86PACER

The fast lube places are the slimiest of all. Many shops and dealerships are no different. Check out this undercover news report video.

They set up this car with hidden video cameras under the hood.

http://video.knbc.com/player/?id=104505

runner140*

Guess thats why they call them "stealerships". White collar crime. They should be jailed.

JD'S WHITE 93

16 hours is total b.s. I am a backyard hillbilly and I could change the whole mess in eight hours no sweat. I do not have the mechanical knowledge of a CFI EFI or a Pete K but I am learning. By paying your mechanic you will NEVER learn anything. I would strongly suggest you invest in some hand tools and a FSM. You will be happy you did. I changed mine along with the waterpump, plugs, wires, opti and coil in about eight hours.

edcmat-l1

Thats insane. The part that should scare you the most is hes done one before.

c4cruiser

This tool is trying to scalp you for anything he can get.

A timing cover seal replacement is non that hard and 3-4 hours is all that it should take for a good auto repair technician.. There is a special tool shown in the FSM for removal of the seal but one thing that can be done is to take the front cover to a dealership to have them replace the seal.

Basically for the LT1/4 motor you need to remove:
TB air duct
Serp belt
Water pump *
Crank damper and hub
OptiSpark
Oil pan
Front cover

* Drain the coolant first before you remove the water pump. If coolant falls onto the Opti and soaks it, you will most likely be adding a fer hundred dollars more for a replacement.

If you are not familiar with how the Opti and water pump drives work, you might be better off going to a reptuable shop. Whoever this guy is, he is not giving you a deal; 16 hours is at least 4 TIMES the LT1 book rate.

Also, if you have not replaced the plug wires (if they are OEM, they are 12 years old!!) it's easy to do at this time with the Opti off the car. Get a good set of LT1 wires like MSD 8.5mm Super Conductor wires.

BTW, get a factory service manual for your year and you will have enough information at hand to do a lot of work by yourself or at least have a excellent reference manual. You can find them in the C4 Parts For Sale section on occasion, or on fleabay. A brand new set of books can be had at www.helminc.com These are the same books that the GM techs have available to them at dealerships.

86GoldProject

Yeah the part that I'm getting confused about is that the first 2 guys describing how to replace the timing cover seal were only talking about replacing the crank seal and not the actual timing cover seal.. Which is actually leaking? Both?

86GoldProject

I'm a tech at a local GM dealer, when we replace a timing cover seal its normally never done just because its leaking, its normally done when the water pump leaks causeing the opti to crap out. At that point you already have the water pump and opti unit off so if the timing covers leaking it's prime time to replace the seals, normally we add replacement of the seal on for another hour or so labor + parts.. personally unless it's a bad leak I wouldn't worry about it until you have one of the above mentioned problems than have it all done at the same time.

edcmat-l1

This is an install and cannot be compared to a repair. You cannot flat rate performance parts installs. Any customer that doesnt understand the difference, and the fact that you cant quote exactly what it will take, is being unreasonable. On installs that we are unfamiliar with, I inform customers that its labor rate X however long it takes. The price may be this, or it may be that. Not being hard to deal with, just trying to be fair to both the customer and my business. That being said, the price and time quoted by the OP for a simple repair is outrageous.

snowmaker2000

Ummmmmmmmmmm, are you saying that you can't give a customer an estimate in this case? I believe that is wrong. You should be able to ball park it with a little cushion, and give a customer a reasonable quote on any repair or installation job.

Mike_88Z51

By law they must give you a written estimate which cannot be exceeded by more than 10% without a signed consent from you for the additional charges. Shady shops do this to women ALL the time and will try it with guys whenever it involves after-market parts like headers, because they can tell you it involved "... a lot more work than a standard install."

If you haven't signed for the additional cost, pay the guy with a credit card and then go home and immediatly call your CC company and dispute any and all charges above the original estimate. After that, call the "mechanic" and tell him what you did, why you did it, and if he wants to take you to court, have at it. Politely tell him that you'll be glad to turn it over to the State Bureau of Auto Repair (BAR) for them to decide in arbitration. He won't take you to court, because the BAR will rule against him and possibly fine the shop.

86PACER

I don't buy edcmat's claim. Specially when said mechanic claims he has already done this job once before. So he should have a good idea of what's involved and the time.

