Repair quote for 2012 Ford Focus - reasonable?

ITDept

Hi,

I'm absolutely clueless when it comes to mechanics. I'd really appreciate it if someone 'in the know' here can tell me if this is reasonable or too much?

We have a 2012 Ford Focus diesel, quite low mileage. It lost power on the motorway the other day and it's gone into a garage. They say the 4 fuel injectors and the fuel filter need to be replaced.

They've said the parts will be roughly €1000 and labour will be €95 per hour (both +VAT). They weren't able to confirm how much labour would be needed. It all depends on how easy it is to remove the old parts, whether they're all ceased up etc. The rough guess was anywhere between 4 and 8 hours, which would be somewhere around €1500 to €2000.

So, like I said, I know nothing about engines or the going rate for mechanics. Could someone tell me if this is fairly reasonable or if I'm better off looking elsewhere please? Thank you.

BlakeS94

Wouldn't consider myself in the know about garage prices these days but that seems reasonably fair.

I pulled 4 injectors from that engine last night. They're not known to seize and they all pulled out by hand for me Quite easily.

Direct injection diesel injectors are quite expensive pieces of kit. Cheapest I could find them for was €900 for 4 so I'd say the estimate the garage is giving you is fair, considering they're doing the fuel filter aswell.

It took me 4 hours to take all injectors out, clean and put back in, but I had a debacle with a lost nut which added about 90 minutes.

Also it was my first time doing that job so 4 hours for an experienced mechanic is a bit much, like I said its unlikely they'll be stuck unless there's loads of carbon around them.

€95 Labour seems a lot for an indie but maybe expected with the cost of things these days. My local garage is €80 per hour.

All in all €1500 is fair for the lot imo.

While they're there I'd ask them to do leak off pipes too. They're €39 genuine from Ford and they're easy to break while taking everything apart.

ITDept

Thank you for taking the time to reply. That's put my mind at ease.

cml387

However, the fact that all failed together looks like some fuel contamination problem. I'd be careful where I get my diesel in future.

BlakeS94

The injectors on those 1.6 Diesel PSA engines are pretty common to fail, like near top of the list of reliabilty issues for that engine, from my knowledge it's usually electrically where the issue comes from. Which means new injector no way around it.

It's possible the garage pinpointed that 3 were bad, or even just 2, and didn't want a scenario where they replaced 2 injectors, and weeks or months later the others went and the OP coming back saying hey you didn't fix my car, so they quoted the price for 4. And it would cost you more doing 2 plus labour, and then coming back and doing another 2 plus labour. Than it would all 4 at the same time.

If you can afford to, I think the best way to go is to replace all 4 injectors even if just 1 has failed, and never have to worry about it probably for the rest of the cars life.