Full Service R33 Gts25T - $1500?

[adamskill]

hmm , WITH all my parts and all fluids he is charging me $715....

that seems like alot , but I know he does good work. Do i pay this much for that quality of work?

id pay it, and feel good knowing that he would/will pick up on any other little issues that many others would not notice.

[The Sherrid]

some interesting opinions here on this topic. however i feel there are more to come.

I'd like to give a perspective from the other side of the fence. Obviously not a real barrier however i hear similar discussions framed as such.

As a mechanic who services vehicles in between performance work i see a variety of vehicles. As a good example i currently have a turbo holden astra with a faulty crank angle sensor. 1 volkswagon golf that needs a high pressure fuel pump, another with an electrical problem that has been stuck here for 5 months now, a nissan stagea with a blown headgasket, and an R33 skyline with a bottom end knock.

To address the initial post, ask yourself what is involved in a full service? if your not sure then ask paden what you get in a "full service".

As a general breakdown, the time to replace parts such as a timing belt, water pump, coolant, fuel filter is pretty straight forward, however my definition of a service incorporates a trained and skilled eye to detect potential problems. Safety is number one in my book. I recently had a customer who owned an Audi S4, V8 that had the onboard computer register an intermittant brake light switch. the part cost 90 odd dollars and when i quoted him he replied with, do you really need to replace it as i have a tight budget. Now since he was a friend of mine i could tell that he was thinking that his driving skills were top notch and he would be ok. I proceeded to tell him that the issue has to do with the consequences of such an event occuring. For starters if the car behind him didn't see his brake lights and hit him at 60 km\hr then it's not just them at risk it would be him too. seems obvious to some but not to him at the time. secondly I wouldn't be able to look at him if i had to see him in a wheel chair for the rest of his life. Being a company car i would have to answer to his boss whom i know well and any crash investigation conducted by the government. we've all seen the shows!

Considering threre are many parts under a car that can all sucumb to stresses that can exceed their safety design tollerance, I would like my repairer to approach the rest of his work on my car with the same diligence. If you think about it, thats what your really paying for. A trained eye to foresee problems and correct them which usually doesn't involve costly parts. We all have our own bodies which are complex mechanisms however how often do you find yourself questioning the judgement of you doctor?

Let me be the first to say that there is no such thing as a service kit and All parts are not created equal. A classic example is the R33 water pump. A vl turbo water pump will actually fit on an RB25 block however one of the bolt holes does not line up. this of course leads to less support holding down the pump to the block it's self. however many may tell you that it fits and works fine, however general engineering sense should tell you that the limits of this application are quite different. As a result, the vl pump is generally cheaper hence you can find them advertised as an rb 25 pump. If you plan on putting your body through extra stresses and strains like sprinting then your doctor would advise getting in shape, which takes time. If you want to boost your car well then your doing the same thing hence your mechanic would want to get you car fit too!

Diagnosing the astra was relatively straight forward. customer said the car starts and runs then stalls after a short drive and then wont start again for about 20 mins or so. car got towed here and i looked it over for nothing obvious then verified the problem. Plugged in my diagnostic scanner to view the ECU error codes which is a tool that is an absolute must if you have any credibility as a technician and found that the on board ecu has logged a fault code relating to the crank angle sensor. looked up my electronic manual (Autodata) and there was a picture of the plug and a resistance test value to check, checked it on the vehicle and found my problem. a little more testing and confirmed that that was the problem. At this point i called the customer and advised here how much it would cost and that it was most certainly the problem and with a great deal of confidence will be all that is wrong with the car. She said yep thats all fine when can you have it done? i said by the end of the day. So this job leaves the customer happy and makes my practices look saintly in their eyes hence will lead to repeated business. Happy days!

