Head gasket change over 1K!!

crazy chester

Hi all

A friend of mine has been quoted E1335:eek: for replacing a head gasket by a mechanic! Ive been out of the loop of the garage business for nearly 7 years but from what i can remember this sorta job cost 1/3 of his quote! Could anyone shed some light on estimated costs for this sorta job and also whats the cost of labour per hour at the moment?

Thanks in advance

Crazy Chester:)

trellheim

car type ? age ? timing belt need doing too ? water pump ? is it just the head gasket leaking or is there other nasties ?

Gary ITR

crazy chester wrote: »

Hi all

A friend of mine has been quoted E1335:eek: for replacing a head gasket by a mechanic! Ive been out of the loop of the garage business for nearly 7 years but from what i can remember this sorta job cost 1/3 of his quote! Could anyone shed some light on estimated costs for this sorta job and also whats the cost of labour per hour at the moment?

Thanks in advance

Crazy Chester:)

What kind of car is it? I know a guy who rang everywhere for a Peugeot 106 and the cheapest he got was €750

skyhighflyer

If the T-Belt needs to be done and the head needs re-skimming I can easily see it costing that much. You need to be more specific though re the make, model, etc.

For example, I believe the head gasket on an E36 3 series can take around 20 hours to do. Even at a reasonable labour rate of €50 per hour thats a grand in labour alone.

If the car's not worth very much and he has time on his hands its possible to DIY.

crazy chester

The quote was for timing belt kit, water pump, scimming the head and other gaskets. its a 5/6 yr old rover 75 nothing else needed on it. Its just the labour was a couple of pence shy of E900! Anyone any idea of the going rate of labour at the moment? The only reason i ask is my dad got the same job done on his car few months back, granted he got a mechanic friend to take out head and replace the t.belt + w.pump coz for health reasons he is not able to work on cars anymore, and the whole thing cost him a little over E200 inc parts! I know its gonna cost less if you get a friend to do it but for an experienced mechanic this would be a common enough job and shoudnt take more than a day to complete? Also this is not from a main dealership.
Am i being unreasonable in thinkin this is a bit much?!

skyhighflyer

To be honest, it sounds fair enough to me. I don't know the intricacies of the Rover 75 but I'd be happy enough with that price. The job is slmost entirely labour, the parts themselves cost comparatively little.

L-M

As above, if you break down the labour + parts and what required to do the job, you'll see it's not a cheap job to do.

seasam

crazy chester wrote: »

The quote was for timing belt kit, water pump, scimming the head and other gaskets. its a 5/6 yr old rover 75 nothing else needed on it. Its just the labour was a couple of pence shy of E900! Anyone any idea of the going rate of labour at the moment? The only reason i ask is my dad got the same job done on his car few months back, granted he got a mechanic friend to take out head and replace the t.belt + w.pump coz for health reasons he is not able to work on cars anymore, and the whole thing cost him a little over E200 inc parts! I know its gonna cost less if you get a friend to do it but for an experienced mechanic this would be a common enough job and shoudnt take more than a day to complete? Also this is not from a main dealership.
Am i being unreasonable in thinkin this is a bit much?!

I don't thing it's a crazy price as others have said it would be a very labour intensive job and be blocking up a ramp while other work could be done

I think the 200 your Dad paid is unbelieveble !!!