An extremely valid point. As an auto parts salesman, I deal with professional ( ) auto garages on a daily basis. Most, in fact, are not deserving of the poor reputation they have with the public.
Transmission "specialty" shops, at least around here, are without exception the sleasiest of the group...and that's a very low bar to have to crawl under. My favorite deal is the recent popularity of the "transmission flush"...a $100-$500 procedure that does nothing for your tranny but open up any potential leaks. Fabulous.
schlepporello wrote:...The hired doofus said it was the AC compressor. $1500 later, the click was still there.
You paid $1500 for an AC job?
I have some land to sell you up here in Payne County, OK...cheap!
Seriously, though...even assuming they replaced your compressor, accumulator (with suction hose), and orifice tube (part of the liquid line assembly), flushed the system and recharged with R134a (to fix a clicking sound???), it shouldn't have been near that much. $1000 would have been on the high side, even using only dealer parts (which is silly, because Murray/Four Seasons in Lewisville makes the Visteon brand air conditioning parts that are OE Ford parts). I would love to see/hear the breakdown on that shop ticket that got you to $1500. Wow.
Give me the year and the engine size sometime (PM if you want) and I'll give you a quote on all those parts from the aftermarket (specifically, NAPA).
There's a guy in California who rebuilds Turbo 425 transmissions for the GMC motorhome. He's the only guy in the country most people in the know will use, even paying hundreds of dollars to ship the core to him and to receive the rebuilt tranny. Until he came along, bad rebuilds were par for the course.
I had one transmission shop leave out the park pawl once. And another one left off the modulator and it wouldn't shift. These were on Turbo 350 transmissions, which most rebuilders should be able to manage in their sleep without screwing them up.
When I was a mechanic, the guys that worked in the transmission shop had about three tools: An impact wrench, a 24" extension, and a 5/8" ball-wobble socket. With those, they could have the tranny out in ten minutes, and the new one in in 15. Of course, the devil is in the details and they would sorta forget that other stuff. (What do you need a speedometer for?) They were expected to do 8-10 tranny R&R's in a day, which adds up to about 80 flat-rate hours a week.
Rick "whose quality-oriented shop employer would review his work extra carefully if he ever finished more than 30 flat-rate hours in a 40-hour week" Denney
) auto garages on a daily basis. Most, in fact, are not deserving of the poor reputation they have with the public.
