Just wanting some feedback. I paid $550 for a spark plug replacement on an 05 Mazda tribute 3.0 L Duratec v6 130k miles.. Does this sound a bit high? This does include taxes and fees, but seems high to me. It was done at firestone. Any feedback is appreciated.

 

Firestone uses a flat rate labor guide and they post the hourly shop rate . In your state I think it is 100 per hour? . You can call the manager of the store and have it explained in detail to you. You can also call Firestone Corp for the same information. You may also want to call other service shops in the same caliper as Firestone as well the area of that Firestone service center and see the price for the same exact service as you were billed for. You can also post your detailed service order here so we can all see exactly how and what was done. Are you sure that nothing else was done or parts needing replacing like a coil?

 

Accessing the plugs by removing the upper intake manifold does take some time but without a breakdown its hard to tell whether the total is high or not, I'd expect a charge of 1-1.5hrs labour TBH from a shop, takes me about 30mins to remove and replace the manifold so personally I'd be at the 1hr end for the complete job as a home mechanic but I have done it several times.

 

The question I always had when I took cars to Firestone for repairs was did I actually need the work they said I needed. It seemed that I needed a heck of a lot of work when I went to Firestone and far less when I started going to a trusted independent local mechanic.

 

Yes and this is common. Many independent service shops either do not completely look at everything or only things that are urgent knowing they can sell the service work and later up sell the less vital service work after they have your confidence.
Firestone policy is to look at everything and give there assessment and let you choose what you want done.
Before other member start "knocking" Firestone....
Next time why don't you ask for a 100+ point or complete vehicle inspection from the independent service shops and see how it compares to Firestone standard customer inspection they give to all.


In our shop you pay for the inspection and I would say 75% of the items are contract to do service work on. Better quality shops will at least look at things as they are doing the contract service and mention it to the customers. As our standard inspection ALL work is checked by another technician before the customer is called to pick up the car. The service technician advises the second items noticed of possible concern. The technician that inspect the completed work also gives the vehicle a quick look and also what was noted of concern by the performing service technician assign to the vehicle.

BTW as far as I am aware of it is a standard company policy with Firestone that the manager on duty must sign off on the service work done by a shop service mechanic or technician before it is released to the customer. I believe you can see this on the service order that there are 2 signatures for various items contracted to service.

 

Callisto,

I can only go by my experiences. I am sure there are good Firestone centers and bad ones as there are with the independents. It sounds like you work for a good one. I could also believe that there are more bad independent shops due to the controls a big corporation adds to weed out the worst.

That said, when I and others I know have taken vehicles to some of the bigger chains, they have been encouraged to pay a fortune for work that was not needed when taking the vehicle elsewhere. I stopped going to the big chains with my last visit to a Mr. Tire a few years back. I regularly went to the same location and spent thousands a year. The check engine light came on on the way to work on a Friday and I had an appointment scheduled for Tuesday. The person at the counter told me that it would cost 89.00 to assess the code and it did not matter that I had a scheduled appointment. He would not get the manager, it was policy and they had equipment to pay for. My local mechanic would not charge for a simple assessment. After leaving the chains, my repair bills dropped significantly.

By the way, once a year with each of my vehicles, I ask my mechanic to go over the vehicle from top to bottom and let me know everything that is likely to be needed to be addressed in the future. It would be interesting to compare his assessment to a similar request at one of the chains, however, I will stick with what works for me.

 

I do not work and never have worked for Firestone. I have looked at the Corporation standard operating requirements for all their centers. I am and have been in the Automotive Industry and have owned my own a few Automotive Type businesses over years.
There are places that will plug a Diagnostic scanning tool in the Diagnostic connector and read the code indicated for FREE i.e. some parts chain stores and there hourly paid employee.. This is a less accurate way to find the issue is even if there is specific DTC shown which may have been ECU activated by a series of unrelated problems or an anomalous event or cycle . That is why many shops have a charge to do only accessing the engine trouble codes and my guess would say they do the accessing properly and there determination of the problem through a couple of tests on the scanning tool which takes more then 5 minutes of a FREE service from others. . If anyone dose a quickly find for DTC even the do-it-yourself at home you are most likely going the long way to solving the problem that caused the DTC in the first place.

I have for years read on forums how people always state that auto service shops are out to "rip you off " or charge for things you do not really need. There are always people that will do this in any service....not just auto service shops. I think for auto service providers it goes back in the days (est.60's) gas station "jocks" would improperly (cheat) check your oil to sell a quart not needed, Does your dentist,doctor,computer tech,veterinarian, do the same at recommending services that may not really be needed? Naturally. Do we bitch about it? Nowhere near as much as about a service shop, your vehicle you feel is over charging or advising on a service you feel is not needed? hahahah! Do we ever really know for sure if what those health professionals advises is necessary? Not always, that why in their field of profession they are called practitioners,LOL Most of the time why we go to them in the first place is the secure knowledge they were educated on and we trust what they advise. As for vehicles if we were all experienced through training or some form of education in auto repairing we would not really need any advise from a service shop and simply tell them what you want repaired so you don't get dirty or much by the tools needed for the repair.. To many unfortunately think or presume that shops push or advise services that are not really needed.! Every vehicle that is at least a couple years old and over at least 30k miles that comes into my shop, friends or family visiting my home, regardless of the immediate problem I can find something else that need addressing with their rides. EVERY ONE OF THEM!
I often ask that members on forums when they have doubts about a shops estimate to post the exact copy (less personal information) of the estimate for us all to see. You know in over twenty years participating on forums this has only happened a couple of times? Why? My guess is when I do request it members will go back and re-read them more carefully or contact the shop for more detailed information about what was on them?