Originally Posted By: B20z
Originally Posted By: bdcardinal
Yup makes total sense. We do it to customers that have aftermarket extended warranties. They are also made aware that anything not paid by their warranty, they will be responsible for and they will not get their car back until their warranty pays us in full.
The issue isn't that the charge exists but the amount. $260 is obscene. Most "techs" can't/won't do anything besides plug in a code scanner, especially the techs that are going to do first round diagnostics on a drive up. Disgusting but please do go on about shop costs, dealers are people too, et al.
Well, since you're going on about the specific $260 charge, let's discuss that. Cylinder head failures are not diagnosed by code scanner, and the dealer and manufacturer (or warranty company) would not accept such a quickie diagnosis for such major warranty work anyway. The tech performed that much work and the dealer has every right to charge for that amount of work.
I own a few factory service manuals. There are hundreds of pages of diagnostic procedures in each, and most involve a significant amount of work and/or special equipment. None of that comes for free, unless you're still fully under warranty, and then the manufacturer pays for it... well, most of it, if the tech comes in at or under the ridiculous factory time allowance (unlikely).
Just 3 years ago, I was too busy at work and had an independent mechanic check out my poorly running old Taurus engine. The wet/dry test and diagnosis of a bad cylinder head was verified when I let him pull the head, bill, just over $300. So the dealer bill for this work is exactly in line with the prevailing reality.
I've done wet/dry compression tests and it takes time to pull the plugs and do the tests for each cylinder. With shop time at over $100/hour that's half the bill right there.
So I disagree that $260 is unreasonable for a bad cylinder head diagnosis. It's a lot of money, yes, one shouldn't have that problem on a vehicle that young, yes, but it's not an unreasonable charge for that amount of work.