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Do not allow this shop to touch your car ever again, they are trying to take you for a long ride down cost padding street. The labor hours they're quoting you is about right, but their labor cost is pretty high. A head gasket on this car is an $800 job. I would charge about $400 myself, but I only charge $35 an hour.
Head repair may or may not be necessary, and I seriously doubt they intend on doing any actual work to the cylinder head itself. If the cylinder head is removed for any reason, the head gasket must be replaced. The cylinder head should be cleaned and pressure tested, but that's a $150 procedure. In the unlikely event the head needs to be resurfaced that should be around $75.
List price on the head gasket itself is about $100. If they purchase an entire head set, that should list for around $160. The coolant change price they listed is about the cost of a complete flush and fill, if they are doing that after the repair, that's reasonable. The water pump probably does not need to be replaced, it's just a common cause of head gasket failures, so many shops do it at the same time as a preventative measure. The oil change is part of the 7.3 hours necessary to perform the repair, so only the cost of oil and filter should be added to the quote. Spark plugs for these cars only list for $4 each, and the replacement is a matter of minutes in the midst of doing a head gasket, so $35 is about $15 too high. The radiator hoses may or may not need to be replaced, they're easy to check; but I can't imagine they list for over $60 together. FYI, list price is what shops charge for parts and is about double the retail cost.
posted by 99.149.129...
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