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Average price of a valve job on 2006 Ford Mustang 4.0 in 93653 zip code area?

ronreedronreed Member Posts: 1
edited April 2016 in Ford
looking for low cost valve job
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Comments

  • isellhondasisellhondas Member Posts: 20,342
    Are you sure your car really needs a valve job? These are pretty uncommon now.

    Maybe someone in the business can jump in and give you a ballpark number.
  • Mr_ShiftrightMr_Shiftright Member Posts: 64,481
    hard to say exactly because we don't know all that's going to be done, but if I had to take a stab at an estimate I'd say, with all the labor from the shop and the machine shop, plus all the little parts that are used "while we're in there"------around $2700 to $3200. You live in an expensive zip code, where $135/150 hr shop rates are not uncommon.
  • thecardoc3thecardoc3 Member Posts: 5,848
    edited April 2016
    There is no way this should be attempted by cost first. The heads can be removed in the car, but you have to pull the transmission to do it correctly especially since servicing the timing chain carrier should be part of the repair. This job is much easier to do if the engine is pulled and put on a support fixture.

    Customer pay base time is 14.7 hours, its interesting to note that warranty only pays the tech 7.7 hours for the same job.
  • Mr_ShiftrightMr_Shiftright Member Posts: 64,481
    So 14.7 X $135/hr = about $2000, then figure at least $500 machine shop + oil, coolant, and whatever misc parts you want to put on since everything is out in the open.
  • isellhondasisellhondas Member Posts: 20,342
    thecardoc3 said:

    There is no way this should be attempted by cost first. The heads can be removed in the car, but you have to pull the transmission to do it correctly especially since servicing the timing chain carrier should be part of the repair. This job is much easier to do if the engine is pulled and put on a support fixture.

    Customer pay base time is 14.7 hours, its interesting to note that warranty only pays the tech 7.7 hours for the same job.

    And some people wonder why techs don't like doing warranty work! That is so unfair!
  • isellhondasisellhondas Member Posts: 20,342
    thecardoc3 said:

    There is no way this should be attempted by cost first. The heads can be removed in the car, but you have to pull the transmission to do it correctly especially since servicing the timing chain carrier should be part of the repair. This job is much easier to do if the engine is pulled and put on a support fixture.

    Customer pay base time is 14.7 hours, its interesting to note that warranty only pays the tech 7.7 hours for the same job.

    Does the 14.7 hours include the machine shop work? Not many Sioux valve grinders in shops anymore!
  • thecardoc3thecardoc3 Member Posts: 5,848
    edited April 2016
    No, that is the labor to replace the head gasket. It's as close as one can get with the estimator and have the warranty time show up. The complete valve grind customer pay is 17.7hrs. While the valves can be cut on a lathe, the seats need to be lathe cut as well, not ground with stones as would have been done in the past. (People try but it really is an inferior result)

    The warranty guide shows to use "D&A" which is often assumed to be straight time for any additional valve work that is required. Those other labor hours can quite often be line item vetoed and the tech charged back the time if it doesn't get approved.

    The job cannot be done correctly in the time Ford pays, but the techs cannot risk short cutting because of the seriousness of the risk of any single failure in the job. The tiniest error can result in a complete redo that doesn't pay the tech anything at all. The techs are expected to make up the difference in hours between what jobs like this one pay and what it really takes to do it by selling maintenance services that pay quite generously.

    BTW, I still have my entire valve grinding set.
  • isellhondasisellhondas Member Posts: 20,342
    Oh yeah, that would be a NASTY comeback!

    If that car were a few years older, the need for a valve job would effectively total the car!
  • thecardoc3thecardoc3 Member Posts: 5,848
    Hard to believe they can sit there with a straight face and ask where have all the qualified techs gone when they know what the jobs pay.
  • steverstever Guest Posts: 52,454
    If all the "free labor" claims are true, then there's a nice ripe class action lying around waiting to be filed.

    Something tells me NADA has a contingency plan for just such a filing, if there hasn't been one already.
  • thecardoc3thecardoc3 Member Posts: 5,848
    edited April 2016
    In most states they only have a problem if someone fails to turn enough hours that they end up not making minimum wage. Besides, they would cut that person loose long before that happened. Then again. that's why they push the techs to sell the easy stuff only to blame the techs for doing so if someone complains.......
  • thecardoc3thecardoc3 Member Posts: 5,848
    http://www.fernandezlauby.com/employment/orange-county/auto-mechanic.html

    http://www.laborlawyers.com/appellate-court-invalidates-auto-dealerships-method-of-paying-service-technicians

    https://www.fairpay.com/service-technician-overtime/

  • Mr_ShiftrightMr_Shiftright Member Posts: 64,481
    See? I told you that California loves its mechanics.
  • thecardoc3thecardoc3 Member Posts: 5,848
    edited April 2016
    Wouldn't loving them mean they never should have needed to file the lawsuits? Oh, and the majority represented are EX-mechanics and you won't get them back into the bays.
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