Well my heater core went out on me back in Nov and now it is getting close to a/c time and now my a/c evaperator is leaking. So I guess I need to replace them both. I can make it without the heater but not the a/c where I live. The dealer says a 5.5 hour job which is 450 bucks in labor and they want to charge me 500 for parts. Does that sound right?? I checked online and found both parts for about 200 total, is it safe to use other parts then what the dealer is trying to use. I think I will try to buy the parts and have them put them in if they will , unless somebody has better advice. Sorry kind of long. [&o]

 

I'd say the labor sounds about right. I don't know about parts. I'd say 5.5 hours is close to what they'd charge as when I worked at a shop and they did them they had to remove basically the whole dash or pull it forward to get it it. I know the guy that did them complained about them. I don't know that it would take a dealer 5.5 hours but I'd suspect thats what they would charge. I know a guy that works at the dealer here and he said they can remove the dash in about an hour being as they do soo many of them but for a normal shop like I worked at it took us a lot longer. Took me and the mechanic 3 hours to do my top piece of my dash that had cracked.

 

Thanks, Yea a normal shop quoted me 1200 for parts and labor. Not sure how much he was charging me for labor, I plan on calling today and find out how much the parts were. Do you guys think it would be OK to order the parts from online and have someone put them in. Should be basically the same parts..... right????

 

i would do a little research on the parts post a link see if anyone esle has used them in the past but i would definitely try to save some money there

 

That's one messed up shop if the DEALER beats their price.

 

When I replaced my Mercedes heater core, i asked for the assisteance of a friend who is quite knoweledgeable with it...free of charge! [8D]Maybe you can try it too. At least you only have to pay for the parts not for the services anymore...

 

Well I found out today that the shop was charging me about 4 hundred for the parts and then the rest is labor. So that is somewhere in the neighborhood of 6-8 hundred for the labor. I am going to call the dealer today and get an out the door price from them. The only problem that I am thinking of with using my own parts is, what happens when they install them and then the parts are bad. Then I would have to pay them twice since it was not there part and they won't guarantee the part if it is not there's. The local shop said it is rare but sometimes there are bad parts and you don't know if they are bad until everything is put back together and pressure is put on the system.