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I always at least think of fixing part rather than replacing it. I do plastic welding. I have repaired many types of electronic units, rebuild voltage controllers and wiper motors, fixed abs sensors, head units, factory amplifiers, and a lot more. In some electronic units it might even be cheaper and better to make new one yourself.
In the real world of automotive repair with the cost of labor today, very few techs repair anything anymore. We usually just replace the part in question.
40 years ago I used to repair starters by installing new brushes, cleaning the comutator bars, replacing the drive and rebuilding solenoids. I sometimes did 2 or 3 a day. The cost to do that today would be a lot more than just installing a rebuilt unit.
[quote=”wysetech” post=77018]In the real world of automotive repair with the cost of labor today, very few techs repair anything anymore. We usually just replace the part in question.
40 years ago I used to repair starters by installing new brushes, cleaning the comutator bars, replacing the drive and rebuilding solenoids. I sometimes did 2 or 3 a day. The cost to do that today would be a lot more than just installing a rebuilt unit.[/quote]
Exactly, on my stuff I often rebuild or repair stuff. On a customers, the labor cost to rebuild often exceeds the cost of a new part. A starter for a 2nd gen S-10 is $90.00 for the mid grade one, a solenoid and repair kit are almost $100 plus 2.5 hours to rebuild $150.00. A customer would punch me in the face :silly: for charging $250.00 to rebuild a starter they could have gotten new with a lifetime warranty for $100.00
Yeah…..but ya know there is a lot of satisfaction in repairing rather than replacing. Those were the days when it was fun to repair cars.
The reason I picked a starter cuz in those days they were prone to failure.
[quote=”wysetech” post=77020]Yeah…..but ya know there is a lot of satisfaction in repairing rather than replacing. Those were the days when it was fun to repair cars.
The reason I picked a starter cuz in those days they were prone to failure.[/quote]
I still have all my rebuild catalogs for alts and starters.
You know Bill, there is still a HUGE market for starter rebuilders for heavy equipment. Some of those starters are not even replaceable due to the companies that made them either phased them out or are gone. Same goes for commercial lawn care equipment. A Hustler starter (Kohler) can run up to $400.00 my customers are happy to pay $250.00 to rebuild them same for their hydraulic pumps and wheel motors. During the summer I often rebuild 5 or 6 John Deere LA series hydrostatic transmissions. A complete rebuild kit is about $300 (and takes about a hour and half to properly rebuild) and a new hydro is $1,800.00.
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