This video explains the above law and what you need to do to avoid getting ripped off by a repair shop. Click on the " Busted Again Part 2" video on right.

http://video.knbc.com/player/?id=104505

edcmat-l1

First off, this is a customer protection law that covers AUTOMOTIVE REPAIR. Which pertains to the original posters case, but not PERFORMANCE PARTS INSTALLATION. While it is good practice to quote a customer a price and do your best to stick to it, its not exactly covered under the same law. And again, it doesnt give reason to charge 4 or 5 times what the flat rate book says.

edcmat-l1

Again, I'm not referring to the OPs case when I'm talking about not being able to give an exact quote on a PERFORMANCE PART INSTALLATION. I clearly quoted the poster talking about his header install costing almost twice what he was quoted. I'm merely stating that its different than a standard repair, and there should be some consideration because of that fact. I am in no way defending the shop the OP is referring to. I am in complete agreement that the quote given for the seal replacement is out of hand. Even if its a timing cover gasket, its still ridiculous.
Furthermore, the fact that the mechanic told him he had done it "once before" would kinda turn me off. If you've done it once and screwed it up, thats a 100 percent failure rate. DOH!!

86PACER

This thread has nothing to do with performace parts, so why bring it up on this thread. This thread was about a timing cover seal. The peformance issue is irrelivant here.

But thanks for letting us know. That is yet another reason why I do all my work myself. It's plain stupid to get work done on a car and have no idea what the final price is going to be. You're left open to being taken advantage of. And with the high hourly wages mechanics charge, it makes no sense to me taking such a chance.

edcmat-l1

Post #19, agreeing with OP
Post #28, responding to post #19, and commenting on the difference

Mr. Peabody

I think that with a careful reading, you will find that you ....... missed a small point. ittybitty put in a post that he was having a similar issue with a header install job ..... edcmatl1 was simply pointing out to HIM the difference between an estimate for instalation of custom performance parts .. and.... an estimate for performing a repair using OEM components ..... and he was absolutely correct

CFI-EFI

The OP posted, "The mechanic just called and said 16 hours labor involved to replace a timing cover seal.". One of the two guys you refer to, is addressing the oil seal where the crankshaft passes through the timing cover, as you say.


Yeah the part that I'm getting confused about is, what do YOU refer to as "the actual timing cover seal". And, both, of what? Did the OP speak in a code that can best be understood by "a tech at a local GM dealer"?

RACE ON!!!

Road Agent

93 ragtop

Are you sure its the front seal leaking? A common mistake is the seals that go between the waterpump drive and timing cover leak and drips down the cover and is easly misdiagnoised. Remember the LT1 uses the cam gear to drive the waterpump and not a belt.

86GoldProject

CFI - First off I wasn't trying to offend you in anyway, if you took it that way I apologize as it was not at all my intent. Rereading it I see you were simply elaborating as to the other posters description of the process of replacing what I would refer to as the "crank seal". What I was getting at was is it actually the "crank seal" leaking or the timing cover "gasket" or both of them. That is what I ment by "both". I misread the OP and thought we were refering to a 85, which would be a gen 1 sbc and thus have both a cover "gasket" and a crank "seal" which is why I said "both". I realize one is technically a gasket and one a seal but as this is a hobbiest website I thought there was no need to pick apart commonly used terms and was also unsure as to if the OP knew the difference. After rereading the thread I saw we were talking about a LT1 engine and offered my 2 cents on replacing a single seal on that. On a LT1 engine you have many more seals, you have a "crank shaft hub oil seal", a "distributor driveshaft oil seal", a "water pump drive shaft seal", an "engine front cover gasket" because if you really want to get technical a LT based engine (not a motor because that's electric) doesn't have a "timing cover", and a new o-ring for the crankshaft position sensor. You also require 2 new gaskets for the water pump. So as I tried to relay in my second post it would be in my opinion a waste of time/money to replace a single gasket on one of these engines for a minor leak since in most cases it would be easier/cheaper to do in the future if/when the opti/water pump fails. Also the 16 hour quote is a complete joke. I'm truely sorry if I offended or mislead anyone with my posts, I am simply here to learn about C4's and help out when I can.