$600 for 2.0t spark plugs?

[stevenpollock]

Car was stuttering/misfiring uphill. Independent shop diagnosed LPFP or HPFP, replaced both last month. I was heading out of town (I don’t live in Las Vegas) and about 30 minutes from there, the issue came back. I was in a bit of a bind being away from home, so I had to drop my car off at the “best” place that would allow me to drop it off while I got a rental and continued my business this week.

Audi Dealership suspected “Spark plugs, coil packs, wiring, or all of the above” and quoted $1100 worst-case based on this diagnosis. (including a dying battery they identified). I thought for all of it, fine, if this will finally be fixed. I just received the invoice and as you can see, they only replaced the spark plugs and the battery. The battery comes to $400-$500 with programming (whatever, I couldn’t do that myself) but I’m feeling pretty floored at the remainder and spark plug cost. I’m pretty sure the 75k scheduled maintenance included plugs and was less.

I need a reality calibration - Is this something I should fight back on, or just swallow the cost knowing that had I the time to diagnose myself, I could have done this myself in an hour and for less than $200? Or I might just be salty that I’m gonna be in this $2k for freaking spark plugs.

Thanks everyone!

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[Smac770]

1.5 hours to "install the battery"? The actual battery price is fine, but you could have bought a VCDS and done the battery coding yourself and had a tool in hand for the future. You figure it took them maybe 30 minutes, so charging you 90 is about right. I'll admit, it's a bit of a pita to get down to the battery, get the spare and the sub out and dismount the battery brace and such, but 1.5 hours is like having me do it.

As for the spark plugs, the price seems fine, $18 a pop. Then 2.3 hours of labor (I don't know what A/labor vs S/labor means), $387. Seems a bit excessive to me. But it's a dealership. I could change all four of mine in prob 20 minutes if I stayed focused and didn't inspect anything. Welcome to using the dealership for easy stuff.

Wiper blades, spark plugs, battery, that's all DIY to me. Probably $350 in parts and $0 for labor, just personal time spent (maybe 1.5-2.0 hours total).

[vincent_nguyen2]

$387 labor for spark plug is crazy. Our inline 4 engine makes it easy to replace and I think Smac’s 20min estimate is overestimating it even

And I think it took me 1.5hr to replace my battery and recode it but I had put everything back in and took it back out 3 times because I kept forgetting things as well as researched how to code the battery. I can’t imagine any scenario where the dealer takes 1.5hr to change the battery but then again they always charge more time than needed

[DrGER]

Hmmm. At least this dealer didn't mark-up the spark plugs from list price, though they got the OP on the battery (VAG list $240 for that part number). Yeah, "or just swallow the cost knowing that had I the time to diagnose myself, I could have done this myself in an hour and for less than $200"...

[Nano909]

Battery in a sedan takes less than 10 minutes, add 5 minutes to boot up the computer to "recode" it. That plus plugs/coils and wipers is less than an hour of work. They got you good bro.

[AudiTechS4]

well dealership is mandatory 1hr diag , they dont work for free . pulling coils and test driving then doing plugs i can see 2 hrs - 1 hr diag and 1hr for replace . if you look at this time looks like he ran about a 1.3hrs for it .

what I would ask is why the shop rate is $155 and he charged 2hrs at $155 is $310 not $386 and 1.5hrs is $232.5 not $286 . 1.5hrs is crazy for a battery replacement 1hr tops unless its a q7 under drivers seat.
Whats the $75 in misc charges for ? seems a little high .

[Smac770]

He actually ran 2.37 hours for the spark plugs. Or is that only 2 hours?

A - walkaround - 0 a/hrs, 0 s/hrs - $0 billed
B - investigate customer issue (misfire/lack of power), determine spark plug issues - 1.23 a/hrs, 0 s/hrs - $0 billed
C - multipoint inspection - 0 a/hrs, 0 s/hrs - $0 billed
D - replace spark plugs - 0.37 a/hrs, 2.0 s/hrs - $386.68 billed ($193.34 per s/hrs)
E - replace battery - 0 a/hrs, 1.5 s/hrs - $283.68 billed ($189.12 per s/hrs)

So are a/hrs "actual", or "investigation"? I presume they don't bill for a/hrs? Otherwise, why would item B have a/hrs but no cost? Followup good will for prior work? Why then does D have .37 a/hrs when the spark plug investigation stuff is all documented under B.

As AudiTech noted, why do you seem to be paying ~$190 per s/hrs instead of the claimed labor rate of $155. The total a+s hours is 5.5, so that doesn't compute to $155/hr either.

[hkdolphins]

As i read from the invoice, it look like
~$460 for the spark plug
~$530 for the battery
before tax.

If you go there require spark plug replacement directly, then $460 seem high, but if you ask for diagnosis first, $460 seem not that high. My local dealer ask $350 for checking.

