I have a 99 Silverado, 5.3 with a warpped manifold. Its plastic, what a great idea. Anyway, Im being told a $1000 to replace. Sounds high. Any thoughts or can I do this myself. The part is $250 online so $750 in labor! Is the guy behind on his mortgage? Help!
What kind of problems are you having? These manifolds rarely need to be replaced, what’s wrong with your truck?
Book time is about 2.5 hours. $750.00 sounds like about two to three times the labor you should be paying for. Of course maybe he gets $250.00 an hour. I don’t know your abilities so I can’t say whether you can do the job or not.
$250 online plus 40% markup for the shop price, plus shipping. Also add new coolant and possible oil change. But he should still be able to do it for less than a grand, but not as much as you might think.
Don’t forget labor is more than just what the mechanic makes an hour, it also includes the cost of running the shop, the rent, utilities and solvents, rags, tool wear and tear and cleaning supplies.
I wonder if this is the dreaded intake manifold problem common to GM vehicles using Dexcool? I had this same sort of issue come up a few years back on a 2002 Malibu I had. The dealer said it was going to cost around $700-800 to fix I believe. Shortly after the diagnosis I could smell coolant burning in the exhaust. I traded the car in since there was no telling what kind of internal engine damage there was. Haven’t looked back. Good luck with yours.
Dexcool wasn’t the problem…the problem was a faulty intake manifold design that was in place for 15 years on gm v6 and v8 engines.
The 5.3 hasn’t been around 15 years and coolant does not travel through the intake. I would also agree though on those intakes that leak coolant it is not the fault of Dexcool, but poor design.
If you own a service manual, and a decent selection of tools required by the service manual for this procedure, and you can follow instructions (along with occasionally improvise when the instructions aren’t perfect), and you know the term “Righty tighty - Lefty Loosey”, then you can perform this task.
Hint, get a service manual, and see what the procedure requires.
Then decide if you can do the procedure yourself.
BC.