Friday, June 3, 2011

My sister took her ford scape to ford dealer they charged her $500.00 labor for spark plug changing!?

Is $500.00 fair price for changing spark plugs on a 2001 ford scape


V-6? they say they need to remove intake manifold in order to that? has my sister been overcharged? if you are a mechanic or know about this things please advice! you help will be greatly appreciated! thanks.|||What is the labour rate at the dealer where your sister took her car? Ford Platinum plugs cost about $20 each. $20 times 6 equals about $120. That leaves about $380. Yes, in order to access and replace the back three plugs requires the upper intake to be removed. With a labour at about 3.5 hours at $100 per hour, that adds up to $350. Add $350 plus $120 and that equals about $470. This leaves about $30 for whatever taxes are, where you are located geographically. That being said, it sounds about right. So in answer to your question, NO your sister hasn%26#039;t been overcharged by the sounds of things. Hope this helps.|||You%26#039;re Welcome.

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|||book time and parts can add up to the 500.00|||There are domestic cars that, when using a transversely-mounted V-6 (engine turned sideways), have almost no room to get behind the manifold. I had a 1990 Chevy Lumina that in order to get to the rear spark plugs, you had to unbolt the engine mounts up front, use a pry bar to rotate the engine toward the front and then tie it down with tow straps. That was right out of the Haynes repair manual! A total pain!





As for the Escape, check the link down below; it%26#039;s a picture tutorial on performing the job on an Escape. The main thing to note is the author saying, %26quot;...isn%26#039;t a really difficult job, but can be quite time consuming.%26quot; I don%26#039;t know how long %26quot;time consuming%26quot; is, but the dealership is going to be charging something like $90/hr. Does it take 5 hrs? Hmmm...I don%26#039;t know about that.





You might go to a local independant shop and ask them how long the job takes. Shops don%26#039;t punch the clock when they work on your car, they go by a flat-rate based on how long the factory determined a job would take. They may be able to justify why it cost that much or debunk it altogether.





Note: Appears that I and the poster above me where writing at the same time and grabbed the same article! Gotta love it!|||The v6 Escape - like many other sideways mounted V6%26#039;s, are very difficult to access the back side of the engine - and to complicate the matter, often times the intake manifold covers the back side and makes access impossible without removing the intake. It%26#039;s ridiculous - and it demonstrates the designers total ignorance when items that are subject to replacement are buried in some inaccessible area - heater cores in a great many vehicles come to mind (typical part $100 - average labor $400+)|||They are correct in that the intake manifold does have to be removed to change the spark plugs on the Escape, you cannot reach around the engine, they are actually under the intake manifold. Here the platinum plugs are only 7 bucks each, and figure in new intake gaskets, I would not want to reuse the old ones. What was the hourly labor rate for the dealer? Here it would have been around 300 for the entire job, depending on the labor rate, you may have been overcharged. If they charge 100 an hour or a little more, it may be close, if less than that an hour, your sister got taken for a ride unless they did other services with it as well, such as an induction service and oil change, etc.|||I don%26#039;t know about this specific vehicle, but if I can charge 500.00 on book time for changing 6 spark plugs in anything on this planet, then I%26#039;m in the wrong business...


I think she got hosed down big time......