Beating the Dealers INSANE $13,000 Repair Bill!

43 thoughts on “Beating the Dealers INSANE $13,000 Repair Bill!”

1. So CARB is designing automotive recharge machines now. Swell.

2. I’ve been binge watching your videos buddy. They are great. Great that you are shining a light on bad estimates.

   I live in the uk and I’m finding the US prices crazy! I did a brake flush yesterday, it cost £10 for the fluid and took me an hour and a half on my driveway. I changed my spark plugs on my lunch brake last month, it took me 40 minutes and cost me £17 for 4 Bosch spark plugs. The UK garage prices are £80 for a brake fluid flush which we think is expensive here and spark plugs the garage wanted £90 which I laughed at. Are prices really that expensive in the US?

3. Dealers always rip you off I never go to dealer

4. Maybe the vibration was from the axle boot

5. I would do the CV axle first before the torque converter, that shake could be just the R.axle shaft

6. I think oem is the way to go on Toyotas . They have tighter tolerances than most auto manufacturers. But yea those dealers need to be jailed lol.Nice video, my son just opened a shop in California. JZ specialties, Lexus heaven. Keep up the great work 👍

7. You cannot compare a felpro gasket or seal to a Toyota OEM. But, they are called stealerships for a reason.

8. you could try silicone grease on the connector for the refrigerant it does a great job of sealing small leaks on rubber seals

9. ahh typypical stealership nonsense i went in for free oil change and they tried to tell me i need injector cleaning and brake fluid flush for 500 dollars on a three year old car with 50,000 miles without even looking at the car they just say that should be done at 3 years.

10. what is this a GAY add for insuranxe

11. thats always grinded my gears, getting a brake job and you get charged for a tire rotation

12. Ray is a very smart man!

13. I find my mechanic is old school and suggests preventative maintenance rather than remedial. Unfortunately the way mechanics are taught today they can’t do this it seems. Not their fault just poor training .

14. Mani would have sworn that was chevy orange…whats your rattle can of chose

15. Good catch on that CV!!! I learn a lot from your content, thanks for that. I would change the CV first just to make sure that the vibrations didn't go away before doing 3000 dollars of more repairs!! But I'm no Pro Mechanic and I'm a cheapskate!!

16. Love the videos man. You will appreciate what I did. You know, volkswagens are expensive to fix once they are out of warranty. I had them put fluorescent dye into the engine with 600 miles to go, and they had me drive 500 miles, found 3 leaks. One of which was the timing cover as well, and a couple others one near the fuel rail and I can't remember the third, but I saved over $2300 at least in repairs because I had the knowledge to just go ahead and have them find the leaks for me under warranty.

17. Hopefully the cost of R-1234yf will keep going down, it has dropped almost in half over the past 3-4 years.
    We are transitioning to R-454B in the HVAC industry, which is a blend with 31.1% R-1234yf, so the manufacture of it is ramping up.

18. Would a 13 year old Camry even be worth $13,000? 😱

19. WTF just bought 24 lug nuts for F150, solid ones for 70 bucks!

20. You may as well stop blurring poor Gareth's address for if you stop at 28.11 and put it on full screen low and behold Gareth's address and phone number, and I am just not that bright. Jim from Scotland and if I noticed it then some bad actor is already selling Gareth's details, can you help him by doing something and blur it please, hey I may be wrong and that is not his details if so I apologise. You are doing a good job and exposing how greedy the main dealers have always been and that is in every country that sells stuff.

21. it has been 6 months since i could watch at 81 my memory could not tell me your site . love your set

22. I don't think it is a matter of people not thinking and mistakenly over charging, it is the exact opposite, you go to most any dealership and see what you get. IF you find an honest one. never let it go.

23. That torque converter was under an extended warranty program, they could have had it replaced for free at the dealership for 8 years/150k miles. I had a 2013 and had to get mine done and had an ECU update to supposedly "fix" the issue at 60k miles in 2018, but I had no guarantee it wouldn't happen again and read online of people having it occur again. It's part of the reason I decided not to keep the car long term. Shame your customer didn't experience it sooner…though now I think about it I'm not sure if the v6 had an upgraded transmission or not, and whether or not it was susceptible to the same issue?

    EDIT: I'm sorry, 3.3 hours of labor for damn spark plugs? I replaced mine myself in my garage in 20 minutes, granted I had the 4 cylinder and not the v6, but surely it's not THAT bad on that car?

24. What happened to the Ford Escape blower motor job Ray?

25. There are multiple videos of Dealer mechanics whining and crying over the Ford CEO's interview and they all want to be paid $100 dollars an hour, that comes out to $800 dollars for an 8 hour day, $4,000 dollars for a 40 hour week and $208,000 a year yet they pull these types of scams on customers and they wonder why no one likes going to a dealer for work.

26. Years back, my wife took her Honda Odyssey to the dealer, and low and behold, they came up with an estimate of over $5,000. I called the Service advisor up and basically called her a liar, because there were things on that estimate that I had already replaced. My wife being nervous wanted something done, so I took it to the local shop that I'd been dealing with for 20 years and I gave them the list and asked them to check it for me.

    Wonder of wonders, they said none of those things listed needed to be done. My wife finally believes me (go figure 😉 ) Best of all, they didn't even charge me. Great guys.

