Indie versus dealer repair cost
Discussion
Ok I'm after some thoughtds on whether the indie guy I use to service my X5 is decent value as I'm starting to have some doubts, no problem with this workmanship however.
The nearside front caliper on my X5 decided to stick and over heat, on looking at this I noticed the driveshaft gaitor had split and thrown it's grease out. There was also a clunk on the drivers side. My indie man was fully booked and as the brake was getting extremely hot I booked it into the dealer. They quoted new caliper , new pads and disks (£610), new gaitor possible new driveshaft (£250 OR £550) and new anti roll bar drop link (£175).
I've just payed my indie guy £605 to do the gaitor boot (bmw parts), new pads, kept the original disk he says ok, new drop link, new ATE exchange caliper (he says bmw likely to fit exchange calipers as well).
To my mind if I'd kept bmw on a short leash and insisted they kept the disks on, repacked the boot etc. etc. then this would be pretty close to my indie chap with the resale reassuring large invoice.
What do you chaps think? am I being unduly ars*y, the book time for the gaitor is 2 hours, but the rest of the jobs (fit pads, fit caliper, fit roll bar link are quick enough to do surely) his invoice split £225 parts £259 labour all plus vat. I know the guy has to make a living, but he has to have a big enough gap between dealer prices so that the price + trust+ worksmanshsip is greater than the dealer invoice and stamp not sure the equation is that balanced this time? like I say am I being unreasonable? what would other people expect I was expecting £400-£500 all in . Ian
The nearside front caliper on my X5 decided to stick and over heat, on looking at this I noticed the driveshaft gaitor had split and thrown it's grease out. There was also a clunk on the drivers side. My indie man was fully booked and as the brake was getting extremely hot I booked it into the dealer. They quoted new caliper , new pads and disks (£610), new gaitor possible new driveshaft (£250 OR £550) and new anti roll bar drop link (£175).
I've just payed my indie guy £605 to do the gaitor boot (bmw parts), new pads, kept the original disk he says ok, new drop link, new ATE exchange caliper (he says bmw likely to fit exchange calipers as well).
To my mind if I'd kept bmw on a short leash and insisted they kept the disks on, repacked the boot etc. etc. then this would be pretty close to my indie chap with the resale reassuring large invoice.
What do you chaps think? am I being unduly ars*y, the book time for the gaitor is 2 hours, but the rest of the jobs (fit pads, fit caliper, fit roll bar link are quick enough to do surely) his invoice split £225 parts £259 labour all plus vat. I know the guy has to make a living, but he has to have a big enough gap between dealer prices so that the price + trust+ worksmanshsip is greater than the dealer invoice and stamp not sure the equation is that balanced this time? like I say am I being unreasonable? what would other people expect I was expecting £400-£500 all in . Ian
Ok thanks for that, the disks were plenty within spec apparently. The caliper is an ATE refurb caliper looks as good as new with some kind of goldy/anodised finish, I can see a bmw stamp on it as well as an ate stamp so I'm ok with that. The guy has to make a living I suppose! now needs the rear axle carrier bushes doing £500 at BMW £300 at his place. Another question Blackspider? What do you know about the mod to the crankcase breather system on the M54 engine this was supposedly to reduce excess oil consumption. I believe it was done to my car with little benefit. it still burns imo too much oil 1L/1800 no visible sign though ever, does synthetic tend not to burn/show in the exhaust? could the oil separator valve/pipe work be clogged where is it located on the engine? thanks, Ian
The maximum permisable oil consumption is about 1litre for every 1000 miles(0.7 l for every 620 miles to be exact) so yours is unfortunately nothing out of the ordinary,assuming theres no leaks or blue smoke.
From about 2001 the engines seem to burn more oil..this is a design of the engines and the oil used.SLX longlife 4 0/30 is very thin.Your sort of mileage is normal and we do get alot of comments about oil useage(because SLX is expensive).
The crank case breather pipes used to collapse and were modified-the EMl light came on and rough running were the faults...
From about 2001 the engines seem to burn more oil..this is a design of the engines and the oil used.SLX longlife 4 0/30 is very thin.Your sort of mileage is normal and we do get alot of comments about oil useage(because SLX is expensive).
The crank case breather pipes used to collapse and were modified-the EMl light came on and rough running were the faults...
Edited by blackspider on Monday 11th December 15:23
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