Dealers dont make much money by selling cars, they make money from the service.

[Theiceman]

The ridiculousness of it is 2 hours to diagnose and replace plugs.
Car struggles under load ? That's plugs, 15 minutes to change tops.
Last time at the dealer I saw a bunch of grey haired men an women waiting for their cars that just looked like they would pay whatever as they are clueless.

Audi knows this and rips everyone off.


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[RPMtech147]

The real question...did it fix the misfire?

[captain_video]

This is why you need to find an indy mechanic for things like this. Dealerships have a lot of overhead costs that they have to pay for. Indy mechanics don't have a nice fancy waiting room with free coffee and snacks or factory trained mechanics making top dollar with full benefits plus service reps in the lobby to work with you, not to mention the cost of a huge state of the art maintenance facility vs. a small backyard garage or rented space. Changing spark plugs on German cars is not as simple as it once was. You don't just disconnect the wire from the spark plug and unscrew the plug. You have to disconnect electrical connectors and remove coil packs and possibly relocate wiring harnesses and fuel rails for the injectors. There's a lot more labor involved and the cost of plugs has skyrocketed over the past couple of decades. If you take your car to a dealership for any sort of maintenance then you can expect to pay a high premium for their work. Having to recode a new battery is absurd, but that's what you deal with when you buy an Audi. German Engineering usually means taking something simple and making it extremely complex.

[silver_tt]

Agree for the most part but changing plugs is pretty easy on this engine, I say 30 mins max. Where I live one of the Porsche/Audi dealerships recently was forced to build a new fancy building literally across the street -- one of the mechanics that works there told me Audi corporate told them the existing facility wasn't up to snuff and they had to build a new one. Of course you get your face ripped off when you step in that place for anything other than a recall. Someone's gotta pay for that new glass building that must have cost several million.....

IMHO people make German cars out to be more complicated than they really are. The battery coding is nothing. It's the exact same as a battery swap on an older car but then you just spend 2 minutes hooking up VCDS. To be fair the 2.0T is a great engine from the perspective that you can do so much with so little on this engine. Just about everything is accessible, fast to replace, etc. In several regards I am a big fan of this engine for what it is.

[didyouseethat83]

Gosh and to see some people think your invoice is appropriate is insane and shows what really “throwing money away” is. The cost of a Battery is $180-300. If you actually can’t find a person/member around to code it and a shop won’t do it for free, then pay a Indy shop the $50-$100 max for them to “recode”. There’s literally only 4 spark plugs on these cars. $20 a pop usually. They fucking screw in and out. It’s easier than carrying multiple jugs of water from the grocery store out to the car. An Indy shop wouldn’t charge you more than $120 to install them. Long story short, that Audi dealer completely made a sweet profit.


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[Spike00513]

Dealers dont make much money by selling cars, they make money from the service.

so why is it that mechanics are broke as shit

while salesmen wear nice clothes, make a lot of money, and drive nice cars

Agree for the most part but changing plugs is pretty easy on this engine, I say 30 mins max. Where I live one of the Porsche/Audi dealerships recently was forced to build a new fancy building literally across the street -- one of the mechanics that works there told me Audi corporate told them the existing facility wasn't up to snuff and they had to build a new one. Of course you get your face ripped off when you step in that place for anything other than a recall. Someone's gotta pay for that new glass building that must have cost several million.....

IMHO people make German cars out to be more complicated than they really are. The battery coding is nothing. It's the exact same as a battery swap on an older car but then you just spend 2 minutes hooking up VCDS. To be fair the 2.0T is a great engine from the perspective that you can do so much with so little on this engine. Just about everything is accessible, fast to replace, etc. In several regards I am a big fan of this engine for what it is.

Key word here is VCDS.
If you don't have VCDS, you're doing it wrong.

[RPMtech147]

so why is it that mechanics are broke as shit

while salesmen wear nice clothes, make a lot of money, and drive nice cars



Key word here is VCDS.
If you don't have VCDS, you're doing it wrong.

Let me elaborate: Shitty mechanics don't make shit. I clear significantly more than my service writers = )

Also, get VCDS, OP.

[Seal1968]

Flat rate billing...need I say more?

A good mechanic can bill out 16 hours in an 8 hour day if he or she doesn't doddle around and likes to work hard. The service department makes the dealer good revenue from the flat rate system, and mechanics that perform (at least here in Canada) can make over $100K easy.

Where the sales department makes $$ is from the extra shit they sell you...extended warranty, fabric/leather protection packages, anti-corrosion devices, GAP insurance, life/disability/critical illness/involuntary unemployment insurance sales, and financing kick-backs.

Point is, you learned a lesson and you won't get stung again.

Whether everyone will admit it or not, we've all been there man and have felt your pain.