    Fast forward 6 months, friends of ours took their Odyssey to the same dealer, and by a weird coincidence, they came up with the same estimate. My wife was telling me the story over dinner, and I said "well, what did they do? Pay them $5,000 for a car worth $3500? She said "No, they bought a new one". So the scam (if you want to call it that) was that you'd either give service $5 grand or new sales would make a few thousand bucks.

27. This is why I try to avoid dealerships at all costs. I've only run into two that are honest and have good customer service. And that's simply because they are still small family owned operations with only one location each. Unless if there is a special circumstance, I take my cars to one local shop who's always done me right and does exactly what you are doing. They don't stack labor if multiple things that are related are being done. Hell a few years ago, my one coil pack went bad. My car has three. I figured, replace all three. If one is going out, the rest aren't far behind. The added labor was minimal compared to doing the same job three separate times.

28. that 13k is "kindly eff off" pricing

29. they were likely just trying to get a sale on a new vehicle at the dealer haha

30. all those overlaps were pretty crazy

31. usually the mechanic doing the diag will throw a bunch of stuff at a car like this because the mechanic does not actually want to do the work on the car. I have seen it happen before. I was a parts advisor for years.

32. $13,000 for repairs on a car worth $5000. I call that the "FU" price because they don't want to do it. I had that happen at a smaller chain for a check engine light. Was a P0420 code (Cats) the shop quoted me $3000 + labor. Said they had to weld things together, blah blah. I looked it up. I can get all front cats for $200 and they just bolt on. I really hate automotive repair shops. Most of them are scumbags trying to line their pockets.

33. welcome to tariffs

34. The oddest thing about that Toyota dealer estimate is the varying labor rate. Like the lug nut replacement labor is billed at ~$230/hr, brake fluid flush at $162/hr, spark plug replacement at $150/hr, axle r&r at $208/hr, rear main seal at $221/hr, and the timing cover seal at $221/hr. Dealership rates are seriously high these days, but this kind of whacky, inconsistent labor rate pricing comes across as manipulation and as a gouging tactic. Between the dubious inspections and manipulated labor rates, it makes me wonder if you could ever trust that dealership's service department, and especially whether you should trust the service writers.

35. Oh, they were thinking! They were thinking the owner would just buy a new car! I guess they were wrong!

36. I've watched your videos for years and following your thinking and openness. IMHO you are charging honest prices and most dealers are charging highly inflated prices. There's a lot of kickbacks to dealers on parts, etc when they sell a new car so their profit margin is more than you might suspect. Also flat rate is what it is but stacking labor and parts on servicing already priced is definitely taking advantage of unwary customers. Grrrrr.

37. Took a 2015 Audi A5 to the dealership for maintenance. At the time about 90,000 miles. Also had engine light that had come on. They diagnosed engine light as something with fuel pressures fled to timing chain. I knew timing chain was likely going to be an issue for this particular engine so proceeded with that repair. Additionally, they found hydraulic engine mounts needed to be replaced and some CV boots. I assumed they did the rest of the review/maintenance items. Get the car back after a few days. Total bill was about nine grand.

    Shortly after engine seems to be making noise. Pop the hood and it looks like the alternator bearing is out realize that when they did the timing chain repair they put the same 90,000 mile serpentine belt back on the car instead of selling me a new $20 belt Replace the alternator and belt myself cost was about $650 as opposed to about 1800 to 2000 at the dealership

    One month later, I’m gassing up before going to work and go to start the car and it’s at the gas station. Have the car picked up and taken to the dealership for a dead battery. Dealership wanted to charge $1000 to replace a battery pack story on the battery original battery from the car purchase in 2015.

    I’m pretty sure that when the dealership says they go through bumper-to-bumper and make sure things are OK. It’s a complete fabrication. Their goal is not to keep these cars on the road but to sell you a new one.

    Best dealerships are sloppy as hell. My fear is many of them are shady and absolutely take advantage of the customers either with inappropriate overbilling or the goal to sell him a new car.

38. Speaking of ripoffs I just bought a car listed as $15,000 when I got the bill of sale the licensing fee was $2,000 and a HST was 1,800 so that put the final price at $18,000 only when I went to pick up the vehicle did they give me a list of repairs that cost $3,000 that they already made but did not charge me for because I guess that was included in the licensing fee that's my guess I asked Gemini about this and Gemini told me they ripped me off

39. Dude, tall less and stay focussed

40. Had a similar experience with a Honda dealer. I have a 06, Accord I do my own work I've got a price on valve stem seals $2.600 I did it myself. The seals were under $50.00. There were OEM parts, too. They were more interested in selling me a new car. Even sent me a quote to my home for my car. And here's the kicker. What they wanted to pay for it which I never even asked for.

41. It’s so refreshing to find a Honest person doing this kind of work. Sir, you are a true rarity in your chosen field of work.
    I commend you . Thank you for helping people who need help.
    You are great!!!!

42. if that Tq converter is bad (seems weird but w/e) might be a good time to consider rebuilding the whole trans if its at 180k miles, and at least flush the trans cooler or even replace it.

43. They are a dealership. They are hoping for 1 of 2 situations, either you pay the 13grand or you get scared that something is wrong with your car and get sticker shocked by the bill so you hop on over to the sales department and buy a new one. Either way they walk off with a fat check. Dealership service departments are for warranty work on new cars and thats it in my mind. After the warranty is gone do it yourself if possible or find an honest independent shop.

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