Huge Repair Bills - A Big Dent In Your Wallet
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by: RandStuck
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A little scratch: $1500. A wear out device replacement: $3500. A fresh trunk-release switch cover: $150. All these are genuine repair costs related to AOL Autos since drivers took their vehicles to the auto shops with apparently small problems that resulted in excessively expensive repair bills. Not all motorists can choose to repair his vehicle himself or purchase a new one as trouble occurs in the existing one. Most of the car owners are left with limited options like gathering the big bills and paying it. Let us focus on some of the regular repair jobs that resulted in exorbitant repair bills.
Bumper Damper
Deana May of AC Auto Finishing, Los Angeles, knows the nasty shocks that customers can face even with a minor matter like a bodywork scratch or scrape. Its a scary thing " looks can be deceptive. You can calculate an estimate on a front bumper, take it off, and behind it there's all kind of damage. Particularly with low-profile cars with low-profile tires, they often need a whole new front end if they go over a bump or up a driveway, or don't take an angle. May says she sees a lot of this in her shop and recalls how a Lotus driver was quoted a staggering $5,400 to repair his car, though from the outside she couldn't see much that was wrong. May also warns of the dangers " and expense " of drivers getting incorrect quotes for repairs that involve high-performance parts, such as an AMG or Brabus for a Mercedes, and receiving stock components in their place.
Grilled to perfection
Willy Stroppe, president of automotive engineering firm Bill Stroppe and Sons in Paramount, Calif declares that once he observed trivial damage on the frontage of a Ford pickup truck that in due course turned into a giant repair bill. "It looks like the front plastic grille got broken with a light hit, but when we got into it the housing behind the grille was cracked and broken all the way up. Replacing everything from the fenders forward, the headlight vessels, a new front end, it all adds up. In a lot of cases you gotta pull out the radiator. That's not something you can do in a couple hours." He discovered similar troubles on a Ford Explorer. Stroppe, primarily works with Fords and result in surprise repair bill costing nearly $1200. "It's not like the old days when everything was steel," he adds. He too states that car owners must know bit about techniques. He has witnessed ample of car businesses through half century. He repeatedly says that a fraudulent shop will turn the vehicle worth driving with a careless patch up job, and then put up for sale to an innocent buyer, lending a big future repair bill as the repair work falls apart.
$150 Cover Up
Mark Essig, is a writer in a small town in North Carolina, who was surprised with a bill of $150 by a local repair shop for altering a lost cover for the trunk-release toggle. It was terribly shocking in his ten years repair history of Mercedes 320 CLK. As pricey repair bills are not unusual for posh European marques, Essig says, repair bill charging $2,000 was a real shock for him. He also noticed that it arrived as an added cost that was not at all mentioned in the estimate. He says: "It was part of a $2000 repair bill that included valve cleaning and brake work, and I was so sick to my stomach that I couldn't quibble over $150. Best part was, I didn't ask him to do it." Meanwhile, Michael Russell owner of Porsche 944, an AOL Autos friend, discovered that bringing in an old-school German car charged a lot more than he negotiated for. Replacement of a $15 exhaust valve charged him $3,500 as work was recorded. Fundamentally, he says, they needed to split out the engine to reach the valve, that was burned out, an ordinary ailment in older vehicles. He says, however, repair was essential to get to work.
Air Wear
Taking my wife's 1995 Nissan 240SX S-ER to my local mechanics to fix the air conditioning proved to be a costly affair. I had taken the car a week before that to get the air conditioning fixed. They found a leaking gasket that had depressurized the system. So they fixed the gasket, re-filled the system with Freon coolant and pressurized it. The bill came to be $300. I heaved a sigh of relief until two days later I found to my utter dismay that the system was again blowing hot air. So much for getting it repaired. I took it back to the shop for a second look only to be told that another seal had broken and this time it was in a hard-to-reach spot which meant extra labor that ultimately translated to an $800 dollar repair bill. I pointed out the fact that the original fix was under warranty. My mechanic argued that a different component had malfunctioned this time and therefore the additional repair was not under warranty. All attempts at bargaining failed so I was $300 out of pocket, and my wife has a hot summer ahead (unless she decides have mine). Here a word of advice: Always get a second opinion in situations like this besides assessing the general system integrity when replacing individual components on older-model cars.
Coolant Chills
Ken Lavacot, working in online mechanics 2carpros.com, says that as a small vapor that appears out of a car might look trivial, but sometimes it indicates serious future repair bills. He says: "Coolant is used to cool the engine during normal operation. If coolant is allowed to enter the combustion chamber, the engine will burn the coolant creating white smoke and steam." He says various pricey solutions contain gasket replacement. "If the gasket that seals the intake manifold to the cylinder head fails it can allow coolant to enter the intake port and then the combustion chamber. To check for this condition the intake manifold will need to be removed." Most of the money in such a case is spent to reach the gasket and bring together the parts after replacement. If coolant is present in the combustion chamber and the gasket is working, Lavacot says the engine should be split. He adds: "This can be tricky because it is difficult to tell which is causing the problem. For example: A repair shop has told you the cylinder head is cracked, and as they start disassembly they can discover it was the intake manifold gasket that has failed. It's up to the honesty of the repair shop to alert the customer the repair will be less. Or the opposite can happen. A repair shop has told you your engine has a blown head gasket, once the disassembly is complete they inform you the head gasket is OK, and the cylinder has been pressure checked and is OK. This only leaves the engine block as the failure and must be replaced to repair the problem, and that can be costly."
Paintwork Blues
My brother-in-law got a little more than he bargained for when he lent his Jaguar convertible to a family member. The car was returned with a scratch in the back panel on the drivers side. This can be fixed at minimal cost as a bodywork shop can buff out a scratch but the Jaguar XK8s aluminum shell meant that a costly adhesive had to be used to fix the scratch so as to prevent further deterioration or warping of the cars monocoque shell. It cost a whopping $1500. Most luxury carmakers like Audi, Mercedes and BMW harness the aluminum-shell technology which is very expensive to repair. He was told that he was lucky the scratch was not in any other part of the car as it could have easily doubled or tripled his cost. Get several estimates for the paintwork and think twice before lending your Jaguar.
About the Author
Rand Stuck is a BMW certified technician with over 12 years of experience. He is currently the manager of the online parts department of a BMW performance parts retailer. You can find more information on Repair and Maintenance and BMW parts at AutoWerks.
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