My mum has a S reg Felicia 1.6 slxi, & took it to a local garage for a cylin der head gasket. The total bill came to £600!!!!!!

This is a break down of the parts price list that she was given;

Head skim-£45

Head pressure test-£75

Water pump-£50

Cambelt kit-£70

Head gasket set-£45

Head bolts-£60

Thermostat-£12

Oil-£10

Filter-£5

Plugs-£12

=£384 + V.A.T (£67.20) + £150 Labour- TOTAL=£600.

Can anyone help as i think this is WAY over-priced, and my mum is going out of her mind with worry as she was quoted approx.£200, & doesn't have £600.

Shop elsewhere - those prices, apart from Labour costs, are way OTT!

Parts prices are way out there.

Where abouts are you?

Headgasket failures arent that common on the 1.6, what are the symptoms?

You don't say whether she has actually had the work done, or just a quote?

If the latter then why quote £200 then charge £600!

Go elsewhere for another quote if the works not already been done.

Mick

Head skim-£30

Head pressure test-£30

Water pump-£35

Cambelt kit-£25

Head gasket set-£30

Head bolts-£21

Thermostat-£5

Oil-£10

Filter-£5

Plugs-£12

thats more like what i payed when i did the head on mine

What did they do rebuild the car?

I have a 1.6 engine in mine and the HG has been fine.

Skoda dealers sell the thermostat in a new sender housing which is £60

But £600? no way it would have come to that unless you went to ye wild west garage yeee haw!

Sounds overpriced. And as has been said head gasket failure on the 1.6 AEE is very rare!

Head skim-£45

Head pressure test-£75

Water pump-£50

Cambelt kit-£70

Head gasket set-£45

Head bolts-£60

Thermostat-£12

Oil-£10

Filter-£5

Plugs-£12

=£384 + V.A.T (£67.20) + £150 Labour- TOTAL=£600.

sounds a lot to me, but it does depend on which supplier/manufacturer you get the parts from.

one of the places i used to work charges 25+vat for a skim, a pressure test is probably not necessary but they are just trying to cover themselves in the event of it being cracked, it really depends on just how hot it has got.. those head bolts sound a bit dear too, i would suggest going to your nearest branch of german and sweedish for a quote for the parts.... not a bad price for labour though:)

Labour is sensible, parts are too high, even if all those are needed.

Some are sensible though, even when not technically part of the job, like the cambelt is a tenner when the engine's down anyway, or 2 hours work minimum.

Also, why are they changing the oil, and not supplying antifreeze when they're changing the head and water pump?

To be fair taking an engine apart is a fairly labour intensive job.

My Dad said the head gasket would be £200 if it blew on mine.

Changing the cambelt at a dealers was £150 on my Astra but obviously I didnt do it at a dealers.

We'd need to know the symptoms first.

Unless your oil/water were mixing, the HG would have been ok. Mines been overheating again for some reason but we think it's the fan switch as it didn't cut in.

£200 for the Head Gasket replacement sounds about right then but why did they proceed to change everything else? and they seem to have changed everything but the rad as well.

Is this the SLXI with A/C?

my mum is going out of her mind with worry as she was quoted approx.£200, & doesn't have £600.

Only way you're going to get out of that, I would have thought, is by invoking your local trading standards bods. It is generally accepted that bills can go over the quote by a bit, but by a factor of three is out of order - they should at the very least have notified her before proceeding. Based on what my mate who runs a local (non-franchise) garage charges for that sort of thing, £200 would have been a very good price, £600 is distinctly over the odds - as others have already said.

Thanks for all your replies guys. Luckily my mum only gave him £100 in cash & £500 by cheque, so i told her to cancel it.

I've been onto the mechanic & told him that i want a full break down of the bill, including where he got the parts from, & i've been on to trading standards.

From the prices i've found i think i'll give him £250-£300 & tell him he's lucky not to be getting 2 black eyes aswell. :orb_wise_ :amb:

My mum didn't feel she could handle it herself, as when she told him that she had cancelled the cheque, he started getting quite nasty.

Lets see what he's like with someone who's not intimidated!!

Oh, another thing I should have mentioned before: strictly speaking, a 'quote' is actually a binding contract. The word is used loosely, though, and what most people (including motor mechanics!) generally mean by it is an 'estimate'. A real quote would be written down, normally. So when I say it's normal to exceed the 'quote' by a bit, I meant 'estimate'. Trading standards people will understand the difference of course, and will probably agree that exceeding even a rough estimate by that much without warning is bad practice.

If nothing else, spending twice your total estimate on "parts and testing" without contacting the customer is sharp practice. Contrast that with my last service where the main dealer found a crack on an exhaust mount and welded it up without (extra) charge then told me they'd done so.

Oh is that the term.

I think it happens to a lot of people.

Hasn't happened to me, I like to be informed first and then give the go ahead for any work.

I think the most famous Skoda case for this is Susan Brindle. (I read an article in a What Car mag and her review is on What Cars' review section.

Where has Pajpower gone?