My car wouldn't start in the cold and they banged on something and it started

It looks like they changed the starter, the starter relay, and the battery. The charges look ok. Thanks to the Fed, costs of things made of metal, especially lead, have gone up about 300% in the last two years.

That, plus 3 hours labor at $50/hr. Frankly, it could have been worse.

So the battery has gone up 300% in two years? That means it was about $44 two years ago.

Federal tax and Federal reclamation fees.

Post appears to be click bait if OP cannot understand receipt and introduces it wrong.

Stuck solenoid.

or a stuck bendix drive.

neither of which requires replacing both the starter and solenoid unless other problems were found.

any hack shop which doesn't explain what they are doing and why before getting it approved by the customer before doing it doesn't deserve repeat business regardless of how low the shop rate is.

$50/hr? who did this job? a backyard hillbilly with one tooth and a rusty monkey wrench?

Okay? I'd charge my friends more than that. And three hours is about right if it's not all rusty under there.

--scott

Nothing to do with the Fed and the price of the battery hasnt.

No click bait. The subject is normal for someone who knows nothing about cars.

He banged on the relay. Sometimes that works. OTOH, when I had a loose battery cable I banged on it with a glass coke bottle. That worked too.

I don't think it took me 3 hours to change the starter in a 1968 LTD, but there was a lot more room to work then :-(

This needed 2 or 3 feet of extensions to get at the bolts. My mom's car. She always had it serviced at the dealership. I had to replace it because it started making horrid noises and not working properly. Turns out it had been replaced once. One bolt was entirely missing. One was sitting on top of the starter. The third one had loosened enough to allow the starter to flop around. Fine dealer workmanship.

The only advantage of my having as smaller car now with a smaller engine is the smaller starter motor. I just about broke my wrist or arm trying to lower the one from the 400 or 455ci engine, and putting it back in place afterwards was worse. I'm not as energetic now as I was then, and I think I can handle the smaller starter if I need to.

Most cars have more bolts than they need. It's a known fact, look it up. It's caused by pressure from the bolt manufacturers. And pay-offs.

My brother bought a new car in 1964. Repeated starting problems. Dealership said it replaced starter, battery, alternator, and regulator, each twice. Still problems. I took it to Sears and bought a new battery and while he was putting it in, he fixed it for free in 10 minutes.

When I moved to my brother's city in 1971, the dealership was out of business.

Actually, the reverse is true in current day cars. These days they are engineered to the minimums. In the past, especially with British marques, cars were overengineered. I have worked on thousands of those old British marques so I have seen/experienced the engineering first hand.

Looks like they had *no trained technicians* who could *diagnose*.

Dealers usually don't have technicians who can diagnose on staff, because most of their business comes from warranty repairs and the car manufacturers won't pay for diagnosis under warranty. Ford/GM/whoever is happy to pay the dealer to replace the short block several times, but paying them to figure out why the engine keeps failing is rare because there's no billing code for that.

--scott

FFS, if you have a customer with an issue, diagnosis is the *first step* in the process of effecting a repair. That's no different if the car is under warranty or out of warranty.

Obviously different from this end of the world - and from when I worked in dealerships. I can take you to any dealership here and there will be a *factory trained technician* on staff, usually someone quite experienced with the marque and, usually, more senior. I have even attended advanced dealer technician training courses run by the factory/importer.

FWIW, any trained mechanic, one who understands how the various systems work, and has experience with said systems, should be able to diagnose faults.

FWIW2, I dispute that Ford/GM/Whomever is happy to pay to replace the short block several times. The dealer is paid to fix the problem and, hopefully, not by shotgunning. Shotgunning seems to be the methodology utilised in your neck of the woods. I'm glad I don't live there.

Some of the dealer training courses I've attended were in response to

*feedback* from the mechanics on the shop floor. In fact, many of the TSBs issued by the factory/importer were as a direct result of faults diagnosed at the dealer, *fixes* established by the mechanics at said dealers, and the information relayed back up the chain to the factory/importer to be relayed throughout the dealer network.

As I said, I'm glad I don't live in your neck of the woods.

A friend's kid is that guy. He started out as a traveling bicycle repairman, was plucked out of that really good auto repair school in Riverside (I think) by BMW to go to THEIR school. Eventually he became the top BMW in the US (and the trophy to prove it) and was sent to represent the US in the world contest in Germany. The Germans always win, but the test is to put a new (not yet released, not just unused) disassembled engine together while explaining what you are doing to a proctor. Not sure how 'win' is judged -- probably by time since I can't imagine any of the contestants being unable to do that task. Became chief mech for the dealership and then service manager, which he found boring. Now they send him to diagnose difficult problems all over the country. I think he's 55 now. Not too shabby. His dad still would only drive a BMW because of the discount and the free repairs.

Is it snarky to say that I don't think this situation could have happened if he'd been hired by Toyota? :-)

It does happen like that at this end of the world.