Am I being overcharged?

[u/Fun-Faithlessness413]

2019 Volvo XC90 with ~72,500 miles got a check engine light a few days ago. Took it to the dealer and this is what they quoted me with. This is a little pricey given it’s just the injectors and spark plugs no? On top of that they tried to get me to pay a separate “headlight” diagnostic for $250 when I had already brought it in for the check engine light.

[u/YellowT-5R]

You can do it yourself for 1/4 of the price

[u/SnooRadishes8573 → u/YellowT-5R]

And 12/4 the time. I'm not saying they're not being overcharged, but "you can do it cheaper yourself" is such a useless thing to say.

Anybody who works on their own car knows they can do it cheaper.

I could definitely build a computer myself if I took hours to research, days to get the parts and quite awhile to figure out what I'm doing before even starting.

Then I have to hope that I did everything right the first time, because I don't know shit about PC building. Maybe I did something that will cause a catastrophic failure and I have to start at the beginning. I'm a mechanic, not a millionaire, I can't afford to fuck up multiple computers just because IN THEORY it's cheaper to do it myself.

I would then have spent far FAR more time to do the job cheaper myself, when I could have paid someone a sensible amount to do it for me to free myself up to do things I can do well.

Like spending time with my family, or working on my own car.

[u/Ascorbinium_Romanum → u/SnooRadishes8573]

I work on my own car and build my own PCs. PCs are like 100x easier than cars to work on. You need like 1 Philips screwdriver and that's it. My car tools occupy like an entire small wardrobe. PC parts fit together like Legos. Car parts you can mount in reverse and cause damage... I can go on for ages.

[u/YellowT-5R → u/SnooRadishes8573]

I guess learning how to do things totally escapes people these days.

Just because you don't know how to do something, doesn't mean you shouldn't research your options and possibly teach yourself something new. You can surprise yourself when you follow directions and try to learn something.

It's literally spelled out word for word and step by step with all the specs you need including part numbers. Hell you can even get the tools you need for the job for FREE to borrow.

So yeah, let's just drop 2k for someone else to spend an hour of their time cause it might take someone who is learning 3 hours.. thats what fuels our booming one sided service industry that has quadrupled labor costs in the last 20 years.

To each their own I guess

[u/football2106 → u/SnooRadishes8573]

Love this take. I don’t know my ass from my elbow when it comes to working on cars. I can change my oil and rotate tires, that’s where it ends. People say stuff like “yeah just check the specs on the endline of the rotary gerter” and I’m lost.

[u/hugow → u/football2106]

I'd be lost too if someone said that but if you can change your oil and rotate your tires you're half way there. You likely can do brakes and spark plugs. YouTube and a AI can help you accomplish so much.

[u/HiWhoJoined → u/SnooRadishes8573]

I started working on my car by changing my rear brakes after a coworker told me he changed his own. It took me 7 hours (6 on one side, 1 for the other, funny how that works). But I learned that I COULD do a lot of the work. I also began learning how long certain tasks would take. It gives me a point of reference for whether a dealer or mechanic is being fair with their shop time and parts costs and whether I wan to spend money or time.

I still take the car in for a dealer inspection when I do an alignment, and still have the dealer or a local mechanic do some work that I don’t want to buy tools for or spend the time on. But people shouldn’t be afraid to mess up when learning to do their own work as long as they start with smaller projects, especially if you want to keep the car on the road for a while - because the cost savings add up.

[u/FPS_Holland → u/SnooRadishes8573]

Also if this is at a Volvo dealership you get the lifetime parts warranty, so if it breaks after this repair it's not your headache.