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1800 is not unrealistic. What they are more than likely quoting is a complete head job. Most often what shops will do with a head gasket job is replace the HG, Mill and do a complete Head rebuild. Your looking at valve grinding, possible guide replacement or knurling of any valve stems that are out of spec, seal replacement, top end gasket set, and they may be factoring in a new timing belt as well. When they do a complete job that eliminates all possabilities of the problem being in the top end.
4G63 Top end Gasket set is 248.02 MSRP.
HG job specs out at 4-6 hours book time (most shops are 80.00/HR) - 480.00
Valve job will range from 160.00-300.00 depending on what kind of grind is done
Milling is another 60.00/HR (To mill .010 they will hit you for 1 hour)
Tanking the head after milling is usually another 60.00
Valve guides range from 30.00 each + depending on type of guide used
Valve replacemnt must be considered for valves that are worn
Intake Valve - 29.88
Exhaust Valve - 22.97
Without considering any valve replacement, seat replacement, guide replacement you looking at almost 1200.00 alone. A quote will represent the worst case if a good shop is putting the quote together. Its easy to give you the car with a lower bill but if they quote you 1200.00 and find out 1/2 the valves need to be replaced with guides ect thern you are going to argue that it shouldnt cost you a dime more since the initial quote was 1200.00. The only way to get a 100% accurate quote is to pull the head apart and measure everything to see how much repair it really needs.
A shop that quotes a HG replacement alone and ignores a head with 100K+ miles is plain foolish and lazy and not giving the customer a thorough analysis of the top end. Most customers with common sense (which excludes every cheap fucking DSMer) want the car fixed and no more issues. If you have a HG job done and 1000 miles later a valve drops into the cylinder, the first thing they are going to do is blame the lazy mechanic who just put a new HG in the motor. Same would go for a mechanic who put a HG on and didnt have a fresh mill done on the head.
This topic really proves how the DSMers are 100% at fault for the cars breaking down every other weekend. Why do repair correctly when you can absolutely halfass it!
For a customer who doesnt want any issues and cant repair it himself, paying good money for a 100% done job is very reasonable. 1800.00 is a complete head rebuild job that will address any possible failure in the top end.
On my own vehicles, when a HG fails of shows signs of coolant or oil seepage, I tear the head down and measure the head surface for warpage, all guides, valves and clearances get checked. I have caught issues like early signs of Stem galling, excessive heat signs in vlaves, valve seats beginning to lift, and even signs of oilling issues that you wouldnt normally suspect. Granted the work doubled for me, I have saved a lot of catastrophic issues at the same time which as you know saves far more work down the road.
I am by no means callign Erik or his uncle cheap but how the so called "DSM community" views repairing a vehicle correctly.
At the same time a good shop will sit you down and go through an estimate with you and show the best scanario and the worst scenario. I have spent hours discussing issues with customers for symptoms that were pointing at internal engine issues and most of the time that prepared them for the final bill and when shown where all the money went they realized they werent getting swindled. I have even offered to have costomers stop in periodically to see the work being done on jobs where the bill was very high so they could see just how much work is involved. Thats the benefit of not working for a dealership.
Terry
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