Ford bulb replacement set pricing

Ford bulb replacement set pricing

Author
Discussion

Spleeble

Original Poster:

333 posts

209 months

Monday 3rd January 2011
quotequote all
When I got my Focus serviced at a main dealer and I was advised that one of my indicators was showing white light and needed to be replaced at a set price of £27.99. I told them to that I'd do it myself. I've just done the job a couple of minutes ago (in the dark) and it took 5 minutes, just 2 screws and the twist on lamp holder. So Ford wanted to charge me £280 an hour for a very simple job. I have heard of main dealer rip offs but this one must be one of the worst.

tribbles

4,021 posts

229 months

Monday 3rd January 2011
quotequote all
No, they wanted to charge you £27.99 - which would include the cost of the bulbs (which aren't free).

Spleeble

Original Poster:

333 posts

209 months

Monday 3rd January 2011
quotequote all
tribbles said:
No, they wanted to charge you £27.99 - which would include the cost of the bulbs (which aren't free).
If their hourly rate was £40 and they were to charge me £4 for 5 minutes labour + £1.50 for a bulb I would have got them to do it.

Negative Creep

25,223 posts

234 months

Monday 3rd January 2011
quotequote all
Probably because in most modern cars the bulbs are a pain in the arse to change. In the original Ka and Focus for example, changing one sidelight (think it's the passenger) means taking the battery out

Engineer1

10,486 posts

216 months

Monday 3rd January 2011
quotequote all
In the KA the easiest access to the back of the headlamps was to jack the car up pull the wheel arch liner out of the way and get to it that way, also scaling up the price from a 10 minute job to an hourly rate is a bit daft as 6 ten minute jobs in an hour isn't always possible and the job may not always be 10 minutes if something is rusty bent or damaged.

uncinquesei

917 posts

184 months

Monday 3rd January 2011
quotequote all
this seems to pop up regularly doesn't it?
blah blah blah 5 min job 20 quid = 240 quid an hour....

Orillion

177 posts

172 months

Monday 3rd January 2011
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Leaving aside actual costs for a moment, why do manufacturers design cars like this? Is it to provide an income stream for dealers? Even allowing that compromises have to be made during the design process, surely all bulbs should be changeable, at the roadside, by the "average" person?

On a related note, I've seen two cars in the last few weeks, one being a taxi, where only the high-level brake light worked - neither of the normal brake lights worked.