WTF?
A simple intake and valve cover gasket set cost me $83!
This was for an extremely common vehicle/engine.
I have seen DVD players and color TV’s for less goddamnit!!!
How is this possible/fair?
I still wonder why A-1 steak sauce is $60.00 per Gallon!
Parts and labor…more the labor. I broke a window in my apartment, a really small one that took the people about ten minutes to replace. The bill came to about $95…$60 of which was for “labor”. It must be nice to be able to set your prices to whatever the fuck you want.
Would you rather set your prices to whatever I want?
If you think the price is too high, then try fixing it your own damn self and see how far that gets you.
Note the phrasing. He didn’t say it cost $83 to have his gaskets replaced. He said it cost $83 to buy the set. That’s a pretty significant difference in the nature of the complaint.
To me, it sounds like ** Blown & Injected** is planning to fix it his “own damn self”. I know I’ve been shocked to see how expensive things like gasket sets can be. Sometimes they aren’t much more than a couple of rubber rings and still cost over $50. Headgasket sets especially can be pretty pricey, to say nothing of the labor costs involved in replacing them.
Anyway, are we not allowed to complain about outrageous labor charges? A good friend of mine was recently quoted $70 parts and $95 labor to have her spark plug wires replaced. I took her down to the auto parts store and we bought a nice new set of wires for ~$30 and then I installed them in the parking lot in less than 5 minutes. Afterwards, she was completely disgusted, “That’s all there was to it? They were going to charge me $95 for that?”
Granted, there is a lot of work that requires a trained and skilled mechanic. But there is also a lot of work that is well within reach of the ordinary person with some familiarity with tools. If more people did try to fix things themselves, maybe prices wouldn’t be so ridiculous for those simple tasks.
Are you a tight-ass?
Having worked in a parts department, I can tell you that one of the major factors is the price of parts is the cost required to warehouse it in anticipation of someone needing it. If the parts are ordered in a service department, that cost is of course passed on, and the usual route of delivery is by a third-party courier, which adds still more to the bottom line.
The actual value of material delivered tends to be a tiny percentage of the cost of delivering it to the end user. The smaller the part, the more noticable the disparity, since the bulk of the cost is paying the salaries of all the people who’s hands it must pass through, warehousing costs, transportation costs, etc.
I remember being amazed that the company I worked for had the balls to charge $7.00 for a tiny .25" stainless-steel cylinder which was used as a simple hinge. Then I realized, looking at it’s cost to us, the six years it had been sitting on the shelf since it was ordered from Canon Parts, the salaries of of the 3 parts employees in our company, the tech who requested it, etc. – we were probably selling it at a net loss for that price.
I think the more important question here is who the hell buys steak sauce by the gallon?
Thank you Enigma.
WSLer
quote:
If you think the price is too high, then try fixing it your own damn self and see how far that gets you.
I did fix it myself, it was a simple job and the truck runs fine = I see and it’s getting me far - smart ass.
Larry:
Yes I understand, but this was for, as I said in the OP, an extremely common vehicle/engine. There is just no excuse for an organization to be able to bring a color TV to market for less than the cost of the items I’m talkin’ about.
PS good steak does not need sauce
I must admit my mechanical knowledge doesn’t go much farther than a two-stroke engine, (well, as far a VW beetle engine, at the outside,) so I’m not in a position to judge how egregious the billing is. What’s the part number for the kit?
As for that steak, maybe if you keep giving your business to the same place, you’ll find yourself with a steady supply of that sauce which Miguel Cervantes considered best. 
One Euro and 10 cents for a liter of petrol. Explain that to me.
Yeah, that’s over 4 American bucks a gallon.
Hey, chill out and talk to the folks in your government who set the taxes. A lot of gas stations here in Germany have a little sticker on the pumps that says something like “80 cents of the price of each liter goes to pay taxes.” The phrasing probably isn’t quite right because the original is in german, and I’m not sure about the 80 cents because it changes every now and again.
Just to give you some idea, diesel costs 30 cents per liter less than gasoline here, whereas in the US diesel is usually more expensive than gasoline.
Oh, I know it’s taxes. I also know that at least part of those taxes goes to better and more tarmac.
What I don’t understand is why this country is still gridlocked 24/7. Either we need more roads, or we need to increase the price even more so the poor people can no longer drive cars.
Amen.
I’ve got some bad news for you, Coldfire. Poor people don’t stop driving when the prices go up. They do their damnedest to get more money (pay raise, better job, anything at all) so that they can keep driving. And why take it out on the poor, anyway? Should driving be a privelege of the rich?
Try looking on line or on e-bay for auto parts. We needed a new right side mirror on our truck. A manual mirror. Not even an inside control to work manually. $93 fucking dollas at Ford. I found it on line for $30. Those bastards all need to die. Fuckers.
What the hell is steak sauce?
I’ve never actually used it on meat…
I do use a small dash in guacomole (spelling!?)
I don’t have the hand-eye coordination to successfully use it, but, for those who do, I’m told that buying a sheet of gasket material can be quite cost-effective.
I noticed they don’t stop driving. Damn. 
I’m not saying we should take it out on the poor, I just want traffic to flow rather than stand still. And at 80 eurocents of taxation per liter, that’s not much to ask. Clearly, the investments are made in the wrong places. More tarmac, dammit! Do those tree huggers think cars running stationary engines equal clean cars? The answer is “NO”. A car doing 120 km/h has less CO2 output per kilometer covered than a car idling in a traffic jam.