Am I getting ripped off???

Hi gang,

I went to a holden dealer today to get a quote on how much it would be to fix my air-con on a WH statesman V8.
The manager of the place said to just get a quote "wouldn't be much" but I get the quote back and it's $150

I don't know if this guy's a millionairre or what, but I would think that to most normal people $150 is a fairly large amount of money, I certainly wouldn't describe it as 'not much'. When he said it wouldn't be much I was thinking around $50-$70.

I notice he's charged me $100 for one hour of labor. Is that normal??? How can they justify charging $100 per hour for labor to pay a mechanic that earns at most $25 per hour? I understand there are overheads for rent, tools, electricity etc but a 300% overhead seems a bit much to me.

Also, the quote they've given me to fix the air con is for $650 EXCLUDING LABOR. Can someone explain to me why I should be paying for a quote when they haven't even worked out how much the total cost of the repairs is going to be? If they decide to charge me for 4 hours labor that's going to be about another $400 bucks.

Oh, and I asked them to grease up the suspension nipples while the car was in as well and they forgot to do it. Can't say I'm too impressed.

They dropped the car off at my work for me today, and I'm expected to go in and pay for it all tomorrow arvo. If someone could get back to me with the info I'm after before then that would be great.

thanks heaps!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dillzio

Hi gang,

I went to a holden dealer today to get a quote on how much it would be to fix my air-con on a WH statesman V8.
The manager of the place said to just get a quote "wouldn't be much" but I get the quote back and it's $150

I don't know if this guy's a millionairre or what, but I would think that to most normal people $150 is a fairly large amount of money, I certainly wouldn't describe it as 'not much'. When he said it wouldn't be much I was thinking around $50-$70.

I notice he's charged me $100 for one hour of labor. Is that normal??? How can they justify charging $100 per hour for labor to pay a mechanic that earns at most $25 per hour? I understand there are overheads for rent, tools, electricity etc but a 300% overhead seems a bit much to me.

Also, the quote they've given me to fix the air con is for $650 EXCLUDING LABOR. Can someone explain to me why I should be paying for a quote when they haven't even worked out how much the total cost of the repairs is going to be? If they decide to charge me for 4 hours labor that's going to be about another $400 bucks.

Oh, and I asked them to grease up the suspension nipples while the car was in as well and they forgot to do it. Can't say I'm too impressed.

They dropped the car off at my work for me today, and I'm expected to go in and pay for it all tomorrow arvo. If someone could get back to me with the info I'm after before then that would be great.

thanks heaps!

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$150 is not a lot mate. The $100/h is not just paying the mechanic remember. If anything for an A/C fix $150 is damm cheap and I'd be questioning what they are actually doing. To me I would figure all they are doing is topping up the gas. In which case you'll be back soon enough to get the real fault fixed.

I'm confused. Is it $150 or $650

Word of advice. Stay away from Holden for stuff like this. Find a small auto elec workshop that also does A/C.

I had $130 dealer quote just to check a fault i had, but they rolled it into the final amount, didn't add it on. At the end of it, $250 all up and they had the car for 2 days, when he added up the hours he said he couldn't do that to me. All good :)

But Macca the $150 is not for a fix, just a quote.

I would be pissed as well. Take your car to an auto electrician or regular mechanic that does auto AC. If you were in Syd I'd offer to help as I run an AC business.

Did they mention what the issue was?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by macca_779

$150 is not a lot mate. The $100/h is not just paying the mechanic remember. If anything for an A/C fix $150 is damm cheap and I'd be questioning what they are actually doing. To me I would figure all they are doing is topping up the gas. In which case you'll be back soon enough to get the real fault fixed.

Word of advice. Stay away from Holden for stuff like this. Find a small auto elec workshop that also does A/C.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by macca_779

$150 is not a lot mate. The $100/h is not just paying the mechanic remember. If anything for an A/C fix $150 is damm cheap and I'd be questioning what they are actually doing. To me I would figure all they are doing is topping up the gas. In which case you'll be back soon enough to get the real fault fixed.

Word of advice. Stay away from Holden for stuff like this. Find a small auto elec workshop that also does A/C.

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I think after reading the original post a few times he's saying the $150 charge is for diagnosing the fault only. OP later said the repair to the AC will be $650.

Edit - damn I was beaten to it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dillzio

Oh, and I asked them to grease up the suspension nipples while the car was in as well and they forgot to do it. Can't say I'm too impressed.

