[s-cars] Was bad CPS?, now bad crank pulley and balancer confirmed

[Tom Green]

Kinda sounds like they are not interested in doing the water pump,  
Dave, and would like to just get this job out the door in running  
condition asap.
I would ask about overlap in the labor estimate for the job since  
draining, replacing the coolant, loosening the hyd pump bracket,  
removing 3 bolts
and r&r the water pump doesn't sound like an extensive job.  The  
dealer list on the water pump is $218 and change, add an o-ring and  
gallon of
coolant and it wouldn't take much labor to approach $400, so perhaps  
a bit of padding here just to cover other things.  You can't expect  
the shop to replace the coolant without looking at the integrity of  
the entire system and leak testing after coolant replacement, and,  
thermostat replacement
is usually recommended with coolant change, etc, etc , etc.  You get  
the idea?  You already know they don't stock any parts for the car,  
so every
new part is a delay.  This sort of stuff eats into the mechanics non- 
billable time, so if I'm wanting to schedule some profitable jobs in  
the shop, I want to move this job asap.  Every bit of additional work  
just creates more liability.  I don't think you are on the preferred,  
long-term customer list. :-)

My highest rated independent repair shop charged me $160 to change  
the thermostat when I added it as an afterthought to a timing belt  
job.  This is a job I can do in 30 minutes from shutdown and they  
already had the coolant drained.  The owner advised me when doing the  
billing after the job was done that the flat rate labor was 3.5 hours  
and no overlap with the timing belt replacement.  That would have  
been a $300 job if he had
not adjusted the time.

I'm just saying that sometimes we get too accustomed to this cheap  
labor and internet parts stuff and forget it is a lot different if  
you have to make a living at this stuff.  But, even balancing things,  
$500 is too much, when I would expect any of these dealer or after- 
market pumps to be good for 100K at least.

Has the compression issue stayed as last reported, ie, no  
compression?  I would think an update of that test is in order before  
I would start thinking I'm out of the woods now, and nothing else  
needs work.

Tom   PS.   Glad to see things are moving in the positive direction!!




> Date: Wed, 5 Jul 2006 14:52:27 +0100
> From: <iain.atkinson at tesco.net>
> Subject: Re: [s-cars] Was bad CPS?,	now bad crank pulley and balancer
> 	confirmed
> To: <hoog23 at aol.com>,<s-car-list at audifans.com>
> Message-ID:
> 	<20060705135227.NUBG17397.aamtaout04- 
> winn.ispmail.ntl.com at smtp.ntlworld.com>
> 	
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> $500 for a pump change you are kidding me, considering that if they  
> are doing the belt etc etc most of the parts are already off the  
> car anyway. and yes i would certainly get them to do a comp test
>
> iain
>>
>> From: hoog23 at aol.com
>> Date: 2006/07/05 Wed PM 02:30:12 BST
>> To: s-car-list at audifans.com
>> Subject: [s-cars] Was bad CPS?, now bad crank pulley and balancer  
>> confirmed
>>
>> Finally got an answer.
>>
>> Got a call on Monday from the dealer who has had the car for the  
>> last 2 weeks.  They removed the pulley and balancer and reported  
>> that both were bad.  The 'key' did shear off the pulley and the  
>> balancer went bad and has some sort of physical damage.
>>
>> (I was a little T'd off since the service advisor had agreed to  
>> call me to be present when the items were removed.  This was  
>> mostly in case I ended up in a dispute with the extended warranty  
>> company.)
>>
>> Just received another call this morning and fortunately the  
>> warranty company will cover everything with the exception of  
>> express (if you call a week 'express') shipping of some parts from  
>> Germany and minor shop charges.  The parts I know they will be  
>> replacing are the belt, tensioner, pulley and balancer  
>> (obviously), key way, and crank bolt.
>>
>> A question did come up about the water pump.  I had originally  
>> told them to give me a price on replacing the pump (it is not bad  
>> and would not be covered under the warranty).  Dealer wants about  
>> $500.  Note that the pump was replaced at 52k three years ago by  
>> same dealer during last timing belt job.  Car has 82k now.
>>
>> Should I replace the pump?
>>
>> Also should I have them perform another compression test once it  
>> is running again?
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Dave