460 starter issue

[viven44]

That's awesome for both you guys and the customer. Need this all the time. You guys took something that was broken and made it better. Sometimes its the other way around.

I had a guy show up to pick up some old 78 Ford stuff and he mentioned his 78 Bronco was in the shop for 11 months for an engine rebuild. The engine (400) was running but the owner wanted to to be 'fresh' with some upgrades. The shop quoted him $3800 for all parts and labor, but he ended up with a $8000 bill!!! He has no idea what was installed. When he finally got his Bronco it broke down 50 miles from the shop and apparently they only found 1/2 quart of oil in the pan!! In addition, none of his gauges work now. What a mess. He says after they filled it back with oil, it has been doing ok (really?). Stories like these are almost too bad to be true!!

[Gary Lewis]

That happens all too often.  Vernon, the previous owner of Big Blue, supposedly had the engine rebuilt.  But that took 4 years!  And, when he got it back it was low on oil in 20 miles.  He took it to another shop and they found no gaskets on the valve covers, and lots of other problems.  But after another $2000 they got it running pretty well.

When I decided to go EFI I pulled the engine and did a leak-down test and found over 50% leakage on 2 cylinders and way too much on all cylinders.  Then I discovered salvage yard marks on the valve covers.

So it looks like after 4 years and he started pushing they went to a salvage and got an engine, slapped the Edelbrock intake and carb on it, painted it, and called it new.  

[ArdWrknTrk]

I cringe at stories like this.
It's strange for me to think that anyone would be like that.  

I feel bad asking for $ when I do a great job repairing someone's vehicle quickly and completely.  

[85lebaront2]

Jim, I have no problem with charging $75/hr for my time and experience. That seems to be very close to the going rate for non-dealer shops around here.

[ArdWrknTrk]

We're at $125-150 here on the gold coast.


🤪

[mat in tn]

these horror stories have actually become fairly common. it is every bit as bad in the home remodeling industry. my former life! I had a three month wait list as a rule. new callers would ask "you expect me to wait three months"? I would answer "no. I just said call me back in three months if you still need it done." as you can imagine this did not always go over well and they would want to argue that they wanted it sooner and my answer was always that my current client gets my current focus. then the next. I'm not leaving one for the next best thing. most appreciated this and those who did not were probably not my customer anyway.

[ArdWrknTrk]

Pretty much this.
And people don't get why I don't want to play the game anymore.