engine and drivetrain Head Rebuild Costs- I don't think I can sit down right now...

[2002Scoob]

Hi All,

 

Before I get to questioning my mechanic more tomorrow , I wanted to run this by the powers that be, and want to make sure my mechanic is being honest here. Prices are in Euro, but hours are also important.

 

Of note, I told him I'm very much on a budget, and I needed to know prices, and he assured me he would be aware. He did not, however, give me any written estimates, even thou I asked. This is Germany, btw. They aren't required to give, nor have the customer sign off on estimates under certain circumstances. My initial thoughts estimates were 1000-1500, which were voiced. That's pretty ballpark, yes?

 

So, I purchased on my own dime and supplied the following-

New guides

New Seals

New Rockers

New Rocker-locks-easier and less time to install

 

He has 6.5 hours billed labor for the following- Totaling 481.65 euro

Disassembly/cleaning of head.

Port-matching Intake manifold/head

 

Then 710 euros for the actual machining-

Which was, decking the head/timing cover

He had new valve seats installed on the exhaust side.

I'm not sure if he purchased new valves, I need to check with him, but it appears he just had the old ones re-ground.

Repaired the #4 spark-plug thread with a heli-coil

 

He ordered me the Schrick 292 cam- 340 euro + 9 shipping/handling

 

He then has 7.5 hours for re-assembly, listing the following- Total-555.75 euro

assembly

cleaning

assembly of valvetrain

measuring spring tension

installing valve springs,

Polishing rocker?? Not sure what is to be done here...

Adjusted valves.

 

Plus Tax@ 19%   398,32

 

Grand total.... Drumrolllllll. 2494,72 euro. Adjusted cost- 2800 dollars US!

 

This seems like an utter (cam)shafting. 

 

Thoughts?? If you can read German, attached is the invoice.

 

 

 

 

 

Angebot Nr. 2016060004.pdf

Edited June 15, 2016 by 2002Scoob

[2002Scoob]

I had initially used the following, and other threads as a baseline-

 

[burndog]

1 hour ago, 2002Scoob said:

Hi All,

 

Before I get to questioning my mechanic more tomorrow , I wanted to run this by the powers that be, and want to make sure my mechanic is being honest here. Prices are in Euro, but hours are also important.

 

Of note, I told him I'm very much on a budget, and I needed to know prices, and he assured me he would be aware. He did not, however, give me any written estimates, even thou I asked. This is Germany, btw. They aren't required to give, nor have the customer sign off on estimates under certain circumstances. My initial thoughts estimates were 1000-1500, which were voiced. That's pretty ballpark, yes?

 

So, I purchased on my own dime and supplied the following-

New guides

New Seals

New Rockers

New Rocker-locks-easier and less time to install

 

He has 6.5 hours billed labor for the following- Totaling 481.65 euro

Disassembly/cleaning of head.

Port-matching Intake manifold/head

 

Then 710 euros for the actual machining-

Which was, decking the head/timing cover

He had new valve seats installed on the exhaust side.

I'm not sure if he purchased new valves, I need to check with him, but it appears he just had the old ones re-ground.

Repaired the #4 spark-plug thread with a heli-coil

 

He ordered me the Schrick 292 cam- 340 euro + 9 shipping/handling

 

He then has 7.5 hours for re-assembly, listing the following- Total-555.75 euro

assembly

cleaning

assembly of valvetrain

measuring spring tension

installing valve springs,

Polishing rocker?? Not sure what is to be done here...

Adjusted valves.

 

Plus Tax@ 19%   398,32

 

Grand total.... Drumrolllllll. 2494,72 euro. Adjusted cost- 2800 dollars US!

 

This seems like an utter (cam)shafting. 

 

Thoughts?? If you can read German, attached is the invoice.

 

 

 

 

 

Angebot Nr. 2016060004.pdf

 

All of my machining, 2 new valve guide and reassembly cost me 400.00 USD.

[Stevenc22]

My machining with 1 helicoil and camshaft disassembly and reassembly $500

Edited June 16, 2016 by Stevenc22

[theNomad]

Scheisse!

Did you get chauffeured to meet him wearing a Rolex and Armai suit? Did he have a large yacht he's building out back?

 

That looks entirely unreasonable. Way too many hours for disassembly. My machinist did a twin cam nearly all while I was chatting with him about what needed to be done. There seems to be some things like "cleaning" and "adjusting", "measuring" that look like padding on the invoice to justify a higher price. If you contest it he'll use the old "well I have to measure them, did you want me not to clean it" BS.

 

I hope you got a Formula 1 quality job.

