OT-Crazy-Stupid Ford Prices-OT

[Jim Saraceno]

I just went to the Ford dealer to pick up a pair of rear sway bar links for my '98 Escort. The guy quoted me a price of $167!

I decided to pass on that and went to NAPA. I got the pair for $16.49 including taxes.

Now THAT's a crazy-stupid price!

[JIPJOBXX]

Yea just think if you were having your car repaired at a dealership! Talk about mark ups!

[Merle Coggins]

I recently had to fix the parking brakes on my F150. The linkage seizes up, even when it gets used regularly. The links are only available from Ford, but they're only around $20 per side. Then I decided to get a hardware kit too. They quoted me around $50 (I don't recall the exact price). Then when I inquired about that price he assured me that it was a full kit for both sides. Well, it was a kit for just one side when I got it. Called Napa and they sent over a full kit for both sides for around $15. The kit from the Ford dealer was sent back.

I'll agree that Ford is quite proud of their parts.

Merle

[Plymouthy Adams]

its not just Ford..it is everywhere..all dealerships have super mark up..there are at least three pricing charts for OTC sales..avg. Joe Blow off the street gets reamed..they are for the most part the last people I try to source a part..then you have some dealerships that you are locked in as some makes and models just do not have a aftermarket distribution..then you know you are screwed..

[Greenbomb]

My grand daughter went to take her driving test to get her license in their '97 Exploder and they turned her down because the 3rd brake light was out. Great! so, go to Ford and it'll be almost $900!!! A friend in the business said parts alone were about $600. YOWZA!!! Now, that's being REALLY proud!!! What the heck could possibly warrant those prices?!?!

[JerseyHarold]

When I worked at a dealership parts department, they had a 'price matrix' that marked-up the MSRP by at least 20%. When shops bought parts, their 'discount' brought them down to retail price. Quite a scam. The only prices that weren't doctored were collision parts, because insurance companies knew the correct pricing. The bottom line is that every dealer is free to charge any price they want, and some are greedier than others.

[JIPJOBXX]

I don't mind buying from my local part store as I know it a business and it serves the public very well. Beside that store probably support four or five families in our general area. I have been on a kick of buying American products and if I can support a local business than I do.

[Niel Hoback]

Now that dealer's shady dealing has been brought up, I have ALWAYS had the shop manuals for every car I've had for decades. Suddenly, factory shop manuals are not available for my new Buick. Whats the deal on that?

[james49ply]

you have to go to a dealer for repairs, they want to run the independents out of business!! that is why I drive a 48 Plymouth, and am in process of rebuilding a 65 Mustang, when that is done my 2001 Chevy gets the BOOT!!! Screw them!!! I am a retired auto/truck mechanic and worked only for dealers, they started screwing the mechanics, so I quit, went to forklifts and then retired. If you own a new car, best to plan on making payments for the rest of your life, either in payments or high $$$ repairs to their junk.

[49 Dodge Dude]

I have an '06 Fusion that, while I love it to pieces, Ford scrimped on the inside door handles and made them out of cheap plastic. You guessed it - SNAP - and $48 to buy the same piece of cheap plastic to put back on there. *sigh*

[JerseyHarold]

Now that dealer's shady dealing has been brought up, I have ALWAYS had the shop manuals for every car I've had for decades. Suddenly, factory shop manuals are not available for my new Buick. Whats the deal on that?

I think the GM manuals are published by Helm, Inc. Have you tried contacting them directly?

[Niel Hoback]

No, I haven't. Remember when their address was printed in the owner's manual so you could order them? No mention of them now. Maybe I'll Google around some more. Thanks for the nudge.

[Niel Hoback]

Alright then, I just visited Helm's site and found the "service info DVD". There is no paper manual mentioned. The catch? FOUR HUNDRED DOLLARS. Ford does not have a corner on stupid prices. $400 for one DVD. Thats ludicrous.

