Just got rammed at the mechanic

but they put on stock parts, not the 5100s. Why not just notify the owner? seems to me like they did unauthorized work since thats not exactly what he asked for.

 

Seriously? Have you ever worked on the front suspension on these rigs? 7 hours is total and complete bullshit. For both sides there is a total of two springs that need to be compressed and a whopping 14 bolts that need to be removed. After that only 8 bolts to re-install. I put dual cases in my rig in 8 hours. lol

 

O.P. paid the bill,and should not have done that.Yes I have done 3 front and rear suspensions by myself,took 4 hours total front and back.Time for the O.P. to start doing his own work.

 

O.P what does does your written work order say on it ?

 

Rammed or reamed?

 

That was a great price for all you had done. I have heard some stories from members here with trucks my age and in the rust belt, which makes me question if I should replace the front shocks myself.

I got a quote of $265 for just labor (I have the 5100 Bilsteins) to do the fronts and $89.99 for alignment. They do have an offer of $50 off work over $300, so would cost about $295 in labor just to replace the front shocks if they accept the $50 off coupon. I would rather do it myself, but like I said the combination of owning an almost 13-year-old Tacoma and living in the rust belt has me with 5100 Bilstein's I bought 2 years ago when I was hoping to do it myself.

 

I might make an exception in certain situations, regular customers that i know..

Look at it this way though, in addition to the billed labor, part of my paycheck comes from the profit of the parts i sell you. If I'm not making money on the parts I'm gonna bump up the labor charge to make up for it.

Keep in mind, at a shop where the techs get paid on commission (of both parts and labor that gets sold), if you walk up with your own parts in your hand you're basically asking them to work for less money.. a lot of busy shops simply dont have time waste on your car if theyre not making as much as a normally billed job

 

yeah I don't have much experience with rust (none actually) but from what I gather on here, rust can make a 1 hour job for me turn into a day long job for someone dealing with rusted/seized bolts and other parts. I imagine that shops in the rust belt take that into consideration when doing quotes for people.

If everything is in good working order and rust free, a shop should be able to do a bolt on job like front/rear shocks and leaf springs in a few hours or less (leaf springs taking the bulk of that time). Around here that's about $200 - $300 in labor depending on the shop. But yeah if you're dealing with rusted bolts I imagine that would greatly increase the time and labor cost

 

I'm pretty sure I could've made it a two day job. I like taking breaks.

 

X2. I always find a reason to buy new tools. Add tire rotations as another item that you should do yourself. This happened 2 days ago while driving behind a Mercedes and it looked like it was shooting lug nuts at me. Lady just left SpeeDee Oil Change after a tire rotation. What's wrong with this pic of the rear wheel? Oh yeah, that one lug nut seen is just sitting in the wheel,unattached. Looks like the tech hand threaded the lug nuts, got side tracked and went to finish removing a spacer lift on a tacoma.

 

PERFECT EXAMPLE! Just further justification for doing shit yourself. The only person you can fully trust to do something the right way, is yourself.

Most shops don't know, let alone, give a shit about your vehicle's specific torque specs. Hell, I've had to tell Toyota to hand torque my lug nuts because the fucktards they have working in the service lanes like to remove and install with pneumatic impacts.

In south florida there are numerous tire shops that will tell you they only use impacts to reinstall wheels because the techs are too busy to hand torque each lug.

 

Moral of this story

Buy Fox’s

 

You’ve obviously never snapped a lug bolt using the ugga dugga spec. I’ve done it many times when I was younger.

 

Wasn't using an impact. I never use an impact when installing wheels. I snapped lugs off of my MK4 Supra with an 18" long 1/2" drive breaker bar, I've broken lug bolts with a 4 way, and using the factory shit.

To this day, I will only use a torque wrench to tighten my lugs.

 

or non-union workers jealous of the pay and benefits that union workers receive....