found a couple additional things which they repaired on my RS. Keeping mind my engine was already in its' service position, I'd love to hear some opinions on the amount of service time they charged for these (2) services:

1) Replaced coolant line from thermostat housing to radiator, bled cooling system, 3.8 hours.

2) Replaced both front wheel bearings, 4.9 hours.

I'm not going to name the shop as I really like them. The owner even forgave those charges (considering my transmission swap ended up costing a lot more than I was expecting). But since I do like the shop very much and the owner is a straight-shooter trying to build something from scratch, I am compelled to repay him. He certainly won't argue with me about the times. In fact, I'm sure it won't even come up. I just want to feel good about wherever it's left.

Thanks so much. You guys rock! I love this site! :rs6kiss:

[DHall1]

Clarify

the engine and transmission was out of the car already

or

did they remove the transmission and the engine was still in the car?

the labor times are very high

[BLITZEN]

They ended up having to take the engine out as used bolts had been put back in when previous transmission replacements had been done by dealerships under warranty. So since the bolts were seized and so on, I wasn't fortunate enough for these guys to have been able to leave the engine in.

[DHall1]

Then there was a robbery on the highway and money was taken from your wallet

[BLITZEN]

Can you be more specific? I know you do a lot of your own repairs. How much time does a wheel bearing replacement take? I want to make sure I pay them for the time it should have taken.

[Aronis]

Wheel bearing can take an hour or so additional time if the drive shaft was already taken out of the suspension for the engine pull. Some people remove the engine/trany with the suspension still attached (of course this screws up your alignment, thus adding more cost). If the shafts were already out then the bearing if not STUCK in place should not take more than an hour each side.

My tech is doing one on an older A4 and it's killing him. The thing wound not come out of the suspension arm so they had to replace the whole assembly.

In our cars it is pressed in, so the bear job should be less than an hour. I asked my guy that specifically when we were chatting about the hell he was going through with the A4.

4 hours for the coolant line? If the engine is out, isn't that half done? If then engine is out, the coolant system is COMPLETELY BLED.

They like to 'unbundle things' in auto tech world. I.E. Charge the full number of hours for each individual job as though that was the only job being done. I got a quote from the dealer for a Timing belt service (if I had them do the oil leak for me) and they said that was 2200 more. Even though that is there total shop charge if they were ONLY DOING the timing belt service. If they did engine pull for the oil leak, then a lot of the labor for the timing belt service is already DONE!

Mike

[BLITZEN]

Thanks Aronis. 1 hour for each wheel bearing. While you mention the coolant job was half done, how much additional time should it have taken for them to replace that line?

Thanks again.

[DHall1]

Im not exactly sure which coolant line you are talking about.

If your talking about the pipe that we all call the Bufkin pipe between the block and oil cooler...then 2hrs tops if the engine is already out.

I agree with wheel bearing times

Also, were these items added while the engine was out?


Can you be more specific? I know you do a lot of your own repairs. How much time does a wheel bearing replacement take? I want to make sure I pay them for the time it should have taken.

[BLITZEN]

Thanks again Dave. All the invoice said was "the coolant line from thermostat housing to radiator". So if there's more than one, whichever would take the longest. There was no mention of whether this job was done while the engine was out or not. So let's just assume it was done at whatever time it would have been the easiest.

[Aronis]

1723417235


There is a long coolant pipe which goes from the front of the engine to the rear with two connections to each bank. That pipe requires an engine pull to replace and would be a few hours as there is a lot of other stuff in the way.....the black pipe just under the exhaust manifold in the first picture, follows around the back of the engine.

Mike

[BLITZEN]

[QUOTE=Aronis;282320]That pipe requires an engine pull to replace and would be a few hours as there is a lot of other stuff in the way..[QUOTE]

So if the engine was pulled already would it still be three hours?

[GreggPDX]

Do you think they charged actual work hours, or are they going off of some standard guide?

[Bigglezworth]

OMG!! You have been taken advantage of. It's that plain and simple. The coolant already has to be removed from the front clip in order to put it in to service position, so there is little additional charge for the coolant effort. Assuming the pipe in question is the one on the lower side of the passenger engine that attaches to the lower rad hose just behind the engine snub mount, it can be swapped in a few minutes with the clip in service position. IF it's the pipe that leads from the upper rad hose that runs along the bottom of the passenger side head and around the back where it mounts to the rear of each cylinder head, that willl take 15 mins to remove with the engine out of the car max, and upwards of 2 hours if the engine is in (depends of course on access to rear of head and whether or not you have the SAI valves still mounted to the rear of the heads which many still do - then it becomes a diffult place to get wrenches and fingers/hands in to perform the work).

Wheel bearings can be swapped in a nominal 30-40mins nominal from drive in do drive out. They would have already had the wheels off to get to the screws that needed to be removed for the inner wheel well liner to gain access to the bumper fasteners that get removed to take the bumper skin off in order to put the clip in service position. Wheel bearing removal requires unbolding the driveshaft from the hub, removing the upper control arms from spindle, and sliding the axle shaft out to gain access to the four triplehead bolts from the back. Depending on how difficult it is to detach the hub could add some time to things, but you're discading the hub so it's a matter of banging hard with drifts and hammer.

I sense it's highly probable that you've been double billed, and over billed both for the two items you queried.

[BLITZEN]

Thanks for the details. Bigglez, I didn't get taken as the shop ended up not charging me for these repairs or the parts that went with them. I was just looking for the correct amount of time so I canteimburse them (even though they've never asked for anything in return).