Well, the taillights on the damn thing are exactly the same height as the mirrors on my car. As I was backing into my space on Monday, I was a little bit careless and nicked his taillight with my mirror. And it put a little hole in the damn thing about the size of a dime. My fault, I admit it, I was careless, I have to pay for it.
So the guy goes and gets an estimate. The light itself costs ONE HUNDRED THIRTY FIVE DOLLARS and on top of that they estimate 1 HOUR of labor at 45 DOLLARS so including the taxes the whole bill will be TWO HUNDRED ONE DOLLARS AND 46 CENTS. Jesus fucking christ. It’s a piece of plastic. It’s not even a real car, it’s a fucking toy, and it’s going to cost me a shitload of money to fix the damn taillight!. FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK! And no, he won’t let me install it myself. Nope, he insists that the we line the pockets of the dealership. It would take 10 minutes to pop out the old one and screw in the new one. Instead I get to pay the dealer $45 for 10 minutes of work! FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!
I bought a new taillight for my pickup last year and the damn thing cost only $35. This piece of shit costs $135. Goddamn.
I used to work in a body supply shop, so I’m not stunned. My favorite was the guy who’d just wrecked his brand new, Dodge Viper Coupe. BRight Red. Cost to fix the front end? $20k. Cost of Car? $65k.
I came home one day and the sister in law was fixing the headlight in her Nissan Sentra, it had a small hole in the headlight lens and water had got in and blown the bulb. She replaced the bulb after drying out the inside of the headlamp and then silicones the little hole.
I wondered why she was doing this until she told me the headlight lens cost three hundred dollars.
One good thing I can say is that the car just got a new engine after 1,170,000 kilometres or 737,000 miles. It hasn’t got a speck of rust on it and drives wonderfully, but $300 for a headlight?
My wife lost one wheel cover from her 97 Mazda Protege. Skipped on over to the cool import dealership that we bought it from and asked for one neat, silver-grey wheel cover.
No problem, says smilin’ Import Car dealer. Cost was a paltry $75.00, not counting sales tax.
I pointed out to smilin’ Import Car Dealer that this was a plastic silver-grey Mazda wheel cover, not a wheel cover for the Space Shuttle Atlantis.
Smilin’ Import Car Dealer’s smile turns into death grin. It still costs $75.00. I ask if this is a set of four, maybe I was misunderstood?
Dealer’s death grin becomes noticeably painful as he points out that this is per cover.
I make one further comment that the cost of cheap plastic wheel cover and full-size tire for this model are almost identical.
Dealer’s voice is now strained, hoarse, and raspy. Seventy-five dollars, before tax.
I bid a hearty “Good Day” to Smilin’ Import Car Dealer and skip over to nearest Wal-Mart. Set of four cheap, silver-grey plastic wheel covers-- $12.00, excluding tax.
The extra three wheel covers make excellent snack trays, BTW.
Ya see? This is why you leave a note with someone else’s name on it. Double points if the name you leave is someone you really, really hate. Triple points if it’s another neighbor you really, really hate.
I got sucked up in this too when I bought a car without first checking to see if it had standard tire size, etc. I learned a valuable lesson. I might love the way a car looks, but if its maintenance is worth more than the car, I bypass it.
Could you perhaps stop by your local auto parts discount store and inquire as to their price for the lens? Then buy one and give it to your neighbor, along with the $45 for dealer installation?
You might be able to avoid dealer markup this way.
You thought dealers were in business to sell you cars and then help you?
No no no.
They’re in business to sell you hideously overpriced lumps of metal and then overcharge you by an egregious amount any time something goes wrong in the poorly built piece of crap.
I have tried to find one via non-dealer channels, but those pieces of shit are so new (or so rare) that no one has one in stock and there’s not a 3rd party market yet. Still working on it, though.
It’s careless assholes like yourself that make me want to park in the furthest reaches of parking lot. It really pisses me off that you would start a thread like this when you are the one at fault for being inconsiderate. It’s great that you took responsibility for your carelessness, but that fact that you are bitching about having to pay about $200 for it is incredible. Your neighboor, I’m guessing paid almost $18,000 for that new Toyota, only to watch his neighboor tear it up.
Ignatius is bitching because he’s obviously being ripped off, not because he makes a habit of crashing into his neighbours cars for fun. What’s your problem?
Coldfire, I will agree with that, the parts for imports are expensive, as I have owned several. And after re-reading the OP I think my rant should have gone into another thread, on its own. I’m trying to see this problem from the neighboors side, as something similar happened to me. I took my Toyota Supra to the Dealership, because they are the only ones I want working on my car, and the guy who backed into my parked car said I was trying to gouge him, and he brought me a quote from the local Maaco! My anger in my first post was misdirected, and I apologize, but try to understand the situation from the person who’s car was nailed.
But I don’t think Ignatius is saying that he blames the neighbour. Of course the neighbour has the right to choose the dealer for repairs. But well, in all honesty, a tail light isn’t exactly a complicated procedure. If you’re interested in remaining good neighbours, I’d be willing to cooperate with a less expensive repair, even if it wasn’t by the dealer. It’s a tail light! Anyone can fix that.
Other than that, it was an accident. As in your case. I’m sure you were pissed off, but your neighbour obviously didn’t MEAN to hit your Supra, right?
I cracked the rear lamp cover on my 97 Toyota Landcruiser. When I heard the price I mentally used the same words you did, I felt even worse as I did it to my own car. Now my Toyota dealer only sells the complete assembly with Lens, plastic frame, lamp sockets, wiring harness, and even bulbs. One complete unit. This Mother-of-all-tailights is about twice the size of the one on the Honda CRV. I was really pissed that I had to pay (wait for it…)
U.S. $ 81.97 Go figure.
I changed it myself in about 3 minutes.
Of course the car itself cost me $ 34,254.14 (taxes on cars are murder here)
I figure they ** really ** screwed you on the price of that lens. Did you check around for the price of the item in another dealer somewhere else ?
Anyway just be glad he wasn’t driving a Ferrari or a Rolls
I just checked out the earlier thread you attached, it seems you are not a fan of SUV’s. Tough, I just ** love ** my Toyota Landcruiser. I cannot praise it enough. It is just the thing for pulling my boat (21ft cuddy cabin) The only improvements I can envision would be to make it bigger and heavier, and to change from 4cylinder diesel to a
6-cylinder turbo-diesel.
Well, he didn’t mean to hit it, but he kept using the excuse, we’ll no one’s ever parked there before. WTF?!? So that justifies you not paying attention when you drive. It was really that guy’s attitude that bothered me. I am a real Car Nut, so this behavior really irks me. Just the non-chalant attitude towards backing into my baby. Breathe. Okay, I’m fine now…sorry.
Last year I had to replace a rear tail light cover on a 1982 Toyota pickup. After having no luck at a few junkyards, I got it from the local Toyota dealer for $22.
