Did I get ripped off?

I reckon most of those things didn't need replacing, they simply charged you for everything they could think of that they could replace in the most amount of time. How many miles had it done? When was it last serviced?

Have you read the manual on when things need replacing? did they test the car to see if it would run after replacing the coil? and the rest of the parts. distributor cap and rotor arm would show a slow deteriation but won't totally conk out, but these are easily replaced and cheap too. fuel filter after 60k miles, valve cover gasket??? what on earth for? spark plugs would have been cheap and easily replaced would also be a slow deteriation in car's performance not a sudden breakdown. Not sure on prices over there but labour here is £51 ($95) per hour. 5 hours worth of labour???? I've noticed they don't actually do much work in an hour. An hour to do a geometry test on my golf 96 after curbing it badly??? mad. Isn't $900 1/3rd the price of the car it self???? Did they ask your permission to do all the work before doing it? if you hadn't given permission you shouldn't have paid. or you could have asked them to replace the minor things first and test it before doing the major stuff.

I've never looked under the hood of a '97, so I can't be absolutely certain, but is sounds extremely excessive. Unless VW is guilty of designing this engine in a way that these parts are inaccessible, most of the work described should be completed in an hour (or two) by damn near anyone. Or is there something about a '97 Golf that I just don't understand? Did they have to drop the engine to get to something? Is the coil locked in a safe under the back seat? Or maybe the mechanic was charging Sunday morning labor rates...

Also, while your car may have been in need of some of these things, you had ONE part fail (I'm betting coil) and got seven things replaced. Although if your cap, rotor, wires and plugs were all shot, they could have been responsible for the coil's untimely demise. Most of it you could have done yourself at a later date.

Out of curiousity, I priced your parts, and there you didn't fare too badly.

shows list prices totalling$375 for your parts. Of course they have discounted prices that bring itdown as low as $277. Considering the mark-up at a lot of shops and that noshop is going to sell parts under list price, you did okay. But unless there's a good reason for the repairs to take so long, you got overcharged.

Just my 2 cents...

Jason

All of those parts were 65,000 miles old at least. I was guilty in not changing them.

Very obvious oil leak. all over the distributer. Been that way for awhile. It was messy there.

They got all the needed permission. I HAD to get my car running and it was either take their rate or tow to another local. Not a good option either way.

Thanks for your reply.

Nope.

HILARIOUS!! thanks.

More than likely.

Yeah, its starting to look that way. Well, its a lesson to stay on top of things. They correctly found a problem with radiator. I will take care of that before I am FORCED to.

Thaks for the reply.

Well since Jason mentioned the parts weren't too far off the mark lets discuss labor. What was their labor rate per hour? Some dealers in Chicago charge $129 per hour. O U C H!!!

To change the Valve Cover Gasket probably takes the longest time (maybe dealer flat rate of 2 hours) since you have to take the intake manifold apart. Sounds like a lot $258 labor to JUST have the dealer change out a VC gasket. But maybe I am wrong! This shop might have done that to make changing the spark plugs easier for them. Hey maybe the gasket was leaking. ;-)

They might charge you for "troubleshooting"! They also must have called you to authorize these repairs!

Why not post the breakdown of the bill on this list so we can see what really happened! It might have been, or I should say it was an ignition problem (ign coil, plugs and wires, cap and rotor)

And BTW I personally think that price you paid may have been the average you would have paid a private shop in Chicago! Sometimes the "Shotgun" method of replacing everything works! lol Remember you said it was Running and running well now. :-)

later, dave

It would seem they charged you the full labor rate for every thing replaced, consecutively.

The cap, rotor, plugs, and wires are overlapping, as you might very well have touched one when replacing the other.

Well, bottom line is it's running well. Would I recommend the shop to someone else? Probably not. This is likely to be a short profit, long loss type arrangement for them.

TBerk

Well he did authorize this so called "bend-over" repair. lol I will agree with TBerk that they did not give you any price/labor breaks! Packaged deals should be easier to sell if you feel it is saving the customer some $$$.

I have seen some "rip-off" shops only change 4 control arm bushings (Audi

4000 non-quattro) and get $900 for that job. I think that is a total rip off of over $500. And the customer thinks that these charges were "fair"! OMG are they blind!!!!

But this 97 Golf job seemed to be maybe just a little bit inflated. I am sure it was cheaper than going to the VW dealers around me. 8^)

JMHO! later, dave

I liked it when a VW specialist called me then told me to ring him back because he didn't want a high phone bill. I was paying HIM $465 for repairs, talk about lame customer service.

Our shop charges $72 per hour so do the math 500 / 72 = 6.9 hours! Yep you got nailed unless they charge well over $100 per hour!

Did they replace the timing belt? If so, then the cost would be about right with all the other parts that were replaced. If not, then the labor charge sounds pretty high. Was this a VW dealer shop?

Bill

78 Rabbit...10/77 - 4/02 82 Convertibles(s)...since 93 95 Golf GL...since 11/99 02 Passat 1.8T Tip GLS...since 4/02 (Remove the CAT to email me)

$100/hour. pretty brutal. This was NOT a VW dealer.

No...I wish! I asked about that since my belt is due in a bit. They quoted me $800 for a belt change. I am NOT going back there. What is a good price for timing belt change?

If so, then the cost would be about

ouch! do they use Vaseline at least when they ask you to bend over? ;-)

yes I would say find another shop!! even the dealer would cost less for that job! later, dave BTW is there any legal recourse if you have been overcharged? There should be but you still haven't giving us the breakdown of the charges!

The timing belt on my Dad's 96 Jetta GL was $193.00 parts AND labor at a local shop here in town.

My wife's 2000 Saturn timing belt is $267 parts and labor from the Dealership.

The work you had done, I recently had done to my Saturn. $560 and they replaced the brakes, tranny filter, flushed the cooling system, plugs, wires, coil...

Dump that shop!

I would expect a timing belt job done at a VW dealer to cost around $300-400.

Bill

I'll do it for $600. That also covers my cost for a flight to wherever you are. Think they'll allow my tools/jack as carry-on?

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!

joke-of-the-day winner!!!

Its looking like I was over charged $200 or so. Not worth any legal trouble. I just wont go back. I have been pretty lucky with repairs for 7 years. I actually have a very good dealer to go to. But it wasnt an option on a Sunday.

All in all, I feel very lucky I wasnt stranded in a worse off situation. I was on my way to work which is a 35 mile drive. My car died only 2 blocks from home. If it had such ignition problems...why or how in the world did it start and drive good for 2 blocks??

now onto my new problem. Do I put the required work into the car that it still needs or think of a new car?

Here is the list of to do's

1. Timing belt
2. New radiator and hoses.
3. New struts. Not sure if it really needs these. the $$ shop said so. It drives fine there.
4. New battery
5. New manual trans fluid.
6. Rear wiper spray doesnt spray fluid all that good.
7. things i dont know about and can go wrong in the next year, i.e, water pump, alternator..etc.

Car has 125,000 miles on it. Nearly flawless life until now. Sometimes looking under the hood is scary. Lot o' rust there.