My car has been having troubles running for some time now. I haven't had the money to fix it until now, and haven't been driving it much. Took it to the shop to see what they thought it was and here's what they say it needs:

*new water pump
*new opti (see above)
*new main crank seal (only a small leak but would make sense to change while the water pump and opti are off)
*new plugs and wires (would hate to pay somebody to do something like a plug change, but again if they already have the water pump and opti off, why not?)
*new rear tranny seal
*right rear brake pads are toast

For all of this, they quoted me $2400. To get all of that done, is that a fair price? I prefer to do what I can for my car on my own, but I don't know if much of this is doable without access to a lot of tools. How hard are the seals to change? Would I be gettin' raped pretty bad if I just decided to let them do all of it and save myself the headache of tracking down tools and such? What do you guys think?

 

You can do the water pump and opti and the brake pades on your own pretty easily. Seals Im not sure about (I dont knwo what it entails with motor in car).

On the plugs and Wires. YOu "can" do these in your drive way with very little tools, but it can be a pain. Especially the last on on the passenger side. Driver side is cake walk on your back. The passenger side is a little bit more of a pain. You have to remove the AC COmpressor to access where the plug wires will be routed. The first 2 are not too difficult the 3rd is a lil bit of a pain and the last one is a bitch unless you have skinny hands. You can do it thou. Its jsut a little bit of a pain and takes some patience. For $2400 I would try and knock most of those our yourself.

Another thing you might want to consider, call some performance chops and see what they will charge to replace your motor with a rebuilt one.

 

Bear in mind that "shops" are in business to make money. They are going to find as many things wrong as they can----many of the things they mention are quite common with cars that have been used for awhile. This does not mean that you shouldn't have some of the things done, however, the results of having them done may not benefit you on a cost per gain basis.

Have someone else, whom you trust --or not--give you their perspective on the condition of your engine and drivetrain and what really "needs" to be done----do some of the stuff yourself if you can and spend the rest of your money to "improve" your performance----not just to stop minor leaks, etc. JMHO

 

It sounds like they are charging you a crap load of labor. I would say atleast 1600 of that price is labor? Maybe more...

 

And...you say that your car has had trouble "running"-----I would first need to know what you mean by "trouble running" before I paid someone to do alot of work which may have nothing to do with the running problems.

I.e, is the water pump broke, the plugs boogered---will stopping minor oil leaks and fixing the brakes make it run better?

It is typical for dealerships and shops to throw everything at it and completely miss solving a poor-running engine. So you wind up with a humongous bill for unnessessary crap and end up paying again for detemination and fixing the real underlying problem(s). JMHO

 

No, it would not be worth it to pay $2400 for what is basically a tuneup/brake pads, plus some very easy seal changes(assuming he means the rear output shaft seal in the tranny, just remove the driveshaft to access). The first thing I did when I got my car was a complete tuneup w/new waterpump and opti, and it wasn't that bad. I could see $1,000-1,500 from a dealer but $2400 is just out of line. They must not like working on LT1s.

 

go to a couple more shops and get quotes on the repairs that are neccesary, but dont mention that you have had it to another shop or any of the parts the other shop told you was wrong

 

Thats way to much money,a good mechanic sould be able to do all that work in a 8 hour day with some time to spare.And to cut down on time,if the front crank seal is only leaking a small amount,i would skip it because the SBC is famous for leaking a small amount of oil from that front seal anyway,but like i said if it is only leaking a small amout.Most of the work you mention,i have done myself on my car and i don't have a hoist and i still got it done by myself in one day,the front seal is about the worst part of that job because the crank hub can be a real pain so if it is only leaking a small amount then i would skip that.