I recently had some knocking sounds coming from my suspension. I took it to my mechanic, he said it was a bad ball joint. Ok, so I took it back to him a few days later to replace the ball joint.
I go to pick up the car and he said it would be $500. Once I picked myself up…I said “for one ball joint?” He then told me that it was actually the sway bar links and bushings. I knew how much I should pay for the ball joint but I had no idea about the sway bar links so I paid him. Nevermind the fact that he should have called me before doing the unexpected repairs.
Now I look at the auto parts stores and the most expensive parts for mine only total around $100. He charged me $150. I don’t have a much of a problem with the markup. The problem I have is the labor cost of $350. I’m curious if this is reasonable . If it is then fine but if not…I’ll need to find another mechanic.
No, labor cost should be 1.5 hour for both side.It really depends on how difficult a job to remove them.Some links are rusted badly and you have to cut them off.
Sway Bar Link Kit with Bushings $149.99
Labor $351.87
I guess I need to just go over and ask him why the labor was so high. Like I said, if it’s reasonable then I have no problem with it but I feel like I’m being taken a bit.
Just called another shop in town and asked them and they told me $312 parts and labor.
Did it mention how many hours of labor you were charged for or the hourly rate? The hourly rate can be vary a lot depending on where in the country you live
For example, Chilton shows about 1.5hrs labor to replace front sway bar links and bushings on a 2008 Expedition. I’m not sure if that’s the same body style as yours. It seems your mechanic overcharged you on labor, unless your truck is so rusty, that it required a herculean effort to replace the parts. Sounds like the second shop’s charges are more in line with what I would expect to see.
If the mechanic specifically said you had a bad ball joint, when it fact it was the sway bar links and bushings, then he needs to work on his communication skills, in my opinion. Bad ball joints are a more serious problem, versus sway bar links, in my opinion, and I wonder if he purposefully said ball joints, so that you would go for the repair? More than likely poor communication on his part, or maybe he doesn’t actually know the proper terminology?
That’s why I posted here… To see if it was reasonable. I don’t want to insult him if it’s even close to reasonable … But if he charged me $200 too much then I don’t care about insulting him.
The broken ones have one side loose already. Mine are always rusted so i just torch them off. Takes less time than turning hardware…I’d just chalk it up to lesson learned. You’ll be wiser next time. Asking for money back will burn that bridge anyway…
That’s a good point. The time to question it was when I was there. The guy does good work so I don’t want to burn that bridge over this. However, if I take it back to him I’ll stress for him to call me before he does anything.
There may have been some diagnostic time involved prior to him figuring out the problem was the sway bar links rather than the ball joint. If so, that’s to your benefit, as you didn’t get billed for replacing a ball joint that didn’t need replacing, and ending up with the problem still unsolved. The mechanic has to charge a reasonable fee for his time, otherwise it wouldn’t be worthwhile for him to come to work. If you can figure out a way to encourage your mechanic to give you a $$ estimate first, then if things change during the job to call you first before proceding, you’d probably be more satisfied with his work, and he with you as his customer.
I don’t think you’d be burning bridges if you go back and ask (in a non-confrontational manor!) for an explanation for why it took so long/cost so much labor to replace the sway bar links.
Just some food for thought, but he could have charged some extra if the links were very difficult to remove.
Note that the foreword in many labor guides will state that the book is a guide only and that allowances can be made for charging extra due to missing or butchered parts, rust, etc, etc.
Also note that with most salvage yards they do not disassemble a sway bar by unfastening the sway bar links.
They torch them into just for the sheer reason they can often be very difficult to remove. It’s then left to the purchaser of the used sway bar to remove the remaining halves of the torched links.
Probably not 6 years ago when this thread was made… lol
Even with the most recent poster that paid $700 for labor only to replace the sway bar end links at $205 an hour that is still 3.4 hours labor charged… I just don’t see it… Unless some idiot welded them on and the shop had to cut them off, grind it back down smooth and redrill the hole back out to spec… That is why I asked the question that may never be answered of YMM of the vehicle… lol
I remember I took my car in to have the crank sensor checked, no problem. Next morning made it halfway to work and car stalled. Towed to a shop. Found a cracked sensor that was obviously an old crack. Lost a day of vacation. Showed the service manager of the original shop and just kind of got a grunt. I think that was pretty close to the last time I had any real work done there. So I don’t argue anymore, I just vote with my feet. Like I have said before if they want my analysis of their business they need to pay me a consultant fee. Not my job.
Same here. Maybe it was a newbie but then they shouldn’t charge the customer for the learning time. I ran into that some time back. Needed an exhaust donut replaced. No time myself and much easier with a lift so I went to a local muffler shop. They spent almost three hours dinking with it! I was on the verge of saying, let me in there with a torch. I’ll have the heads off and the studs out in 15 minutes tops. I was bracing for the bill and them charging me for all the labor time but they only had 1 hour on the bill.