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Kinda at a loss here. My regular local shop has been replacing some things on my aging ride for the past 4 + years. An alternator here. Water pump there. Another starter. Earlier this week I got around to replacing both drive axles due to torn boots, grease all over & clicking. $330.00 for the pair installed – another fairly priced job. On pickup he tells me that the lower control arms need to be replaced and they won’t pass the annual inspection. OK. The front end has been noisy ever since the clutch was replaced. I get it. He then says everything is some one piece assembly and that they cost about $300.00 per side. Throw in labor and and he writes down $846.00.
Not one to throw good money after bad I need to look into this more. I mean, it’s a 13 year old Sentra with nearly 190K miles. Private sale value on this thing is ~maybe~ fifteen hundred bucks. I poked around and found that the parts are downright cheap – they’re not some exotic one piece double-wishbone, gold-plated chrome molly titanium alloy super ultra mega rare Earth examples of alien engineering. They’re….control arms. With rubber bushings. On the rare scale of 1 to 10 they’re a -11. You see where I’m going with this.
I’m going to hit another shop unless someone can tell me this is what to expect. This is the longest I’ve ever kept a car. Engine & tranny are tight. Everything works just fine. So it’s worth it to me to throw a grand at it to keep it on the road. But eight fitty for stamped steel & rubber? Hmmm…
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Well, it sounds like you’re a repeat customer, he probably prices higher end parts to you, because he knows you trust him and he wants to stay on good terms with you. He can price you a 40 autozone arm, but when it has to be replaced again in 3 months, it’s likely he’s not gonna cut a break on it.
He has to mark up the price on the part to make money off of it, when my shop gets parts from aftermarket sources we charge 10% over what the customer would pay if they walked in to get it, and no one has ever complained. It doesn’t matter if it’s one guy in his garage or 40 people in a dealership, they all need to make money to stay a float.
We as mechanics and techs sell our training and quality work, and MOST of us choose not to use the cheapest part, and when we do use cheap things at customer request we give them the truth about the quality. But, as you stated it’s a 13 year old high mileage car, it sounds like you take good care of it, if it’s a good car, it deserves it.
My shop rate is 80 an hour, it looks like he’s quoting you 600 in parts and 256 in labor, that looks about like 3 hrs to me, which if including alignment is a great price.
Personally I find the cost of the control arms quite ” pricey ” probably a price based on the parts coming from a nissan dealer. you have a few options –
A – ask the shop if you can supply your own parts ( some places allow this others do not ) if they do most likely they won’t warrenty the parts , only the labor. the parts are around 65.00 each for moog through rockauto.com.
B – consider doing the job yourself. it is not that difficult for a DIY person.
btw- alot of ” factory parts ” are reboxed aftermarket parts these days. saw this all the time when I worked for a buick dealership
That’s a great write up – thank you. Even though I’m pretty comfortable with some DIY jobs I think this one is ever my head. And while I probably could bring my own parts I wouldn’t know exactly what to order. Gotta defer to the pros that do this every day.
I’m going to make an appointment with my old tech who’s worked on my cars in the past. He’s a little farther away and takes longer to finish a job (one man shop) but he’s always been straight. If he comes in close to the same price then at least I’ll know(?) the other shop isn’t trying to gouge me. Thanks for the replies…
If you’re up for it you could always purchase a Haynes manual or similar. The process is pretty well written up and if you set aside a couple of days working on it I’m sure the book will pay for itself 🙂
Looks like a fairly involved job when things aren’t all rusty. When things are all rusty it can get ugly. Also, the price of those control arms comes in I’m sure. In fact, that’s probably the bulk of the cost as pointed out. You can always call around to get a second opinion.
Just got a call from the shop. He’s replacing the ball joints – everything else looked fine. A little under $400.00 for the job.
Pays to get a second opinion and it looks like I’m keeping the ‘ol Datsun for a while longer. And that’s good. I can’t stand car payments.
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