[Flatie46]

I've always had the getting screwed feeling when going to a dealership buying cars or parts. My wife has a Honda pilot she takes to the dealer for the schedualed maintenance. I picked it up last time and looked down the long list of checks and " inspection" they did. It seems the only work I could find they did was they greased some things and changed it's brake fluid, it was $407.00. I stopped to buy gas on the way home, still mumbling a small cussing fit I noticed they had greased the gas filler door. For some reason I had to laugh. I thought, at least they greased my little gas door before they sent me on my way with my well reamed butt.

[Captain Neon]

I don't have a problem with a guy making a profit, but it still makes me angry when auto repair shops charge more than retail price for parts. They get the part for 1/2 of retail price, and then charge me 2x retail for it. That's a 400% mark-up! Then they pay their mechanics $20/hr and charge me almost $100/hr for labour. One or the other, charge me the same price that it will cost me at NAPA or charge me their cost on labour, but to gouge me both ways is excessive.

My wife's PT Cruiser gets an oil change by a professional mechanic every 4000 miles, and I change it at 2000 miles my self. I usu. pay about $40, but there was a shop in Colorado that offered to change the oil in my '89 Jeep when it was getting new brakes. $100! I asked them if that included free oil changes every 2000 miles for as long as I owned the Jeep. They weren't impressed with my response, and took their time fixing what I asked them to fix.

[Tom Skinner]

In the Book: The Complete History of Chrysler Corporation 1924-1985 a little story is told by Ray Dietrich on Pages 92 and 93: Ray had served as a styling Director from 1932-1938. (Ray recalls)"Zeder and Skeleton were always talking about service for cars - how much service you would get for this and for that". Chrysler used to go get a frankfurter and a beer with Dietrich for lunch and told him: "It reminds me when I was a kid my father would say "take that cow down and get it serviced" They never let me in the barnyard but one day I peeked in - and now I know when I hear the word "Service" - I know somebody is getting just that". Chrysler liked Ray, Zeder didn't and after Chrysler's stroke in 1938 Zeder accused Ray of being drunk and fired him. Ray Dietrich said "Chrysler had dynamite in his step his walk, his smile, his piercing blue eyes". Then goes on to tell how "the engineering department wore Chrysler down with all their demands".

Well there you have it straight out of WPC's mouth "Serviced" is what your getting at car dealerships.

[Don Coatney]

In the Book: The Complete History of Chrysler Corporation 1924-1985 a little story is told by Ray Dietrich on Pages 92 and 93: Ray had served as a styling Director from 1932-1938. (Ray recalls)"Zeder and Skeleton were always talking about service for cars - how much service you would get for this and for that". Chrysler used to go get a frankfurter and a beer with Dietrich for lunch and told him: "It reminds me when I was a kid my father would say "take that cow down and get it serviced" They never let me in the barnyard but one day I peeked in - and now I know when I hear the word "Service" - I know somebody is getting just that". Chrysler liked Ray, Zeder didn't and after Chrysler's stroke in 1938 Zeder accused Ray of being drunk and fired him. Ray Dietrich said "Chrysler had dynamite in his step his walk, his smile, his piercing blue eyes". Then goes on to tell how "the engineering department wore Chrysler down with all their demands".

Well there you have it straight out of WPC's mouth "Serviced" is what your getting at car dealerships.

One of the things I learned in my stint of being educated at a higher level was AI service on dairy cows. In this educational course I learned that the cavity used to service dairy cows is not the cavity used for pleasure for most males. Rectal palpation best describes the service.

[JerseyHarold]

I've always had the getting screwed feeling when going to a dealership buying cars or parts. My wife has a Honda pilot she takes to the dealer for the schedualed maintenance. I picked it up last time and looked down the long list of checks and " inspection" they did. It seems the only work I could find they did was they greased some things and changed it's brake fluid, it was $407.00. I stopped to buy gas on the way home, still mumbling a small cussing fit I noticed they had greased the gas filler door. For some reason I had to laugh. I thought, at least they greased my little gas door before they sent me on my way with my well reamed butt.