 

[TobyB]

Does seem a bit steep...

 

t

 

[Andre D. Reed]

Had all that work done on an S14 head for my 2002, paid about $1500 for all Supertech parts, new oversized valves, seals, guides, under bucket,shims, springs & retainers, port and polished intake, all the work was $1100 labor, the work you had done should not be that high... Maybe for a S14, not for an M10, next time you may want to try Nolands Cylinder Head Service out of Kansas... They do great work! See the link:

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[Andre D. Reed]

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[JohnH]

I recently had a cylinder head (Rover k-series) skimmed by these guys http://crawleyheadskimming.co.uk/index.html and it cost me £35 and that included thoroughly cleaning the head afterwards.

 

I dont believe that removing and refitting valve guides and recutting valve seats would cost much more. So on the basis of that, I conclude that the machining would only cost about £100 all in, plus the two hours it took me to disassemble and the reassemble a complex 16 valve head.

 

Your "mechanic" is having a giraffe. 

[AceAndrew]

I will play devil's advocate a bit here.

 

You had a full rebuild done, plus a port/polish, plus performance parts, plus a new set of valve seats, plus a very high %20 tax.  I don't really consider an exchange rate a valid way to compare prices.  In regards to the labor hours there's a couple hours worth of polishing work being done at least (shoot, after doing a couple heads it still takes me 7-8 hours till I'm happy).  The rockers being cleaned up means grinding down stress risers which can be at least an hour or two.

 

 If you ask a well-regarded shop here stateside to do the same thing, you will be at about the $1.900-$2,500 mark easy.  Go call up Korman, The WerkShop, Midnight Motorsports, 02 GarageWerks, etc. and you will see.  Yes, your guy is on the high side, but certainly not outside the realm of reality.  

 

 

The unfortunate thing here is the lack of communication between you and the machinist.  Did he have any references that you could check, did you guys discuss even a ball park range?  A forum message board is not a good source for info like this (see the above "head rebuild comparisons" as proof of concept).

Edited June 16, 2016 by AceAndrew

[2002Scoob]

Thanks for the input Andrew, and appreciate the devil's advocate approach, but I'm more concerned with hours spent. As in, it should take only X amount of hours to assemble, machine, and re-assemble.

 

I was very communicative with him of the need for this to be a budget build, and he has another customer building a M10 race motor too. That guy has bottomless pockets. I stressed multiple times mine are mostly full of lint. Hence, why I pulled the head, and will be re-assembling it as well. 

 

It also looks like I'll be doing the tuning, because I'm afraid if I tell this guy to get her running, he'll fiddle with it for days on end and slap me with 10k to jet and sync the carbs. I'll also be broke if I have to pay the full 2500 euro.

 

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Edited June 16, 2016 by 2002Scoob

[2002Scoob]

Also, should the Ireland HD rockers require grinding and polishing?? I was under the impression they good to go out of the box and are shot-peened for strength

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[TobyB]

I'll be honest- they look relatively rough.  I have run them in that condition, and they do fine.  I can see why someone would clean them up.

The local guy who did a 'cleanup' port and finish on a bare head charged me about an hour a bore, or 4 hours, and I thought that was pretty reasonable.

 

As Andrew says, you're on the high side of normal.  That would be in line for a race head with a moderate port and polish, and putting in

new seats does add time to get them concentric and faced down. 

 

Everyone's different- since you didn't have a written estimate, in your shoes I'd go back for a friendly chat, and if

the guy explained everything he'd done, and I believed him, I'd call the matter closed.

I'd probably never go back, but having been on the opposite end of that discussion a few times, usually you're better off calling it an expensive lesson.  With lesions.

Now, if the guy was BS'ing and making shit up, I'd call the credit card company...

 

That's me.

 

t

 

[2002Scoob]

Right on, going and talking is my plan. 

 

I'm really concerned he got bored and did a whole lot of fiddling for the sake of fiddling, and on my dime. 

 

I was quite strait-forward that it was a build with a budget, and not a race-build

 

There's other issues- I had expressly asked that it be built up with the single HD springs, and nowhere in this is he itemizing new springs... If he assembled it all back up with the stockers, and charged me an arm and a leg, ill be rather upset.

 

Edited June 16, 2016 by 2002Scoob

[xr4tic]

The machining costs are probably on the high side, but still reasonable.

The hours for disassembly include porting, so they're probably accurate, depending on how much porting he did

The assembly hours seem way high though.

 

Did you get any verbal estimates from him, or was it just you telling him that you were on a budget?  I'm sure your definition and his definition of "budget" are completely different.

Did you get quotes from anywhere else?