electrical problem = jipped

Towing included in that $300?

And it's "gypped".

If that was the original battery, it did pretty well -- four or five years is all you should expect to get out of a battery these days.

$142 for a battery itself is mighty steep, I'd never pay that. However, did that include the labor to replace it and the disposal fee? You did choose to let the dealer do the replacement, so naturally, it's going to cost you more than if you did it yourself.

The computer resetting is unnecessary, in my experience. The computer re-learns all the stuff it needs to, eventually.

All in all, when you figure in towing, diagnostics, labor for replacing the battery, cost of the battery, etc., etc., $284 doesn't strike me as being out of line, for a dealer -- sure, it's high, but you let the dealer do it -- and that's why I do all my own maintenance. I don't mean to sound offensive, really -- but if you're not knowledgeable enough to know when you've simply got a dead battery, well, then the price of that ignorance is having to pay someone else to do your routine maintenance for you.

...

I just took my '02 jetta tdi in for an oil change and asked them to check the (original) battery because it seemed to drag a little these last few cold mornings. Of course they "agreed" with me that I needed a new battery: $120.01 + $86.00 labor. Both are about double what I would have expected. I never spent more than $50 for a battery. I'm not happy about the money, but now I don't have to worry about not getting to work on a 0-deg day this winter.

Tough question.

snip

To charge someone $86 for a battery install is a real piece of thievery, not to mention that $120 for the battery is probably twice what it is worth. Was that from a VW dealer? If so, your experience just solidifies my belief that dealerships are out to gouge as much out of their customers as possible.

I bought a new battery for my '95 Buick Roadmaster last year. The total cost was $75, including installation, and it wasn't done at a Buick dealership.

I agree about the labor. Having replaced a few batteries in my day, I can't imagine it taking as much as 1/2 hour. In this case there is at least one "gotcha" - the radio security code has to be reset if the power is off. I know I could have looked up how to do this, but I just didn't feel like it.

It got me thinking about how computer-related stuff has made things much more expensive.

Is it something really really new? :)

My girlfriend was stranded once due to a single broken wire. I knew it was coming and wanted to fix it over the weekend, so the problem was easy to diagnose.

Towed to the dealer, he said that the remaining 3 wires in this connector do not look good too (it was correct), so the whole loom needs to be changed. 150eur ($170). That was said to my girlfriend. Then I called. It was suddenly "just" 100eur ($120) and they wanted to change not the whole loom, but just the connector with some segment of the loom. A bit expensive, but ok I thought, especially if you need to rip the loom out, replace the end with connector and put it back.

And the result? We paid 100eur, and they repaired just that _single_ wire, a job which took 15 minutes at most. Probably thinking to themselves "will see you soon".

So, that happens if you let someone without technical knowledge to go to the dealer alone. Out of the 5 dealers over here I can trust (to a certain extent) just one.