In the dealerships I worked at, the scheduled maintenance jobs were considered total 'gravy' by the techs. The tech got paid for several hours of work, and the whole job took maybe one hour max. One dealer I worked at (the same one I mentioned earlier in reference to their parts pricing matrix) used to print up its own maintenance booklet that was given to the buyer at delivery. The maintenance intervals were much more frequent than in the factory schedule, and the customer was told that the dealer's schedule was 'much better for the car'!

[Flatie46]

In the dealerships I worked at, the scheduled maintenance jobs were considered total 'gravy' by the techs. The tech got paid for several hours of work, and the whole job took maybe one hour max. One dealer I worked at (the same one I mentioned earlier in reference to their parts pricing matrix) used to print up its own maintenance booklet that was given to the buyer at delivery. The maintenance intervals were much more frequent than in the factory schedule, and the customer was told that the dealer's schedule was 'much better for the car'!

Better for the dealer's profit margin lol. My wife goes by the book on the pilot and her last honda she did the same and it lasted well, never gave a bit of trouble. But if you "service" a Yugo as often and as much as the Honda manual calls for it'd probably last 400,000 miles too. Oh well, it frees me from having to do it and that's a good thing:).

[Captain Neon]

Better for the dealer's profit margin lol. My wife goes by the book on the pilot and her last honda she did the same and it lasted well, never gave a bit of trouble. But if you "service" a Yugo as often and as much as the Honda manual calls for it'd probably last 400,000 miles too. Oh well, it frees me from having to do it and that's a good thing:).

Speaking of Yugos, any idea if they were rear wheel drive or not? I've been told by people that actually owned them that if you changed the oil regularly they actually were pretty good cars. However, most people treated them like juncque since they were so cheap and didn't change the oil enough. They developed a reputation of being lemons and it became almost impossible to get parts, and so the folks that did take good care of them decided to ditch them when the shop turn around on repairs got too long.

[Flatie46]

Speaking of Yugos, any idea if they were rear wheel drive or not? I've been told by people that actually owned them that if you changed the oil regularly they actually were pretty good cars. However, most people treated them like juncque since they were so cheap and didn't change the oil enough. They developed a reputation of being lemons and it became almost impossible to get parts, and so the folks that did take good care of them decided to ditch them when the shop turn around on repairs got too long.

I worked for a chevy dealer in the late 80's early 90's doing detail work and new car prep. The owner of the dealership eventualy bought the Dodge dealership too, which was just down the street. For a while we did all the detail work at the chevy building and were running cars back and forth. The Dodge dealer had just added yugo before being bought out. There was a boom in yugo sales at first. Anyway I remember a co-worker driving one back from being new car preped. While in the turn lane to turn into the lot the tie rod or something in the steering broke. There it sat, wheels pointing oposite directions 10 feet from it's parking space on the lot and had to be towed. Didn't have 5miles on it yet. That sumed it up for me, I had saw a few things like speaker covers falling off, signals not working little things that lead me to believe they had issues but the steering thing pretty much said it all. I've heard storys of people getting good miles out of 'em [ few and far between ]. It seems like they were rear wheel drive but it's been along time. They dropped yugo like a hot rock not long after they got the Dodge dealership. I remember alota people just bringing them back after having them a couple months.

[JerseyHarold]

Yugos were RWD, as I recall. I drove one once and it wasn't that bad. There was a guy living not too far from me who was racing them in the late 1990's and claimed they were amazingly tough. He was even written-up in a half-page article in the Wall Street Journal.

[Niel Hoback]

I'm pretty sure the Yugo was a license built Fiat.

[Flatie46]

You know, the design of the car may have been good but it may have been assembled in such a rush that it may have hurt the overall quality of the car.