New Mechanic - Straight Shooter or Not?

[TWG1572]

A year or so ago, I moved and have been slowly working on trying to find a more local indy mechanic to work on my vehicles. I do a lot on them myself, but every now and then need some more skilled help or I don't have the time.

It's plug replacement time in my '08 Nissan Frontier with the 4.0 V6. I don't have the time, so I figured I'd get some quotes.

Nissan dealer in town here was $195, out the door.

Called a smaller local place I've been driving by and heard good things about. Plugs came in at $240. But they are also recommending replacing the coil covers ($20 apiece) and the manifold gasket since it has to come off.

Other than the $45 difference on the plugs, I’m curious about the coil cover recommendation. Would you consider the coil cover replacement a wise suggestion? I can understand the desire to replace the gasket while it’s off.

I’ve never worked with this shop, so I figure this could be a good test to see if this is a place I should go to (or not).

 

[aquariuscsm]

I'd just go with your local Nissan dealership. Sounds like they're not trying to upsell anything to you,which will really turn me away. Does your Nissan take those $18 a piece plugs my Z takes? If so,stick with them. Don't go cheap or non-oem on the plugs. Mine takes NGK Platinums.

 

[GSCJR]

Dealer may get the plugs out and then possibly call you to upsell what the indy is recommending. Indy is preparing you in advance, that's all. That's how I do business too. I give them my recommendation and explain why. I would rather that, than to call them about additional costs during the repair or after the repairs are done. No stress this way.

 

[SteveSRT8]

IMO if you are removing the manifold you must replace the gasket. A leak there is a big deal.

Sounds like the stealership will call during the job to advise you the gasket is bad, go ahead and plan to do that no matter who does the work.

These days it's OEM for most cars on spark plugs. Use any other at your own risk...

 

[TWG1572]

This takes $20 (retail) plugs. You can get the OEMs online for $9 though. My understanding is that they are platnium plugs made for Nissan by NGK.

I'd consider it a good thing if the indy is prepping me. Replacing the gasket makes sense. I just don't have a clue if replacing coil covers is a wise thing to do or not.....

 

[bourne]

Indy shop. You "should" replace the coil covers and manifold gasket whenever you remove either to replace plugs. What would you want to put a part that old back on a car ? Just make sure they dont charge you any cross labor ( i.e. labor for plugs + coils + gasket separate ).

 

[beast3300]

As previously stated, a good mechanic gives you a price on parts that need replaced on a job. If you talk to a sales person or inexperienced individual then you might only get quoted on parts you ask about such as in this example with spark plugs. Another possibility is Nissan reuses the manifold gasket if it's metal or "reusable" in their computer when they look up doing the spark plugs.

If you called me on this quote I would have given you a round about price contingent on the spark plug cost. Meaning, I would say "roughly this much" but the manifold gasket would have been quoted for sure. I don't like [free] come backs because the job was quoted wrong or the customer was just being cheap. I'm not saying the OP is or was cheap, just saying.

The coil boots are usually reusable unless they look terrible such as soaked in motor oil from a valve cover leak. That wouldn't be known over the phone obviously. Sounds like he was covering his bases which I like. Just from the little bit I read it sounds like the independent guy is pretty fair.

 

[fdcg27]

What brought you to this guy and what word of mouth do you hear?
If you've heard that this guy is good, skilled and reliable from some car-savvy people, or if he usually seems to be working on nice cars for an established base of customers, he's probably legit.
Cheaper is not always better and it is nice talking to a tech rather than a service writer who knows less about car repair than you do.
The two techs I use for jobs I'm no longer young enough nor poor enough to want to do are straight up.
One is cheap and good while the other can tell you anything you'd ever want to know about your Honda/Acura car.
Nice to know if I have a problem I can't figure out.

 

[Donald]

It sounds like a reasonable "test" job to give to the indy and see how you like the service. You can always say to please reuse the coil covers if they look OK.

 

[Thax]

I would go with the Indy on this one . Sounds like he knows what it takes to do the full job correctly and quoted you as such. Insist he uses the OEM plugs though.

 

[TWG1572]

Thanks everyone! I'm going to give this guy a whirl - like someone said this is a good chance to test him out and see how things go. He is much closer to my house than the Nissan dealership, so some of the potential price difference will be negated by lower mileage cost anyway.

 

[Vikas]

I would call back the Nissan dealer and ask about what else would need to be replaced. They obviously do hundreds of these jobs and most likely will use factory parts. On top of it, their quote is cheaper for the same work than the indi. You don't know which spark plug indi is going to use.

If you ask them intelligent and probing questions to the dealer service writer and the indi, you would be able to make your decision quite easily.

 

[outdoorsman310]

id go with the independent shop. its good to have a price for a worst case scenario. i guess the coil covers spark plug boots? are more of a preventative maintenance deal and its probably cheaper to change them now than at a separate time

 

[TWG1572]

Figured I'd follow up this, since I had a few interesting twists and turns...

Called the Nissan dealership again to inquire exactly what's included in their price. Price somehow went up to $225 during this discussion. Decided I'd call another Nissan dealership, which was well over $300. At this point, I pretty much said I'll try the indy guy and see what happens.

Took it in over the weekend, walked out for $235. I was happy with the service, and the guy really appeared to know what he was doing. I had a chance to watch him interact with a couple other customers, and thought he did a good job. I'll definitly give him another shot.