Auto Repair: Worth it to buy part yourself & take to shop to be installed?

[samclem]

@Thrasymachus

I just replaced the CV joints on my '92 Nissan about this time last year.

The shop quoted me $1k to do it, …

:eek:

If any people in the know are still reading, is that a realistic figure? I’m in shock.

[Starving_Artist]

@Mr.Frink

Thanks everyone for responding. I think I understand the dynamics of the auto repair industry much better…

Starving Artist–your line about bringing your own food to a restaurant really helped me understand the issue in a way that hit home for me…

Thanks. Glad I was able to help.

[Ruby]

Hub is also an auto repair professional and (now ex-) shop owner. Everything Gary T says is the truth. 1. You’re not usually qualified to diagnose the problem, 2. Pricing for the jobs is a combination of parts and labor. There’s precious little markup on OEM parts, and 3. They will not under any circumstances guarantee their work. If that part fails, you pay every time they take it off and put another on.

My suggestion is get to know your local shops. Talk to co-workers, family, friends and find out who fixes their cars. Try them out when you don’t have a critical need (like for an oil change) to get the feel of the business and the owner. When you find one you trust, stick with them even for the little stuff.

Hub’s job as a professional technician is to keep your car on the road and provide you a good value. When he opens the hood of his customer’s cars, he’s not just fixing one problem and walking away. He builds a relationship with his customers and their vehicles. He looks for other things that may need to be addressed before they fail and leave you stranded in BFE. He gets to know you and your needs as well.

[Gary_T]

@samclem

:eek:

If any people in the know are still reading, is that a realistic figure? I’m in shock.

I thought it was ridiculously high, but I didn’t feel like searching through every year/model/engine/drivetrain configuration of Nissans to see if there might be some particular one that might cost that much. It’s also not clear to me exactly how many joints that includes. For the great majority of cars I’ve serviced, including quite a few Nissans, the typical price to replace a drive axle with a reman is about 250.

[Gary_T]

Hi, Ruby. Is Hub a member of iATN (International Auto Technicians Network)? If not, I’d suggest it as something he’ll likely find very beneficial. Let me know if he has any questions, or needs to be sold on the idea.

[Balthisar]

My trusted local mechanic was willing to install a junkyard transmission on my parents’ car at my request, although I later decided not to do it.

I’m certain, that if I asked, they’d let me bring my own parts on the understanding that there’s no way to warrant the parts or the labor. Of course, they know that I’d only ever consider it if they were unable to secure an OEM-original part (and so far, they’ve gone the extra mile for me when I’ve insisted on OEM parts*).

• For certain things, I insist on OEM parts. Front end components and rotors I insist on. Filters, spark plugs, eh, I don’t care as long as they’re a quality brand. Your mileage may vary; there may not be a significant difference for your particular car.

[Rick]

@ralph124c

I agree…your local mechanic’s price includes the profit he makes on supplying the part. The thing I’ve noticed…there is a huge markup on car parts. Once my car needed a new antisway bar (in the front). The dealer quaoted me $320.00, installed. I was able to find the part from JC Whitney (for $80.00). I installed it myself.

Auto parts are available in a variety of different qualities. While I don’t know the specifics in your case, I can price parts from China that may be 25% of the cost of an OEM part. The problem is often the quality is less than 25% of the factory part, or sometimes they just don’t fit.

@Bijou_Drains

Maybe a dumb question, but why don’t they just make all their profit on labor charges?

There is a huge cost to the shop to put parts on a shelf. And yes shops put some parts on the shelf. Let’s say I own a shop. I am going to stock some oil filters and air filters. Interest charges (If I borrow the money to buy the filters, or lost interest if I took the money out of my bank) will run say 5%. If I don’t mark up the part, and it sits on my shelf for any amount of time, I would then lose money on the deal.
This is not how they teach you to run a successful business.

@Gary_T

I’m an auto repair professional. I have my own shop. I strongly advise against it.

Let’s start with the actual problem. “CV joints are cracked” makes no sense. CV joints don’t crack. CV boots can crack, but there’s a big difference between replacing CV boots and replacing CV joints. Understanding this critical difference and using the correct terminology is not simply an exercise in pedantry, it’s vital to properly evaluating what needs to be done. Getting it wrong can easily lead to spending money on repairs that aren’t needed. If you don’t fully understand what needs to be done and why (and part of that understanding is knowing how to express it accurately), you’re setting yourself up for wasting money.

If a CV boot is cracked, then the joint inside will lose some grease and get contaminated with water and dirt. This will shorten its life. Decades ago, it was wise to replace the boot to maximize the life of the joint, as the repair was to replace the joint with a new one, which was rather expensive. Things have changed, though, and now the repair is to replace the whole drive axle with a remanufactured one. The reman axle has remachined joints and new boots (two per axle), yet costs less than one new joint. On most cars, it costs at least half as much to replace a boot as to replace the axle, and in my opinion is not cost effective. I usually advise my customers to forgo replacing the boot, wait until the joint actually starts to go bad, and then replace the axle. It is typically quite a while, often a year or two, before it gets to that point.

If a CV joint is worn (it’s virtually always an outer joint - the inner ones have very little stress), the typical symptom is a rapid repeated clicking noise under acceleration in a tight turn, like a parking lot maneuver. Eventually the joint will fail, at which point the car won’t go - it’s like being stuck in neutral. But again, I’ve seen cases where the joint can last over a year after the clicking starts.

In sum: if the only symptom is a torn boot, I’d let it go; if a joint is worn, it’s probably not urgent, but is probably wise to fix it before heading on a long trip.

