FORD FIESTA hydraulic clutch replacement, overquoted? please help

wingedhorse

Car clutch help

Took my car into my usually reasonable local garage for a check this morning.

Said clutch is slipping and needs a new clutch. At a cost of £404.71

Said is a two part hydraulic clutch - parts (£79.71 + £72.55)

Is 4-5 hours labour (£160)

Need to remove gear box, and will replace oil (£25) and put back.

Anyone know if this is reasonable or expensive?

Surrey, 2002 Ford Fiesta 1.2L

Many thanks

vaio

Doesn’t sound spectacularly unreasonable, might be worth doing a check quote with a couple of other places, Mr Clutch springs to mind

wingedhorse

Thanks - Mr Clutch had terrible reviews - for adding on work that was unecessary once had your car in etc.

scheming_gypsy

Labour cost and time looks about right, you should be able to save some money by sourcing the clutch yourself.

astgte

You took your car in this morning, got the quote and now cant remember what reg it is, yet you can remember exactly to the penny the cost of the parts? Anyway, it's not an expensive price for a crappy job, no doubt someone will come on soon and tell you it cost them thruppence when theirs failed, but realistically it's not a bad price, you're lucky it's not a dualmass unit, you'd be probably doubling that. If you arent happy with your normal reputable and well known not to rip you offf garage then take it somewhere else unknown with no real reputation known personally to you, save yourself a tenner and then cry your lamps out when it fails spectacularly and completely at 8am in the middle of the busiest junction in rush hour, your choice at the end of the day. But no it's not a bad price

vax2002

Does that include a new slave hydraulic cylinder ?

jase1

I'd advise against buying the clutch parts yourself, from bitter experience.

I decided to "save a bit of cash" by buying an ebay special several years ago when my mechanic quoted what seemed like nearly £100 over the odds for the clutch parts.

My "Japanese OEM-quality Aisin clutch" exploded when fitted (at least one of the metal splines fractured into about four or five pieces) and bits embedded themselves in the gearbox bell-housing. Ended up costing me quite a bit more than just going with the decent parts recommended to me in the first place.

Point being that if anything does go wrong, don't expect the garage to pick up the pieces...

atrixblue.-MFR-.

the hydrolic slaves are pricey. 4-5 hours labour give or take is about right. though from fitting one by myself in 2 and a half without any problems but i'm not a garage and havent got customers back and forth or to answer phones.

valeo clutches and slaves are good. sachs not so good QH stay clear luk not too bad over priced though for the quality.

scheming_gypsy

jase1 wrote: »

I'd advise against buying the clutch parts yourself, from bitter experience.

I decided to "save a bit of cash" by buying an ebay special several years ago when my mechanic quoted what seemed like nearly £100 over the odds for the clutch parts.

i must have got lucky, the garage told me to find one online, print it out and take it to show them. I found one over £100 cheaper than they could get it on, eBay, and he said it was identical to what their supplier gets.

Although one of my mates works for Euro Car Parts now so i get pretty much cost price through him

jase1

Oh yeah, absolutely, if it works it's great, and I'm sure I could have bought 100 more of those self-same clutches and 99% of them would have been absolutely fine. I'm just wary now because it's a fair chunk of labour if anything does go wrong.

The chances are that the clutch I ended up with was no better than the one I bought, but I got the daft one and paid the price because the garage wasn't responsible for the defective part.

wingedhorse

astgte wrote: »

You took your car in this morning, got the quote and now cant remember what reg it is, yet you can remember exactly to the penny the cost of the parts?

bearing in mind I put 404 or 440 as total as I didn’t write it down properly. I am at work, my car is at garage, I asked garage the quote and wrote it down, I didn’t ask the garage for my own registration - fortunately my husband remembers it! See edit above.

astgte wrote: »

Anyway, it's not an expensive price for a crappy job, no doubt someone will come on soon and tell you it cost them thruppence when theirs failed, but realistically it's not a bad price, you're lucky it's not a dualmass unit, you'd be probably doubling that. If you arent happy with your normal reputable and well known not to rip you offf garage then take it somewhere else unknown with no real reputation known personally to you, save yourself a tenner and then cry your lamps out when it fails spectacularly and completely at 8am in the middle of the busiest junction in rush hour, your choice at the end of the day. But no it's not a bad price

Have I hit a nerve? I have only used garage twice, and so far have been impressed have been generally helpful. However to me this quote feels high (and coming at a bad time). Checking it is a good quote seems common sense to me.

I am not necessarily interested in going with the lowest quote as reliability also matters - hence saying I wasn’t interested in Mr. Clutch etc.

My friend's local garage have quoted £320 (inc labour, and vat) and are offering 10% of clutches this month