Have a friend that came to me with a bearly legible bill for $503 to replace the coil pack on a 2005 Chevy Malibu. The car had been running rough. The bill indicates cylinders 2 and 3 were misfiring, multiple codes were indicated (but not listed), and the resolution was replacement of the coil pack at a parts cost of $372.76 from NAPA.
I tried to research the price of a coil pack for this car from NAPA stores online and got no hits. I know the part exists - it’s a glorified distributor cap. It seemed to me when I promised to find out what the part(s) should cost that it would be easy to get a price from NAPA for the part.
My friend is a non-retired over sixty-five year old bus driver and I would like to help her if she is being housed here. She did get a SC ($57) discount but she was also charged $80 for the diagnosis and $80 for the labor. Her car is running fine now. Mostly she wants to know if she should trust this mechanic in the future. Aside from the cost of the part, I’m okay with the labor charge and the labor. So I’m asking if anyone knows how much this part should cost and wants to raise a flag at the $372 price tag. thanks
Near as I could tell the NAPA price on a coil pack was roughly 150 dollars but the price could vary some by location. Every shop will mark up the price of parts. They have to do this or they will go under.
Just offhand, if they’re marking this up from about 150 to 372 then that sounds a bit extreme on the markup to me but there’s certainly no law against it.
What I would be concerned about would be if the original coil pack failed due to aged spark plugs. It’s quite possible to have chronic misfires that will set no codes and will actually go unnoticed by the driver. Over the long haul those plugs can kill plug wires, coils, etc. Hope that helps.
We don’t have a Napa here, so I checked OEM for grins. Msrp for OEM is $201.08.
Well, since you didn’t state what type of Malibu it is, and if its a 4 cylinder, or a 3.5 or 3.8 V-6 engine, I can’t really narrow it down for you.
A quick look on rockauto.com allowed me to price out the 3.5 V-6 ignition coil pack between $69 (AC Delco OEM part) and $117. The 4 cylinder engine costs between $113 and $149.
On NAPA’s website for my zipcode (80003), the 4 cylinder ignition coil costs $158.77 and the V-6 ignition coil costs $117.59.
It sounds like your neighbor’s shop really marks up the price of the part, but there’s not much that can be done about it at this point. At least their diagnosis is correct, so maybe in the future, your neighbor can take the car to them for a quote to fix the issue, and then she can get other quotes from other shops to do the work.
Unless you are willing to occasionally swap parts on your neighbor’s car to save her a bit of money.
Oh, and when you search NAPA for the part, just insert “ignition coil” after you have the correct car selected. There were only two choices.
BC.
I did actually try “ignition coil” for the keywords, but somehow got no hits for this car. I’ll try again, who knows, maybe I spelled it as well as I spelled the word “barely” in my original question.
Thanks everyone!
The $117 and the $158 are the LIST PRICE for this part…The shop that did the repair got the coil for 30 or 40% less…$370 for this part is a complete rip-off…
If the prices are on their website, the price will be what a consumer pays for the part. Consumers still buy from NAPA at a discount over list, although it is not a jobber discount. List price is usually about 30-40% over the consumer price. Dealerships, however, sell their parts to consumers at list price and only give shops a discount.
Those suggested list prices are a crock designed to make people think they’re getting a bid discount. It’s just like one of those 50% off ads on a sofa at the furniture store. Fifty percent off means the regular price as usual.
Working with round numbers for a minute, if the price paid is 50 bucks and the suggested list is 100 then everyone who walks through the door will pay 50, no matter if it’s an individual or a mechanic purchasing a part for resale.
The only difference is that the mechanic may get the part tax exempt and a 10% discount if they’re a regular at the parts house.
I don’t know of any mechanic who ever got more than 10% off unless they’re playing that inflated suggested retail numbers game.
Auto parts pricing is more complex than that. I get our shop discount at the parts store they deal with. If is the lowest price parts line, for example brake pads, I get only a dollar or two off their online price. If I buy premium pads,say ceramic I get about 30% off. Their online price is well below the fictitious “retail” price that is only paid by the customer of a repair shop to the shop. I would think that by now people would realize that repair shops mark up the parts they sell just like any other retailer. It does seem in this case the markup is excessive but your recourse is to not do business with them and don’t recommend them.