Did I Get Ripped Off By This Shop?!

[Jeremy911T]

I recently took my late father's 1971 911T out of a 3 year hibernation. The car was in Washington State and I live in California. I found what I thought was a reputable shop to tow it to and had quite a bit of work on it with the goal of the car becoming reliable and safe. I had to communicate remotely with the shop and they appeared very responsive. After the work was completed, I had the car shipped to California and on the second drive the car died. I had to have it towed back to my house. I also noted on my drives that the car had difficulty shifting into 4th and 5th gears. I contacted the shop and they responded by taking me through a few tests to try to pinpoint the problem and asked me to get back with them after I performed the tests. Despite multiple emails they have since ghosted me. It turned out to be an ignition problem and thanks to the forum I was able to find the problem and correct it. The shifting problem persisted and a forum search replicated a shifter bushing problem. As you can see on the work order, the shop claimed to have replaced the cup bushing and checked all the others. I first opened up the access panel to the shift coupler. Upon pulling back the boot one of the bushings fell to the floor of the car and the other was found ground up in the boot. I replaced that and still had problems with shifting. I removed the gear shift mechanism and found the tunnel bushing broken and out of the tunnel on the shaft. The ball bushing appeared to be new. I replaced the worn bushings, adjusted the shifting mechanism and it now shifts like a champ. It is obvious that the shop didn't check the other bushings nor road test the car to assure drivability. I am not fearful that the other work done to the tune of $8000 was either not truly performed or not done correctly. Did they really spend 6 hours on the carbs or just squirt some carb cleaner in there and charge me a grand?! Are the hours charged and the price for parts in the ballpark? Anyway, I have attached the invoice along with some pictures of the bushings I discovered. As this is my first air cooled Porsche, I would appreciate the opinion from those familiar with the time and cost of repairing these lovely machines.

Thanks,

Jeremy

[hienz]

Sorry that you got "Scam!"

[Hi_Fi_Guy]

Ugh. I have so many thoughts and opinions. I’ll keep them to myself. You have the car in hand now and you can take charge of its care and feeding. Post pics, ask questions, and the great people here will help steer you in the right direction.

Good info at early 911S registry too.

[pmax]

New genuine Porsche parts are top dollar, the bulk of the $4K in parts being the 4 calipers and master cylinder which are no exception and comparable to Pelican prices it appears. I assume those were added with your authorization. Did you get your original parts back ? Yes, they should have replaced the coupler bushing, though that would undoubtedly incur additional parts and labor charge. If you are having doubts about whether the new parts were actually installed, inspect them and see if they have indeed been replaced but the coupler bushing wasn't on the work order, yes it should have been but it isn't. Regarding the carb work, someone else with experience with that ancient tech will opine on whether it was reasonable but the rest of the labor charges do not look terribly out of line, for a "high end" Porsche shop where a couple thousand here and there of charges tend to accumulate rather easily.

[proporsche]

$180 for replacing shifter bushing???
also i`d check the fuel lines under the car if they really replaced them.450 they all should be new as they said..for safety i will definitely look at that.No hose clamps used is mentioned??
and yes , did you get the old parts back mainly the brake parts?
I had to look it up....wiper blades 75 bucks??they cost about $20 both....

Ivan

[Flojo]

As McQueen says in LeMans: "So many go through life doing things badly..."
This is just sad.
USD 180 for labor per hour?!
top Dollar to check and replace shifter bushings?!
WOW!

and the prices for the calipers, OMG... tripple of what is common...

I've been working (big and small) on so many peoples cars and always took before/after pictures to document and send to them via WhattsApp (so easy and quick).
that shop sure failed in any of it.

I wouldn't even trust the oil change anymore.

[slow&rusty]

Did you confirm that they also replaced all four calipers to the tune of well over $3,000?

[Showdown]

Ripped off is a bit of a stretch- yes the labor charge is very high (here in Chicago it’s about 120 an hour at most Porsche shops). The markup on parts is bulli***** as we all can get the same parts these days and there are multiple options (oem, replacement, etc,,,). Not changing the bushings is a problem that shouldn’t have happened but sometimes we, as fallible humans miss things- how we correct them is the issue.

My shop forgot to change the front sway bar bushings on one of my early services- I caught it and they replaced the bushings for free (refunded the money on parts and labor) and gave me a free oil change when due; that made up for it.

Actually, as I think of it, yeah, they definitely took advantage of you. They probably figured here’s a guy who doesn’t know anything about Porsches, is out of town and a mark so we can up the prices and he’ll never be the wiser.