The first volkswagon, similar procedure however the parts were going to cost a little over $900 which was received with a gasp and on top of that the wait for the part from germany through VW was going to be 2 weeks. Customer was unhappy. At this point i could have offered a second hand part for not much cheaper and it would have solved the problem however in my experience this type of second hand part could have put me on more trouble than it was worth. Consider, if i used the second hand part and it failed within the 1 month warranty offered from the parts supplier i would have to spend time replacing that part which i can't charge any labour for and the customer would be unhappy that her car has broken down twice for the same problem plus any towing fees etc. if it didn't fall within the 1 month period then i would have the same situation as above with the added bonus of paying for another part out of my own pocket. R31nismoid makes a some good points with respect to parts suppliers too. So in this instance, i strongly recomended that she avoided the cheaper option. This of course makes me look like i am charging more for parts than i need to.

The second golf had an initial starting problem which went back to VW 3 times before they quoted $4k to fix the problem. since the car was only worth about 8, the customer shopped elsewhere before sucumbing to the quote when to his surprise they refused to take on the job. he asked why and then stated that he would be screwed without the car being fixed and since that they were the manufacturer of the vehicle, that they should know how to fix it. For what ever reason they decided to not take the job on. At this point i received the vehicle and spent many hours on it and determined that the ecu was at fault, immobilizer actually. took it to a company called injectronics who repaired it. Put the car all back together and it started and ran. To my surprise, the airbag light, abs light and oil pressure warning lights were on permanently on. At this point i had good news that the car was working however bad news that i had uncovered a new set of problems. since then i have contacted many auto elecs, all who have just walked away. As a member of the IAME and VACC, I used up all my resources there with the exception of a talented automotive electrical wizard who will be flying down from sydney to help out. Since the customer is an electrical engineer, he seems think that he will know how to fix the car better than i can so he's often ringing me up with ideas about what i should be doing. Amongst the odd lecture about how much he knows which i think is his way of letting me know that i shouldn't try to pull the wool over his eyes. So on the job, i have to wait for a go/no go about all decisions made on the car. Now i understand his frustration, due caution and appreciate the fact that he needs to keep a close eye on the budget, As it stands, in hours of labour, I am out of pocket. Since the initial repair i successfully completed which took 1 week and cost a bit over a quarter of the price from VW it has been 4 months. So i choose to operate with as least input from the customer as i can otherwise it costs me money! Understandably this has it's obvious assumptions that some customers can get carried away with. I noticed a sign in a workshop once that sums up how i feel about customers who want to contribute to the repair of their vehicle. it's a bit of a laugh at the same time. It went something like this.

HOURLY RATE

$65 Hr

$75 Hr if you want to watch

$85 Hr if you want to help

$95 Hr if you touched it before i did.

The stagea has a leaking head gasket and suspected cracked head. Unfortunately the head has to be removed to be checked for cracks which means i have to start the job before i can provide an accurate wuote. If the head has to be replaced it will significantly increase the price of the job so as a result i will have to "over quote" the job so the customer doesn't all of a sudden think i have increased his bill for no reason.

The skyline simply gets a new engine. The story behind it starts with the owner looking for the cheapest service. nice enough kid, works hard for his money, has two jobs, one is a pizza delivery boy at night. now you know how i got the job. Knowing not much about cars he found the cheapest service advertised and went for it.

The bloke who did the service is new to the area. Advertises himself as an auto elec who decided to take up servicing cars. Advertised price was $60 if i remember correctly which got you a change of oil and oil filter from what i gathered. The only problem was the oil filter wasn't screwed on tight enough and the bottom end chewed up first. He took it back and they blamed him for not seeing that the oil pressure was low. He then took it to V-CAT and the couldn't help him as he didn't get a reciept.

I hope i have shed some light on understanding some of the motives of your local service technician and highlighting the important safety cosiderations and consequences in undertaking your own repairs for those of you who think that there is not much to it.

Some food for thought when dealing with a repairer, i.e. things to put on your check list are,

* Can they quote you upfront, provide you with a gaurantee, warranty and an estimated time of delivery.

* Choose someone that is recomended by others. An acredited repairer (by the VACC) is not a bad sign, it's kind of the same as being a master builder in the housing industry.

* Is the workshop clean neat and organised. Good ones are the kind you see at your local dealership or bridgestone dealer. A workshop that is too crowded usually means they take on more work than they can handle which can result in your car being handled by more mechanics than it needs to be hence, you loose the personal touch with a job resulting in no-one knowing exactly what has / has not been done.

