Due to a lack of maintenance on my part the freeze plug on the rear of the engine had to be replaced. It cost me $700 to replace a $1 part. The mechanic had to lower the tranny to get to it so there was a lot of labor. He was going to replace all of the plugs but he could only find one on the back of the engine. How many of these plugs are there on a 3.1 V6? Do you think that was a fair price for this job?
I am glad I don't take my car to your mechanic, if someone told me they had to remove my transmission to install a core plug (freeze plug) I would tell them to shove it, If it was me I would probably charge you .5 for diag time and waive that if you wanted the repair done. I would charge you probably 1.0 hour labour to put one in, and would advice you to put a block heater in part is probably about 20-30 dollars and labour $90.00 for a total of about 120.00 plus tax. Do you think that is alot cheaper?.....
Front wheel drive/ transverse mounted engines are pure hell to work on... If it turned into a 10-hour job @ $70/hr, then no surprise. What's "book" for the job?
Some FWD/tranverse designs are so crammed together that dropping the tranny is the only way... mechanics cuss the mess that has become modern cars ... blame GM's engineers.
That's why I take my '92 Caravan to a slow, but very inexpensive mechanic: Good, fast, cheap: Pick any Two. I might wait a week for my car, but I save lots of money, even w/ a rental car.
I found him b/c I asked around... I saw someone with an old jalopy, I asked them who their mechanic was. Eventually I found the shade tree operator that charges $35/hr., is good, honest but slow. I've kept my car longer & saved lots of money & haven't lost any net time (as opposed to car shopping, etc....).
/leebert
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