[Jeremy911T]

Thank you all for responding. Yes I asked for the old parts but they are still in Washington State in my mother's garage and I haven't had a chance to inspect them. I don't mind paying top dollar for top dollar work. I just have serious doubts about the quality of work given the bushing situation. Anybody have an opinion regarding the time it takes to go through the carbs? Is 6 hours reasonable?

[GaryR]

Originally Posted by Jeremy911T

Thank you all for responding. Yes I asked for the old parts but they are still in Washington State in my mother's garage and I haven't had a chance to inspect them. I don't mind paying top dollar for top dollar work. I just have serious doubts about the quality of work given the bushing situation. Anybody have an opinion regarding the time it takes to go through the carbs? Is 6 hours reasonable?

Carbs can be quite finicky, but ~$1100 in labor alone? I don't know his prices but I would think you could send them to the guy here (1QuickS ?) and get them back looking like jewelry and better than new for not much more than that!

[Dan J]

I'm going to be the contrarian here and say that I don't think you got ripped off
Bear in mind that I own an independent shop
I think the labor times are very fair. For example you can easily spend most of a day doing what they reported doing to your carbs which was not a simple rebuild
Recommissioning a car that has been dormant is always tough. The tech does not have radar vision and costs can really spiral. I'm certain they wanted to give you a reliable car but there are quite often things that come up after some driving of a car that's been sitting. The distance is a problem as well if you were close to them it would probably be much easier to work out
The price of the parts is retail price. The labor price is high but you should have known that going in
My prices are higher now then I could ever imagine when I started 25 years ago but I can assure that neither I or my employees are getting rich

So in my opinion to call it a " Rip off" is a bit of a stretch

[1979-930]

The labor hours and shop rate are legit.

The question is was the work actually done. You have discovered some of it was not.
I spent 10 years in the truck repair business and you either have a shady shop or a lazy technician.

Looks like Washington does not have a BAR. https://www.atg.wa.gov/auto-repair
I would find a better shop to inspect that the brakes and carbs were even worked on. If not get a lawyer to send a letter. If it's just the bushings; move on.

[Cairo94507]

I am sorry you went through this. If you paid the bill with your credit card, I would dispute the charge. I would send the CC company the pictures to support your claim of work not done but billed for. Sadly, there are rip-off shops all over nowadays.

[stownsen914]

Looks to me like some of the work was not the quality was not of the quality that one would expect and hope for. You've got an opinion above from a respected shop that the labor times are reasonable. I would be concerned for sure that some of the work claimed, appears to have not been done! It's a fair point that it brings into question some of their other work.

As for the car dying, that is disconcerting and I'd be unhappy as well. It is possible that the problem didn't occur for them when they had the car. If it did, it would be really odd for them to not at least attempt to fix it, wouldn't it?

If it were me, I'd raise to them that some billed work was not done to your satisfaction. The shift linkage is a pretty obvious example. See what they say. I'd probably also review their other work myself.

[proporsche]

[QUOTE=Dan J;11609569]I'm going to be the contrarian here and say that I don't think you got ripped off
Bear in mind that I own an independent shop
I think the labor times are very fair.

Let me ask you 180bucks to replace shifter socket and leave the other broken pieces in place?You know that it takes 20 minutes to remove 3 screws lift the shifter and put it back,right.
So i would question other work as well mainly the fuel lines ..carbs could be a little more work if the car was sitting.But 180 an hour??

Ivan

[Tony V]

Labor rates in the SF Bay Area, at a top European Repair shop are in excess of $200.00 per hour with many much higher. Hell, the Chrysler dealer gets $220.00 but that was about 5 years ago.

[911obgyn]

You will find as you drive the car other things that need to be done. Some of the fun is getting in there and fixing it yourself and the satisfaction of doing better work than you can pay for.
My wife calls my car the other woman.

[porsche930dude]

In my experience those bushings can look fine one day and blow apart the next. I wouldnt worry about that. They probably should have done them but they probably felt they had enough other stuff to do. Just getting it working not perfectly restored. The new calipers were the big mistake. Should have just had them rebuilt at great savings.

[proporsche]

Originally Posted by Tony V

Labor rates in the SF Bay Area, at a top European Repair shop are in excess of $200.00 per hour with many much higher. Hell, the Chrysler dealer gets $220.00 but that was about 5 years ago.

thanx did not know that...
Ivan

[Marc Bixen]

Originally Posted by proporsche

thanx did not know that...
Ivan

Hey Ivan, BH is currently at $320 per hour, just saw a "Discount" flier from them, $569.95 for an "Oil Change Service"! How about $440 for an alignment! Ferrari pricing.