* Do they provide appropriate paperwork? if so, you are likely to get them to stick to an agreed price and not just some figure they pulled out of the air which can be subject to change due to some technical aspect that they loose you in. Hold them firm to their price and if there are any unexpected hickups that will be costly then they can give you a quick call before they carry on to confirm you have available funds. No wokshop wants a customer that can't pay. it means a car that hangs around for a while taking up space where instead another job can be in that space, makeing them a profit. If you suspect that the shop is overcharging on parts then ask them for a cheaper alternative and why they can't be used instead.

* Hold them to their word as in make them accountable for their work with a guarantee before they start the job and don't just accept what ever bill they give you after the job is done without asking whats involved proir.

Not doing this is where most people go wrong as a repairer with a poor work ethic will treat your job as an open slather situation, kind of what ever happens happens.

* Although fixed price servicing sounds great i.e. from you local ultra tune etc is not always the way to go, it means that they will check whats on a list as recomended from manufacturers specifications for the time interval or from the kms travelled. however will ignore any other areas of the car.

* Customer satisfaction is what a good workshop will employ.

[Simon-S14]

Let me be the first to say that there is no such thing as a service kit and All parts are not created equal. A classic example is the R33 water pump. A vl turbo water pump will actually fit on an RB25 block however one of the bolt holes does not line up. this of course leads to less support holding down the pump to the block it's self. however many may tell you that it fits and works fine, however general engineering sense should tell you that the limits of this application are quite different. As a result, the vl pump is generally cheaper hence you can find them advertised as an rb 25 pump. If you plan on putting your body through extra stresses and strains like sprinting then your doctor would advise getting in shape, which takes time. If you want to boost your car well then your doing the same thing hence your mechanic would want to get you car fit too!

interesting read.. im a mechanic also and i agree with a lot of your (somehwhat long winded) post i do not however agree with the quoted part.. the water pump is only different on the small M6bolt that on an RB30 is nothing more then a bolt with a mount point to allow the bottom half of the timing cover to bolt to it.

the whole water pump is held on by 4x M10 x1.5 bolts and 8x m8 x1.5 its plenty strong and structual enough to do without one pissy little m6 bolt.

[tripsteady]

100k service on my 32 years ago cost $750 for parts and labour.

id pay it, and feel good knowing that he would/will pick up on any other little issues that many others would not notice.

cheers , id prefer not to cut corners for a few bucks. will take it to paden

[The Sherrid]

Simon,

I apologise for the long windedness, i was thinking of some of our members who are not as experienced as you and I. With respect to the water pump, Since i have seen 2 pumps leak from the gap where the M6 bolt holds it down i guessed that after a few kms (not imediately) the pumps end up leaking from there as the span is too great for a long lasting seal. I have also seen many people do the job with great sucsess as you have obviously done also. My opinion was aimed at Tripsteady who is concerned with the reliability of his car after putting the engine under extra load.

here is a picture of what we are talking about.

The red hole on this RB30 pump is not used on an RB25 block as the block hole on an RB25 aligns itself about 5 mm to the left hence you end up running the RB30 water pump below with out 1 bolt to support it.

if you look closely at the pump, you can see the top where water had been running out of and how new the pump looks.

In an analogy, a 5 stud wheel with only 4 nuts holding it on will work fine too however is obviously not as reliable as 5 nuts. If you think about the pump and the millions of dollars and many hours nissan have spent on engine testing, If they think it wasn't nescessary, then they would have left it out since it costs more money to drill holes, make new water pumps etc.

In my experience i have seen 2 pumps leak from the gap where the m6 bolt goes.

Edited July 23, 2012 by The Sherrid

[Simon-S14]

what i usually do is fill the hole with the silastic thats used to seal it on the block... and use a quality silastic such as permatex or 3bond etc. filling the hole then covering the clean dry sealing suface of the pump has worked well for me for the last 12 years, not had a single issue.

but i can see where people go wrong.poor quality sealant or suface prep and leaving the hole open is asking for leaks after a while

[The Sherrid]

good point simon, preperation is everything!