Now on to your actual question. The longstanding convention in auto repair is to generate some profit from labor charges, and some profit from markup on parts sales. But what’s being sold is a repair, and while its labor and parts components are priced separately (unlike in a restaurant), that’s for accounting purposes and not because they are meant to be sold separately. Any shop with decent business sense is not going to forgo the parts profit - they’re either going to refuse the job or bill enough under labor to maintain their profit structure. And this means there’s no savings to be had, just some extra work on your part.

Pricing aside, there are other potential problems with using customer-supplied parts. As mentioned above, you’ve got no warranty. All too often the parts are wrong for the car, or of poor quality. A good shop wants to do a good job and guarantee it, and to do so they need to be in control of acquiring the parts. Short-circuiting this process tends to generate problems, not savings. It’s just not a wise approach.

What he said.

[Cheesesteak]

@Rick

sometimes they just don’t fit.

This is a problem my dad had occasionally at his auto body shop. He buys an aftermarket something or other and the holes aren’t in the right place, or it’s ever so slightly different than the OEM part, and his guy spends an hour trying to get it to fit right. If his customer bought the part, what is he to do? He can suck up the labor cost, work an extra hour himself to get work done that his guy couldn’t get to, tell the customer to pay for the extra hour (which will go over like a lead balloon).

It’s a lousy situation to get into for a customer who is trying to cheap out on a repair.

On the topic of putting all your profit in the labor… When you present the bill to the customer, it usually has the labor and parts charges separated, it’s trivial to determine the hourly labor rate, and that rate may be prominently posted in the office anyway. If you put all your profit in labor, the rate will be very high, and will make your shop look really bad in comparison to other shops that split the profit.

[Nars_Glinley]

@Rick

The problem is often the quality is less than 25% of the factory part, or sometimes they just don’t fit.

My body guy told me of a popular brand called Certifit. They call them Sortafit.

[Ruby]

@Gary_T

Hi, Ruby. Is Hub a member of iATN (International Auto Technicians Network)? If not, I’d suggest it as something he’ll likely find very beneficial. Let me know if he has any questions, or needs to be sold on the idea.

Yes, indeed. Hub has been a member of iATN for several years. He belongs to MACS and STS as well. He’s also an ASE Certified Master Technician with an L1 Certification. He’s currently a trainer for new automotive technology. He’s the kind of technician that makes me proud. Can you tell?

[Rick]

@Ruby

Yes, indeed. Hub has been a member of iATN for several years. He belongs to MACS and STS as well. He’s also an ASE Certified Master Technician with an L1 Certification. He’s currently a trainer for new automotive technology. He’s the kind of technician that makes me proud. Can you tell?

He sounds like a tech that any shop would be proud to employ. Tell him he has to become a doper and spell Gary T and I on the auto questions around here.

[Gary_T]

@Ruby

He’s the kind of technician that makes me proud. Can you tell?

Oh, yeah. I have an amazing grasp of the obvious.

Have I perhaps met him at Vision? (On the off chance he’s not familiar with it, it’s an amazingly good training event.)

[DCnDC]

I’m resurrecting this thread rather than start a new one because I have a follow-up question:

I read through the thread and Gary T’s and the other pro advice makes sense, but what about something much simpler, like replacing a side-view mirror?

I’ve had my driver’s side mirror knocked off at least once on every car I’ve owned and while most of the previous times I was able to just pop it back on, this happened to me again yesterday and the whole assembly is trashed. I ordered a replacement unit but I lack the proper tools to install it myself (I don’t have a Torx set and my socket set was borrowed by a neighbor who moved away with it).

With the proper tools and a couple hours of fumbling around I’m certain I could install it on my own but I’m certain a professional mechanic could have it done in about 20 minutes. Would it be quick and easy (and cheap) to have a pro do it or should I just buy new tools and DIY?

It’s a powered non-heated driver’s side mirror on a 2004 Crown Victoria if that matters.

[Gary_T]

My repair info indicates the inside door panel needs to be removed to do this. Removing the panel is a bit tricky, and can be a challenge for someone not familiar with it. Once the panel’s off, however, mirror replacement is pretty simple and straightforward. I doubt any Torx fasteners are involved, but a socket (maybe an end wrench will do) will be needed for the mirror mounting bolts.

This is the type of repair where I would not be reluctant to install a customer-provided part (chance of problems is very low). I would just ask the shop for a quote and see how that compares to the prospect of DIY.

[Dewey_Finn]

I ordered from the dealer a replacement trim piece for the driver’s door in my previous car. But after it arrived, I reviewed the instructions and figured out that installing it was beyond me. So I sheepishly asked the dealer to do so. They did, without charging anything, although I think the car was already there for an oil change. So if it’s a mechanic you already work with, they might do you a favor.

[Rick]

@Dewey_Finn

I ordered from the dealer a replacement trim piece for the driver’s door in my previous car. But after it arrived, I reviewed the instructions and figured out that installing it was beyond me. So I sheepishly asked the dealer to do so. They did, without charging anything, although I think the car was already there for an oil change. So if it’s a mechanic you already work with, they might do you a favor.

This is not uncommon. Customer order a part from our parts dept and then realizes installation is over their head.
Not a problem as we know the quality of the part. Depending on the difficulty of installation it may or may not have a charge to install.
This is way different from someone bringing in a part of unknown quality from OG knows what source.

[DCnDC]

Thanks for the info. Much appreciated!

[ethelbert]

Replacing side view mirrors can be a skill well worth having. My wife managed to knock them off regularly backing out of the garage. Once she knocked both of them off at the same time. That still puzzles me. I got so good at this I would do it for friends. I also found models that folded back, sometimes (but not always) saving them.

There are many videos showing how to do this on the web, maybe for your specific car. The first time you do it, it will be a PITA, but by the third you will be ready to hang a shingle out.