Beware - R1038 gasket for your car?

[Guest coenie]

Took the 2006 Bantam in for a 45000 km service at Ford Barloworld Armstrong N1 City. Around midday I got a phone call telling me that the "flange gasket on the exhaust needs to be replaced"

 

 

 

The cost for the extra work is R1038, broken down as follows.

 

R280 for the gasket

 

R70 something for a bolt

 

R 680 Odd for 2 hours labor

 

 

 

I told them "No thank you"

 

 

 

On Saturday I popped in at Speedy who did this exact same job for R171 ALL INCLUDED. And no bolt broke.

 

 

 

Beware, they rip you off whenever they can!

[wannabesub3]

Gees and I thought a Ford was cheap to maintain

[Weekend_Warrior]

U must also check the quality of the gasket coz those crappy silver lead loopking ones dont last very long.

[Christopher Brunsdon]

I'm no car mechanic but I tend to do a lot of self-service things nowdays. Change the front discs on my wifes ATOS (1st time in my life) - took 40 minutes in total, would have been quicker if I had a clamp. Sat outside with my netbook and google, no problem.

 

The garages wanted to charge R500 labour for something that would have taken them 15 minutes.

 

That R500 covered the cost of my new 3L Camelbak

 

[Guest coenie]

The gasket is exactly the same one. Checked it very well..coenie2009-06-01 05:50:05

[Slave]

Yeah, the bad economy is making the dealers / service staions become very creative at finding new places to get profit.

 

I had an issue with my exhaust flange gasket a while back. The gasket was R10.90 at LSS (Local spares shop).

 

Undoing the bolts. one broke. Sheared right off. Went to speedy and they quote me R1400 to fix it.

 

One trip to hardware store, several drill bits and helicoils later and the job cost me R90.00. Scratch that, the parks cost me R90.00 and the labour too me no more than an hour. Drilled out old broken bits of bolt and replaced all the exhaust mounting and flange bolts at the same time.

[Guest coenie]

Now what is funny is that I noticed the gasket price on the job card and it was R72 and they wanted to charge me R280 what a markup.

 

 

 

Last time that I support Ford...

[porky]

Ag, its everywhere ya just gotta shop around.

 

My wifes BMW was in for a service, the agents called to say the front pads need replacing, R1680.00, (its out of Motorplan)- I said the brake has a sensor which lights when the pads are worn, and it hasnt come on yet.?

 

They told me no but theres only about 2500 kilos left before it will come on - I said fine leave it and when it comes on I will bring it in.

 

Since then its gone through another service - 15000 kilos later - still no light come on, so they call again, only got 1500 kilos left must change them, but now its R1900.00.

 

I said leave them till the light comes on.

 

The other day it did come on, after about another 6000 kilos.

 

So thats about 21000 kilos of pad that would have been wasted by changing them early.

 

Anyway, theres a Bosch workshop 2 minutes from my work so asked if they could do the job, sure they said, takes about an hour, Ferodo or ATE brand pads are R680.00 per set and labour is an hour - entire job less than a grand.

 

Go figure.!

 

[Slave]

It's little wonder that GM are filing for chapter 11 in the US.

 

They (the motor industry) have ripped the consumer off for far too long. In doing so, they have actually created the pirate part market and only have themselves to blame.

 

Some time ago, I saw Toyota's efforts to put the fear of pirate parts into the consumer. They showed the genuine part and the pirate part and I was truly gobsmacked.

 

So I took it upon myself to buy an oil filter from my agent and at the next service (which I do myself) I disected the part. I would go so far as to say that both parts, (pirate and "genuine" were identical in every way except price.)

 

So, the motor manufacturers have dug a pit only to fall into it themselves. I feel rocks for them even though I drive a GM car.

 

Bring on the electic car that will be enviromentally friendly and go for years without the need of a service and have done with the motor industry.

 

That will probably push up bike prices though.

 

Damn, always someone out there to try and rip off the consumer.

 

[Alida]

I took my Ford Fiesta in for a service around about the same time as end-of-the-month-Salticrax.  Told them it must just be standard service and they should phone me for anything funny because I can't afford lots of bells and whistles (which I couldn't). 

 

Anyway, they phone me to tell me that two goodies were broken (can't remember which goodies they were).  So I said ok how much and the total for the parts + the service ended up being almost exactly what I had left.  And then he told me how much the labour would cost so I told him that I can't afford to replace the parts and that he should just finish the service and I'll take my chances until payday.  He didn't charge me for labour which I thought was very nice but what I thought was interesting was that they said it would be 2 hours extra labour to replace the broken parts although my car was ready for collection at the same time as they had originally said it would be.

[1hill@aTime]

i do all my work on my car myself, at least i know the parts that go in are new and genuine.

[dirtrider]

Most of us do , but if your vehicle is still under some sort of warranty or maintenance plan be carefull , even when taking it to Speedy for something as simple as a gasket

[Slave]

1 hill, dude. I have already explained that there is ususally little difference between OE and pirate. Sometimes there are and when I know this, I will always go for quality over price.

 

In most cases though, pirate are the same quality at a fraction of the cost.

 

Simple arithmentic says, the motor manufacturerers dropped the ball big time when they priced themselves out of the market. Profit is one thing but to rip off the comsumer is another. Time that the monster they created bit them on the ass.

 

Tony Factor was smart. Reduce the profit margin and you will increase the turnover.

 

I'm afraid we are all victims of our own greed.

 

[Slowbee]

 

 

1 hill' date=' dude. I have already explained that there is ususally little difference between OE and pirate. Sometimes there are and when I know this, I will always go for quality over price.

 

In most cases though, pirate are the same quality at a fraction of the cost.

 

Simple arithmentic says, the motor manufacturerers dropped the ball big time when they priced themselves out of the market. Profit is one thing but to rip off the comsumer is another. Time that the monster they created bit them on the ass.

 

Tony Factor was smart. Reduce the profit margin and you will increase the turnover.

 

I'm afraid we are all victims of our own greed.

 

[/quote']

 

could not have said it more succinctly

Slowbee2009-06-01 06:17:51

[1hill@aTime]

Ok let me rephrase i know i buy genuine boxes that probably, hopefuly have genuine fake parts in, at least there's no labour charges

[Slave]

Perhaps I mistated my point.

The quality of the parts is often the same (Some would disagree and I'm talking of my own experience) between priate and OE. Only the boxes vary, the content is often the same. You pay more by buying it at the agent. So same part = more money just because it is in a GM box.

 

The agents make huge profit on the parts and they make a fortune on the labour. You pay journeyan rates of several hundred and hour and they put an appy to work on the car and pay him minimum wage.

 

Yes I agree, you have saved yourself a fortune by doing the work yourself. My point is you need to familiarise yourself with the relative difference in part quality and see if you can save some more.

 

Yeah Slowbee, we invest in Shares and want bigger dividends. That only comes from higher profit so it goes full circle and comes back to bite the consumer, right where the sun don't usually shine.