wdk450
Well-known member
Gang:
A couple of weekends ago I took the truck on a hot Sunday afternoon to the Northern Sonoma coast to get some cool sea air. Well about 8 miles short of Ft. Bragg, my water pump blew out. This last happened 2 years ago in August on another 104 degree day, but I was towing the Bighorn back from Oregon THAT Sunday afternoon. It is no fun to get stuck on a Sunday afternoon. You get to stay in a hotel completely unprepared (along with waiting for the tow truck, etc.). Anyways, Monday morning saw me in and out of the repair shop in about 2 1/2 hours this time with a NEW (not rebuilt) NAPA water pump. I stayed in the area and drove around the coast for an hour or so, and noticed the serpentine belt was squealing some. I went back to the mechanic, who said it was a nuisance, but no problem. The squeal kept on through the week, so I scheduled Firestone (who I have a card with) in Santa Rosa to look at it today. Well, they diagnosed it as a faulty belt tensioner (which has a pulley on it), and told me that the part cost was . . . $229!!! I asked them where they were getting the part from, they said Auto Zone, I called Auto Zone and got a parts price over the phone of $99. They also wanted me to replace the serpentine belt at a parts cost of $129 - I had a new one in the truck I had bought for $34. BTW, they didn't note how the old belt came off, and it took 4 mechanics 4 hours to get the new belt back on (they only charged me 0.9 hours for this). In comparison, the new water pump only cost $100, and it is a LOT more complex than the spring&pulley belt tensioner.
I think the guys at Firestone saw me writing down the phone number of their customer complaint line posted on their door, as they reduced my bill by $100. Still it was $100 more and 3 hours more than replacing the water pump at some little independent shop in tiny Ft. Bragg, that mainly works on boats.
I worked in my Dad's auto parts store in the '60s, before everything was computerized. We had paper parts catalogs and paper parts price lists. Those price lists had the industry standard 2 sets of prices: List price for regular consumers, and list price - 30% for the mechanics. It seems that the Firestone people today seem to think that a 130% markup on parts is O.K.
Oh, a last BTW: Auto Zone also listed just the pulley for the tensioner for $16 - nobody mentioned that option.
A couple of weekends ago I took the truck on a hot Sunday afternoon to the Northern Sonoma coast to get some cool sea air. Well about 8 miles short of Ft. Bragg, my water pump blew out. This last happened 2 years ago in August on another 104 degree day, but I was towing the Bighorn back from Oregon THAT Sunday afternoon. It is no fun to get stuck on a Sunday afternoon. You get to stay in a hotel completely unprepared (along with waiting for the tow truck, etc.). Anyways, Monday morning saw me in and out of the repair shop in about 2 1/2 hours this time with a NEW (not rebuilt) NAPA water pump. I stayed in the area and drove around the coast for an hour or so, and noticed the serpentine belt was squealing some. I went back to the mechanic, who said it was a nuisance, but no problem. The squeal kept on through the week, so I scheduled Firestone (who I have a card with) in Santa Rosa to look at it today. Well, they diagnosed it as a faulty belt tensioner (which has a pulley on it), and told me that the part cost was . . . $229!!! I asked them where they were getting the part from, they said Auto Zone, I called Auto Zone and got a parts price over the phone of $99. They also wanted me to replace the serpentine belt at a parts cost of $129 - I had a new one in the truck I had bought for $34. BTW, they didn't note how the old belt came off, and it took 4 mechanics 4 hours to get the new belt back on (they only charged me 0.9 hours for this). In comparison, the new water pump only cost $100, and it is a LOT more complex than the spring&pulley belt tensioner.
I think the guys at Firestone saw me writing down the phone number of their customer complaint line posted on their door, as they reduced my bill by $100. Still it was $100 more and 3 hours more than replacing the water pump at some little independent shop in tiny Ft. Bragg, that mainly works on boats.
I worked in my Dad's auto parts store in the '60s, before everything was computerized. We had paper parts catalogs and paper parts price lists. Those price lists had the industry standard 2 sets of prices: List price for regular consumers, and list price - 30% for the mechanics. It seems that the Firestone people today seem to think that a 130% markup on parts is O.K.
Oh, a last BTW: Auto Zone also listed just the pulley for the tensioner for $16 - nobody mentioned that option.