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Did they actually tell you they forgot to grease the suspension nipples? :confused:

They don't have grease nipples buddy,
I would have thought a Holden Dealership workshop would have known that.:cheers:

On another web page today a couple of guys were saying that Pro Fix at Elizabeth is
good and cheap for air cond repairs at the moment :cheers:

Yeah 'im sure the mechanic would say to the boss, its ok mate don't pay me for the hour + i spent diagnosing that a/c fault on the statesman.

I only had to read the first 6 words of the first sentence to know you were getting ripped off. Thieves, the lot of them.

Without knowing what parts they are quoting to fix the air con, $650 + labor may be reasonable or it may be the rip-off of the year. Being a Holden dealer I'm guessing at the latter.

My aircon died in my Berlina. No matter how many times I swore at it and pressed the auto button on the climate control it never got cold. Ended up being the compressor. Total for the diagnoses, new compressor, new tx valve, new dryer receiver, a full system oil flush, all fitted up and gassed up with warranty was $1050. I was given a guesstimate on the number of hours for labor up front.

QldKev

Even out here in the country, labour is $70-80 p/h at the small mechanic shops, doesn't sound too bad really.

What's this about suspension nipples not needing greasing? The suspension on my car has gotten a bit creaky of late. I though they hook up a grease gun to the grease nipples and squirt them full of grease to keep everything lubricated nicely?

I was charged $150 just for the quote... and it wasn't even a full quote, the labor price was excluded which I guess means they can decide to charge me as much as they want for the labor if I get it fixed with them. As part of that quote price, I was charged $100 JUST FOR LABOR of one hour - is that a bit excessive? The rest of the quote fees were for gas and oil.

Especially after being told it "wouldn't be much" $150 seems very steep for a partial quote.

Give me a min and I'll upload the quote they gave me and the bill for the quote...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dillzio

What's this about suspension nipples not needing greasing? The suspension on my car has gotten a bit creaky of late. I though they hook up a grease gun to the grease nipples and squirt them full of grease to keep everything lubricated nicely?

I was charged $150 just for the quote... and it wasn't even a full quote, the labor price was excluded which I guess means they can decide to charge me as much as they want for the labor if I get it fixed with them. As part of that quote price, I was charged $100 JUST FOR LABOR of one hour - is that a bit excessive? The rest of the quote fees were for gas and oil.

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Yeah I agree, $150 just for a quote is not cheap, unfortunately they would have got you to sign a job card or authority to do
the work when you dropped it off so you will have to pay. I am at a loss to understand from your original post that
they have given you back your car without being paid?
Yeah mate, they have not had any grease nipples for years, all the joints are sealed these days.

http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z...lzio/quote.jpg

http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z...quoteprice.jpg

The first image shows the quote to get the air con fixed
The second image shows how much they charged me for the quote

I'm not so sure the quote for the repairs is unreasonable, but being charged $150 for a partial quote seems excessive.

1) I've been charged $100 for a hour's work
2) I was told it 'wouldn't be much' for the quote
3) The whole point of a quote is to find out how much it will cost to get something fixed. Without quoting the labor they're not really doing that are they?


Also, please, clarrification on the grease nipple thing. Someone just said they don't need to be greased, is that true?

If that is true, how do I stop my suspension from creaking?

Thanks heaps guys

PS sorry the first pic is sideways. I did change it on photobucket but apparently have to wait for the image to be updated

Quote:

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Originally Posted by whitels1ss

Yeah I agree, $150 just for a quote is not cheap, unfortunately they would have got you to sign a job card or authority to do
the work when you dropped it off so you will have to pay. I am at a loss to understand from your original post that
they have given you back your car without being paid?
Yeah mate, they have not had any grease nipples for years, all the joints are sealed these days.

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I agree that it's not cheap. I did not sigh a job card or authority or anything at all.

Yeah they haven't accepted payment yet. I'm working in a small town every Thu and Fri and I got it done there so it could be done while I'm at work. I was surprised too they didn't ask for cash up front but I work just up the road from the mechanics so I guess they figured they could find me pretty easily if I did a dodgey on them

With no grease nipples, how to I lube my suspension to stop the creakyness?


Also, can anyone tell me what my rights are regarding being charged so much for a quote I was told wouldn't cost much?
I never authorised them to do $150 worth of work to my car, so am I entitled to not pay it all?