Am I getting ripped off???

[planetdavo]

OK, thanks for the insight guys.

What about the matter of not saying how much labor is going to cost?

The way that quote reads they could end up charging me anything for labor. The whole reason I was paying for a quote was to find out how much it will cost me in total to fix the air con, and it seems to me that they haven't really done that. For all the work they put in diagnosing it, shouldn't they have been able to work out how long it would take them to fix it? I mean if they're only swapping out a compressor and regassing the system that should be pretty straight forward and predictable right?

Ask them.
Stay away from secondhand compressors too. We sell these things week in week out, so you are taking a big risk. A big risk that you will be paying someone again soon enough to put another one on there.

[DEVLGM]

Ok, as an A/C tech of over 8 years, considering the make of your vehicle $150 to diagnose a fault in it is pretty reasonable as they can be a bloody prick of a system to diagnose & can be very time consuming.

First issue I look for is if the compressor is engaging & running when you activate the a/c button.
If it is & you arent getting any cold air inside on these systems its necessary to recover all the gas out of the system & then regas & retest.
The delphi compressors in VT onwards have whats called a control valve in the compressor that regulates refrigerant flow & regardless of gas charge appear on the gauges that they are functioning correctly - i.e show normal pressure.
The only way to ascertain if its low gas or dud control valve is to remove all gas from the system & put the correct weight of gas in the system - if it still doesnt work then the control valve is the issue, if it does work then the original issue was caused by low refrigerant - at this point before recovering gas I usually do a visual check to see if there are any oil marks around hoses alluding to low refrigerant, these cars are very common to leak around the compressor o'rings.
So if its the latter & its low gas, on to further testing we go - by this stage we have already wasted at least half an hour to 45 mins.

If we have identified its a low refrigerant charge then we have to go looking for where the bloody hell its all gone.
Usually we do whats called a nitrogen test, which requires us to yet again recover the refrigerant out of the system & inject it with nitrogen & then go over every single hose & o'ring join with a soapy solution that bubbles to show up leak points.
Depending on how quickly you can find a leak, this can take a considerable amount of time if you have to start pulling off covers etc to get to hoses & components.
This can take anywhere from 15 mins to 30 mins.

If the nitrogen test didnt show up anything - which 9 times out of 10 it does - we then regas the system and put in a UV dye and let it run for an hour or so & then go over it all again with a UV light to identify the leak - you can waste another 15 - 30 mins here again.

So as you can see, especially with this sort of vehicle, it can be extremely time consuming in finding the fault & a lot of people dont realise the amount of work we have to do to find it.
And thats not your fault for not understanding the process, if you had any querys the dealer should have been able to run you through the process they took to test your vehicle.
But having said that, we have different stages of testing that we always contact the customer before progressing so it then falls back on them & not us and then they understand whats going on.

From what you have shown in the quote, I would say if the compressor needs to be replaced then its either the compressor body seal that has failed(cant replace them) or the compressor shaft has been snapped.
In either case its necessary to replace the TX valve & receiver drier & flush the system otherwise it will void the compressor warranty.
If you are thinking about going the second hand route, id strongly advise against it as we have had MANY customers that have fit up second hand compressors and bought them in to have them re-gassed only to have them fail shortly after - to the point that we no longer re-gas anything that a customer has fitted themselves as we cannot guarantee the work.
Save your money & do it right the first time as you will only have to pay labor twice & I would be extremely surprised if Holden gave you warranty for second hand parts.

On another note - Legally, anyone licenced to use R134a refrigerant CAN NOT re-gas any vehicle that has a leak in the system, nor can they re-gas a system that has been opened & has not had the receiver drier replaced.
Due to the carbon tax, the price of R134a has skyrocketed & your average re-gas is around $170 - $200 alone now days - we figured out the other day that one charge of gas now has $80 in tax alone applied to it - thats even before the supplier charges us!!

If anyone is taking their later model car in for a "Re-gas" & consequently paying under $200 & not having any faults fixed or drier changed, I would be very strongly be questioning them what refrigerant they are putting in your system.
There are all sorts of nasty "blends" of refrigerant out there, most that dont need licenses & you can buy them over the counter at bursons.
Sounds good in theory, but brands such as Hychill are an LPG based refrigerant & are not designed for R134a systems & dont handle the heat well so usually fall over on a hot day.
But the bigger issue with them is that they tend to dry out the refrigerant oil & we have seen a few of them lead to catastrophic compressor failure on later model cars.

Stay clear of anyone offering a "re-gas".

Sorry for the long reply, but hopefully it answers your questions.

[DEVLGM]

OK, thanks for the insight guys.

What about the matter of not saying how much labor is going to cost?

The way that quote reads they could end up charging me anything for labor. The whole reason I was paying for a quote was to find out how much it will cost me in total to fix the air con, and it seems to me that they haven't really done that. For all the work they put in diagnosing it, shouldn't they have been able to work out how long it would take them to fix it? I mean if they're only swapping out a compressor and regassing the system that should be pretty straight forward and predictable right?

Yeah it seems bizarre that they cant quote for Labor - its a pretty straightforward job.
From memory the last compressor, TX, Drier, Gas, Dye & Labor job we did was around the $950 mark.

Just looking at your quotes again & I would be questioning them what sort of refigerant they are putting in the system.
$44 for a charge of R134a is waaaaay too cheap, they are either giving it away for nothing or its not R134a they are putting in the system.
Also I would be questioning why they put a receiver drier on at the inital testing phase? Because if they flush the system when you put the new compressor on its just going to clog up the drier & it will need to be done again.

