Dealer overcharges

I recently bought a 1995 Corvette convertible. The gas guage was inop,as was the cruise control and the check engine light was on. I took it to my local Chev. dealer (Hedrick - Hallowell Chevrolet in Clovis CA.) and was given an estimate of $300 to repair these items.

When I went in to pick up the car I was told that they had "repaired" the cruise control but that it would not hold a speed when using resume. They also told me that the fuel pump/sending unit was bad and needed to be replaced. They did not have the part in stock but it would run about $540.00 plus three hours at shop rates to replace it. (The check engine light was still on.) They charged me $287.00.

I soon discovered that the cruise control was not fixed.

I purchased a used cruise control servo on Ebay for $30.00 and changed out the unit in about twenty minutes. It works fine now.

I then asked this forum how hard it was to change out the sending unit/fuel pump and was told step by step how to do it.
I again went to Ebay and purchased a used sending unit/fuel pump for $115.00. Because of a couple of problems, it took me a little over an hour to replace the defective unit and now the guage works fine and the "check engine" light is now out.

My final experience with this dealer occurred when I took my car to have the Calif. smof check and discovered that at some time in its life the right catalytic converter had been cut out. I called the dealer for a price to replace it and was quoted $787.00 for the converter and about $300.00 to install it.

I purchased a remanufactured cat for $175.00 and had it installed by a local muffler shop for $60.00.

The moral of the story is a few hours of checking around has saved me over $2000.00 over the dealers prices.

Rock

[vettedoc]

Not an unusual story Rock. A little knowledge can go a long way in saving your hard earned dough.

[Edmond]

Rock,

generally, work at the dealership will cost you more. Definitely ask the people here at the CAC; the people are knowledgeable and friendly.

A good idea would be to pick up a shop manual, that can save you a lot of money.

I bought my shop manuals for both year vettes. Unfortunately there is still much I cannot do. Either because of ignorance or lack of proper tools. I do ask questions here at CAC and have received lots of helpful replies.


Rock