I recently purchased a 94 camaro z28..it wasnt in the greatest condition when i bought it but i cant take but my bad choice of not shopping around. I ended up having to replace my front and main rear seals, crankshaft, oil sending unit and oil pan...got that done for $900

next i had to have a transmission overhaul and now i just got my car back to where i can actually drive it. the car has 116,000 miles on it and i have no clue of what previous maintainance was done so im just going thru it all just to be safe, oil change, radiator flush, and a tune up.

I go to get a tune up today, I went to firestone and a Chevy dealer..$250 for a tuneup? and all they do is replace the spark plugs and the fuel filter? no spark plug wires, no distributor cap, no o2 sensors..i thought this was normally included in a tune up, and i didn't really know they cost $250, I was thinking around 100-150...does this seem right to you all? I don't know much about working on my own car at all but that's what I got this for, so I can learn...I'm tempted to read up and learn how to do my own tune up...any opinions on the prices ive got and them not including plug wires, o2, distributor cap, ect??

Thanks :]

 

where you live?

 

Dallas area, I don't mind driving a little for some decent service, I've had some really bad luck with shops latley. Midas is the reason I had to have my tranny rebuilt, long story.

 

post down in the texas forums i'm sure there are 30 people within 20 min of your house that would do it half that price. how close are you do denison.

 

well my dad lives in oklahoma, i drive there quite a bit..if im right denison is the town right before oklahoma, or is it durant? cant remember, but i know it takes roughly an hour to get from dallas to sherman, so an hour and a halfish i guess?

 

if you've ever attemped to change plugs on an LT1 you would understand why it would cost so much . If you have some time I would do the plugs yourself. It isn't hard...just takes a long time and some creativety getting to the plugs.

 

yeah changing the plugs on an lt1 is a time consuming job. the drivers side is alright but the passenger side is a pain. i did it on my firebird and it took me a little while, because most of the work has to be done from underneath the car. when i got my firebird it had two different sets of spark plugs in it, ac delco on one side and champion on the other. what i get from that is that the person before me did the drivers side and then went on to the passenger side, and found out how much of a pain it was and just said screw it.

 

$250 sounds about right for a plug change.

 

Regarding the "distributor cap" there isn't a traditional style distributor cap on the LT1. The distributor is called the "opti" and it is not something that can be serviced per se... just replace the whole thing. Unfortunatly opti units cost about $300 depending on where you buy one and it is not a "simple" swap. I was quoted $900 to have it done at the dealarship (about 4 years ago). Do a search for "opti" on here and it will turn up more info that you can probably read in an hour.

Like Critter said... chalk me up as 1 of the 30 people who would do your plugs for half that price. I currently live in Plano... Hit me up on PM if you don't find anyone else or need some help.

 

You can replace the cap and rotor only, on the Optispark distributor. Whether its a good idea to do only the cap/rotor depends on the condition of the complete unit. Since the OP has a 94 with an unvented unit, its probalby going to be closer to $375 for a complete AC/Delco unit with shipping. Alternatively, an MSD cap/rotor will cost about $165 with shipping.

 

Plugs took 6 hours the first time and an hour and a half the next. With aftermarket headers i could do all in under an hour now.

 

Well you said you wanted to learn to workon cars. This is the perfect opportunity. Save yourself the money, and learn something. Learning to work on your own car and gaining the appreciation for the work involved is priceless, especially if it will save you 250 in the process. With the money saved, you can buy the other things you required froma tune up... with the exception of the opti replacement. And am I reading it correctly... you have your crankshaft replaced for 900 bucks?

 

Where in the Dallas area?

 

Pull a couple of plugs (easy ones) and check condition and gap--SB aroud .050. If the plugs are delco or stock plat the general consensus is that they lose their pucks (center electrodes) around 60 grand rather than the manufactures claim to be around 100 grand.

250 isn't bad for plug change. I'd spring for some NGK iradiums, TR55 type. Check the gaps for .050 and deliver them to the dealer along with some anti-sieze crap. Why? because if you just tell the dealer/shop to put new plugs in, you won't know what kind of plugs or what gap and you will be paying top price for the plugs. JMHO

 

my mistake, mistype, i had the front and rear crankshaft seals replaced, oil pan,oil sending unit all for $900