So was I overcharged...?

Steve_Jones said:

It's only high if it wasn't worth $460 to be on the road again with no hassle on your end. You've already paid it, why second guess it now?

Because if the new owners of the shop are screwing me then I need to find another shop.

hunter47 said:

Diagnosis and install price seem reasonable. Price for the part does not. 

https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo.php?pk=4377681&cc=1357411&pt=7060&jsn=903

RockAuto shows a Delphi (should be OEM) coil for $67.79.

Rock Auto typically sells things for less than my supplier sells them to my shop.  Often manufacturing seconds or defects that retail stores refuse to sell.

buzzboy said:

Over an hour's rate for plugging in an OBDII scanner seems a bit high to me. I've been told that same thing and walked. In my case the Uhaul rental was cheaper than letting the shop diagnose.

Diagnostics is not plugging in a scanner. A code, if present, will not tell you that the wire at terminal A3 is corroded through a half inch inside the wire loom, or the solenoid is sticking open because the charcoal canister is coming apart, or whatever the fault is.

Besides, a decent scan tool is several Challenge cars, plus about one Challenge car per year for updates.  And you need several different ones because nobody does everything all that well.  That has to be paid for.

I often sell the more expensive parts if they are the only ones i can find in stock. The customer never wants to wait. They just ask why you can't sell the more expensive part at the cheaper price. Case in point. A control I ordered yesterday from one supplier was $1400. From another supplier, it was $900. The $900 place didn't actually have one in stock and wouldn't have one for 2 weeks, so my customer is going to be buying the more expensive control and the markup is going to be based on the price I paid.

He may also be selling the part at MSRP regardless of what he paid for the part. 

If in doubt, explain that you are a long-time customer and ask him. 

"Overcharged?" Compared to what?

A dealer? Yes

An independent shop? Depends, and is subjective

Doing it yourself? Absolutely.

An hour diagnostic fee is usually a set fee. And I've never seen a shop 'refund' it if they get the repair job.  1 hr to get the car, bring it into the shop, plug in the reader, scan the system, look up the codes...realistically, probably a half hour but most everyone charges an hour in case it gets more involved.

So, the labor costs seem market value to me, if not exactly 'fair'.

The part...yeah, that seems excessive. But, you also don't know what they were charged for it. If it came from a Suzuki dealer (which no longer really exists) they may be charging top dollar for their "rare, obsolete" parts now.

In reply to ddavidv :

What you described is something we do for free.  That is not diagnostics, it is gaining information on what kind of testing needs to be done.  If it something simple like MAF correlation and we find a gaping hole in the air ducting, something visually obvious, we don't go further than that.

Misfire diag may be as simple as seeing a plug wire off, or you may need to get down into cranking and running compression tests.

FWIW, I asked my service manager to look up that part and tell me customer price, and he said $240, so definitely in the ballpark.

Seems reasonable to me.  We don't look for the cheapest part ever, we use good ones we know will work and prevent boomerangs. I'm of the belief that shops absolutely should charge diagnostic labor, most times it's more than just plugging in a scan tool.

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

In reply to ddavidv :

What you described is something we do for free. 

 

You are a rare exception. 

In my world, not only do they charge an hour of time to hook up the scan but also rely on 3rd party vendors to actually do the diagnosis and resetting of the codes. This adds another $200 on average. I think this is mostly because a) the shops don't want to be bothered with learning new technology and 2) they don't want to invest in current equipment.

Reason # 312 I'm ready to get out of the car repair industry ASAP.