Droped my truck off at shop. Needed a rear differential gasket replacement & fluid added.

Was given a quote of $150 for gasket replace/chemical gasket and fluid. Add the oil change for another $100 odd dollars.

Shop calls and leaves a messag, says they replaced the rear diff cover becuase it was rusted badly, it is a rusty truck. But now the grand total is $500. I called napa and they quoted me a cover for $40... I'm i gettig lubed here?

I'v never had to challenge local shop on this stuff, just the stealsrship with my car.

Let me hear some advise from yawl before i make a move. and no i did not authorize thr cover relacement they just went ahead and did it.

96 PSD

 

Every single item that you mentioned sounds overpriced to me, but I am biased by the fact that I do my own work. I replaced the gasket and put Royal Purple in the rear end of my truck and I am still beating you by over $50 on the quoted price. I have no idea what is normal for a shop to charge for those services, but I would imagine that's about right.

RockAuto has Differential Covers listed for $25.79 before shipping. More Information for DORMAN 697704

 

Actually you are getting it without any lube

 

I called 3 shops they all spat 150 out at me. Its the rear diff thing that gets me. The labor of taking off the rear cover i already covered in replacing the seal/gasket.

Yeah, I'm getting it without the lube alright. Still havent called them. Thinking on over my whopper with cheese and seeing what yawl say.

On another note, i would have done it myself if i had the time.

 

Yup, they're trying to stick it to you unless they installed a brand new billet aluminum rear differential cover with magnetic fill and drain plugs (and then marked up all the material by about 100%). That diff cover was already off for them to change the fluid, the new cover comes with a gasket, and you can get them just about anywhere for $40. They're giving it to you dry for sure.

Tell them you would like them to install the cover you drop off for the original price, then go pick one up for $40.

 

If you didnt authorize it to be replaced, you dont have top pay for DAMN thing. Shop prices are ridiculous. Id call and raise hell. so it went from 250 to 500?? Thats bull****. The cover was already off, they already had the gasket, all they had to do was literally remove the new one from the box and bolt it on. 3-4 minutes at most.

They charged my girlfriend 500 bucks to replace an oxygen sensor on a 22re....if any of you know what a 22re looks like and where the oxygen sensor is, it is a 20 minute job if you take your time AND your using one of the universal ones you have to splice in the wires. I swear, ill open a shop and shear the sheep (calling William) for all their wool if they can get away with prices like that.

 

For a living I have to dealing with liars, I hate having to be lied to when I'm on my own time. Most people lie (except me), that's one reason why I do-not-like-people.

With that being said I'll give the short and the long.

Short- Price reduced from $117.00 for the diff cover to $50.00, with a few 'I apologize & I'm sorry about that' on the side as I exited the shop. The diff cover they got was OEM or so they claimed but it did have ford stickers on the it that they neglected to take off.

The long-

I did not call, I showed up... Screw talking on the phone, its too easy for liars to lie when they aren't face to face.

The gentleman at the desk tells me that they checked this that and the third and found that my front differential was leaking and that they added fluid instead of pulling the cover as it would have been to labor intensive and would have ran me upward of 1500 bucks so he wanted me to make that call since the truck is kinda old. I cut him off right there and said buddy, I appreciate that, but I would have appreciated it more if you would have let me make the call on the rear differential because I priced them out before I dropped the truck off, I just needed the labor done. I priced the lowest one at nappa for $40 bucks and the highest one around $300 that has a dip stick and special drain plug. What does the one you put on my truck have?

I wish I had a camera to snap a photo of the momentary stuck-on-stupid look he had on his face. He replied that he was sorry about that and that he went to lunch for an hour and when he came back the new differential was already slapped on the back. I suspect that to be a lie. He is not the mechanic. He works the front, he orders the parts and he called me at 1:57 to tell me my truck was ready. Lunch is not at 1pm but for some that could be the case. In either case, he ordered the part so he knew it was going to be put on before he called me anyway.

I told him that I could run over to nappa and pick up my own differential and bring it back and he could eat the labor of removing his, cleaning off the axle and installing mine or he could eat the cost of what ever that differential cost him minus $40.

He went and asked the owner and then came back. Says its OEM that they ordered from Ford and it cost them $52 but they'd make it an even $50. I paused, thinking I don't care if it was made in Detroit and same day expressed over here, I did not OK that part being installed. At the same time, if it was really OEM then they probably did pay an extra 10 bucks & the ford stealership is literally down the street from this place.

I whipped out my card and said that this does not seem right but it is what it is. I'll shell out $10 more for OEM parts instead of some shizz from nappa (although there is nothing wrong with nappa most of the time)

The guy was apologizing to me as I left and said to him I'm not worried about the labor anything with the name McGhee is usually done right, its the parts thing that I disappointed with.

The price mark up is what it is, but I don't like how they tried to do me.

See attached.

Unless I'm in a real bad pinch I won't be going back to McGhee's Auto Service; and here's the part where I do not mean to offend, but you walk in that place and are smacked in the face with 'I love Jesus' and read the bible type artifacts all over the place, and that is one of the biggest indicators to me that someone is gonna lie to me and try and take my money- using the auspices of I love God to dip in your pockets. I'm sure there are legit living the life as the bible says folks in this world but I only met 3 of them, the rest you gotta watch out for!!

 

Yikes! Well at least you got the work done, right!? That bill is the perfect example of why I do stuff like this myself. They charged you $6.50 a quart for oil, I buy it by the gallon (Shell Rotella 15W40) at Wal-Mart for about $13.00 a gallon ($4.25 a quart). They charged close to $20 for the filter, the same Wal-Mart sells the Motorcraft filter (FL1995) for my truck for less than $10. Rear housing sealant for $15.37!? The new cover (granted I didn't get one from Ford, but I can't imagine mine from Rock Auto had something that OEM doesn't) comes with a gasket, and you don't use sealant. Even so, you could buy a whole caulk tube of the Ford OEM Powerstroke silicone for that price at my local dealership.

Seems like they marked all the parts up about 100%. I get that there has to be a markup in price for parts, believe me I do, I used to be in the service and construction business and I know that it costs them something to get those parts there, but that is excessive. I didn't feel right marking things up 30-40% let alone that...

Changing the rear diff cover takes maybe 30 minutes, especially if you have a lift. Take out the bolts, pull the old cover off, spray the inside of the diff out with the solvent of your choice, blow it dry, install new cover and gasket, remove VSS (another time saving trick I bet they didn't know) and fill the diff with fluid through the VSS hole.

I'm not getting down on you for not doing it yourself, though. I know that some people don't have the tools, facilities or expertise to do this kind of stuff themselves, but this just reinforces for me the already long list of reasons why I don't trust these kinds of places.

What a racket!

Okay, rant over, lol.

 

I agree with you completely.