And id like to know how he knows the compressor is not pumping, if its a snapped shaft you can pick that up as soon as you put the gauges on - id be leaning towards a possible control valve failure.
From experience, dealers are prone to just replacing compressors un-neccessarily.

[steve_t]

OK, thanks for the insight guys.

What about the matter of not saying how much labor is going to cost?

The way that quote reads they could end up charging me anything for labor. The whole reason I was paying for a quote was to find out how much it will cost me in total to fix the air con, and it seems to me that they haven't really done that. For all the work they put in diagnosing it, shouldn't they have been able to work out how long it would take them to fix it? I mean if they're only swapping out a compressor and regassing the system that should be pretty straight forward and predictable right?

Yes, I agree. They should be able to at least give you an 'estimate' of the labour cost. Obviously, there can be extenuating circumstances that mean that your actual charge is more than the estimate but it needs to be within reason. You have a right to know roughly how much you'll be paying for the service you receive

[Xjas]

The price seems fair to me, they would have not been able to tell the tx valve and compressor were faulty without filling the system with gas to test it first, I would consider the $150 as a charge for diagnosing the fault rather than to provide a quote which is completely reasonable, diagnosis time has to be paid for.
The only thing I dont like is the lack of labour on the $650 dollar quote, they have diagnosed it, they know whats wrong and what is needed to fix it, they should have no problem quoting hours required to complete the repair.
And no $150 is not a lot of money these days IMHO.

[VTSSDUDE]

As said, $150 for a quote is reasonable.
This is why mechanics get paid $25 an hour, be nice if they could get more, but then dealerships would have to raise their costs to the customer.

If the dealer as shown in your quote is going to charge $660 to replace your compressor, I was quoted more than that for a new fitting of a compressor in my VN I used to have. So I would think that is a pretty good price.

[duke5700]

Its not a quote, you have dropped the car of for diagnostics of an issue and possible repair. A bloke spent time, checking and replacing parts on your air con system.

A quote would be them looking at it and saying well if this is wrong it costs this much, if this is wrong it will cost this much.

Lessoned learnt here, the workshop bloke and your "not much" maybe different. Get a dollar value. I would consider what you have been charged as reasonable.

[the big fist]

Its not a quote, you have dropped the car of for diagnostics of an issue and possible repair. A bloke spent time, checking and replacing parts on your air con system.

A quote would be them looking at it and saying well if this is wrong it costs this much, if this is wrong it will cost this much.

Lessoned learnt here, the workshop bloke and your "not much" maybe different. Get a dollar value. I would consider what you have been charged as reasonable.

It's totally reasonable. If you took that to any ac place they would go, oh theres no gas and gas it up and recheck.
They then found the compressor is at fault and have quoted you to do the work to replace the compressor. They didn't charge you for the quote. I think you are confused as to what was done.
$150 is not a lot of money. As far as hourly rates go, the tech probably costs the company roughly double what he takes home. so $50/h. The rest is profit.

[DEVLGM]

It's totally reasonable. If you took that to any ac place they would go, oh theres no gas and gas it up and recheck.
They then found the compressor is at fault and have quoted you to do the work to replace the compressor. They didn't charge you for the quote. I think you are confused as to what was done.
$150 is not a lot of money. As far as hourly rates go, the tech probably costs the company roughly double what he takes home. so $50/h. The rest is profit.

Not to mention operation costs of the business, you also have parts, equipment, licences, etc - its not cheap!!
I think people loose sight of the big picture sometimes when they look at hourly rates and just think that the rate is going solely to the tech and/or its all profit. I wish it was the case!!

[STATIE]

I get involved in arguments like this all the time (different trade - same shit) - what you had done is fault finding - fault finding isn't free - quotes in most cases are free but in order for someone to quote something the customer has to be able to quantify exactly what they want.
What, when where how etc - if you can't answer those questions then it's unlikely that anyone can give you a quote without some level of fault finding.

Bit like going to a mechanic & saying "How much to fix my car?" he asks what's wrong with it - "F@#ked if I know - doesn't go" you answer - how does he know if it is out of petrol or has a blown motor without looking into it.

[feistl]

The rest is profit.

The rest is revenue... The profit margin would actually be much much smaller.

To the OP, at least they found and hopefully correctly diagnosed the fault. Nothing worse than paying a shitload and not getting the problem fixed.

[the big fist]

The rest is revenue... The profit margin would actually be much much smaller.

To the OP, at least they found and hopefully correctly diagnosed the fault. Nothing worse than paying a shitload and not getting the problem fixed.

sorry for trying to make it simple for the OP.
f*cks sake.

[feistl]

sorry for trying to make it simple for the OP.
f*cks sake.

I just think its a very important distinction to make... If a business is making $100 profit off a $150 job then your getting ripped. However if the OP knows Holden only made say $20 PROFIT off his $150 job, then he wont feel so bad. I know im being picky, but its important.

[the big fist]

I just think its a very important distinction to make... If a business is making $100 profit off a $150 job then your getting ripped. However if the OP knows Holden only made say $20 PROFIT off his $150 job, then he wont feel so bad. I know im being picky, but its important.

Fair enough.
You will never please the general public though. Any profit is too much in my experience.

[bungrs]

Never paid for a quote at Holden. Local dealership is quite good most of the time.

Sent from a bar somewhere