My friend drives a 2001 galant and she took it to the dealer to get checked out. They said the spark plugs, the O2 sensor and the valve cover gasket need to be replaced. the cost is coming up to 1,010 right now. I think thats too much. i dunno is she getting screwed over the cost?

 

your friend is getting the tip, shaft, end, and everything in between.

 

Again, why do people go to the dealer after warranty is over

 

you should give her ur shaft after spending the 100 bucks on parts and about 30 min of your time putting them in. i bet she'd like urs more then the dealers lol

 

Exactly. My TL only sees the dealer for warranty work. Anything outside the scope of the warranty gets done by my independent mechanic who is a boatload cheaper and more honest.

 

I'm pretty much a mechanical noob and even I know that a set of spark plugs and an O2 sensor are pretty cheap.

 

yeah thats pretty much what i was thinking. I would do it but i never replace the valve cover gasket or an oxygen sensor

 

is your friend.

search: "2001 galant o2 sensor" "2001 galant sparkplugs" "2001 galant valve cover" or some variation thereof. You are bound to get some hits to either instructions on how to do it or at least parts and how much they cost. Invest $50-$80 in a shop manual and you will have a step-by-step of how to do all of it. All the items mentioned appear to be relatively easy to accomplish. If you don't want to do it yourself then at least get a couple of phone quotes from local independent mechanics or shops. I think you'll find you can pretty much cut that $1K estimate in half, if not better.

 

Sounds like 2 hours of work, 3 tops, for a newb that can use a ratchet. But I am a do it yourself kinda guy. There are many a person that beleive in only going to the dealer and are willing to shell out however much money the dealer asks for.

 

I did all of those myself when they told me they needed replacing on my 95 240sx, I was a newb too just did some research though

 

4 spark plugs an 02 sensor and a gasket costs $124 from this place and their are probably on the high end. Even by the Dealer service rates it shouldn't take over 2 hours to do these things. I would say at the most a dealer should be charging is $300 for this service.

http://www.drivewire.com/mitsubiship...vergasket.html
http://www.drivewire.com/mitsubiship...gensensor.html
http://www.drivewire.com/mitsubishiparts/sparkplug.html

 

yeah well unfortunately I just found out, that she had already taken the car when she had told me. So of course its too late to do anything. women

 

Its just as bad as my friend taking his flat tire to the dealer.

He also got suckered into getting new OEM brakes for $500 from the dealer.
Which later he found out he didnt need. The noise was just his tires.

Then he has the nerve to say VW isnt reliable. Now i know where that image came from.

 

i had my car at a local garage for an alignment, and i was talking to the lady who runs the place, she said she has always heard that the local shops try to rip off females

 

That's seriously a couple hundred in parts at most and a few hours work. A monkey with half a brain and some tolls can do the job.

 

I guess they charge $400/hour.

 

If the Galant is a V6, the Intake has to be removed to replace the back three spark plugs. The last two times I've charged 4 hours labor to do a tune-up.

 

I took my old ford too the dealership for maintenance. After the warrenty ran out, I found a local guy who used to work for the dealership or did the work myself.

Got quoted $900 when the air conditioning compressor died, and ended up doing the work myself for around $300 (210 or so for the compressor, plus a recharge of the system)...

Oh, and when I got the estimate on the air conditioning at the dealership, they said I needed brakes all around. That was at 90K miles (or so). I didn't do the fronts till about 125K, and never did the rears...

With invoice priceing so readily available now, dealers are probably trying to make money on service instead on just ripping you off on the initial sale of the car...