Don’t drop your axle to the stealership for a bearing

Rear axle seal finally after 360k
Ok, got lazy and pulled the axle and dropped off at the Stealership in Middletown, RI
Trusted and asked for their bearing parts and a backing plate and e brake cable.
Ok, maybe 700.00? But , No, billed me at $1450.00. WTF
I did drop off the axle
3 hrs labor, but they super inflated the parts.
I’m escalating to corporate and the service director told me to basically open sand.
Live and learn

 

You didn’t ask for an estimate? And even if you didn’t ask, they didn’t give you one?

 

3 hours is nuts for a removed axle. I charge 1.5 maybe 2 if its rusty.

Its a hard lesson to learn, gotta get that estimate first.

 

why would I do that

normal

escalate what

they do

 

I don’t get a lot of work done at dealerships, but every time I have, they gave me an estimate when I went to schedule the job. And I didn’t need to ask.

 

Ouch that’s almost what I was quoted to replace both hub assemblies, backing plates and drum assemblies. Think the quote was $18xx. I’ll have to dig it out.

Think I ended up paying somewhere around 1500$ said and done for a new hub assembly, backing plate, have the drums machined and new shoes installed.

However this was after I payed a highly rated local shop 900$ to do the same job and it failed. The shop’s warranty was 90 days. Noticed it was puking again and brought it back around day 100 and they told me to get bent. Obviously it has been leaking for a while, prior to the 90 was up.

When the dealership tore it apart they sent me pics. The previous shop gouged up the hub assembly either extracting or installing the new bearing and mashed the bearing pressing it in. They also didn’t install new shoes or turn the drums like they charged me for.

Tried saving money and ended up paying 2x more than what it would’ve cost to have the dealer do the job in the first place. Not to mention the 12 month 12k warranty beats 90 days.

 

Why a dealership and not a shop that specializes in diffs?

 

Yeah, they said about 1k
I did price the Toyota parts at another dealer as I was going to do myself and they basically doubled
I’m escalating to corporate

 

$471 for just the bearing/ hub assembly
Really?.

 

Do you have a written estimate? If so they were obligated to get your authorization to proceed if the cost would be significantly higher.

 

Too late now but I never never take my vehicles to the dealer for repair or maintenance due to the high costs. I find for everything they are 2 to 3 times more costly than non-dealer shops. The only exception is warranty work and maybe some things require the expertise of the dealer. No one should be surprised of the exorbitant costs at a dealer.
I don’t much blame the dealers because they have huge overhead costs associated with the business, they have to charge more in order to be profitable and keep the business going.
Finally if you don’t have a WRITTEN estimate you are screwed.