Dealer quoted $8000, $5000 of which is labor. Sounds crazy to me… any thoughts?

 

That is the price they give when they don't want to do something.

 

I've just done this on mine. Took me about 16 hours most of which because I took my time putting it back together, cleaning everything on the block first to make it like new and multi-checking torque on all screws and bolts, etc. Replaced a lot of other parts too since the old ones had to come out such as coils, injectors, plugs, breathers, purge, etc. Used all genuine parts, spent less than two grand, I think.

What is their hourly rate? Here main dealers are well over $200 per hour.

 

From the dealer… It varies based on complexity of the job. Average is $279.93/hr.

So based on that, they are quoting about 18 hours labor. I find that hard to believe.

 

Then based on that, the quote's not far off from realistic.

 

I could be completely wrong, please let me know if so. It doesn’t seem like it should take a trained Land Rover mechanic working full time in a fully equipped LR garage 18 hours to do this job. I don’t know what your experience level is, but you said it took 16 hours but sounds like you did lots of other things too. This is in no way meant to be questioning your experience or abilities, so forgive me if it comes off that way.

if I’m wrong and this really is an 18 hour job please let me know. It will give me peace of mind and help with my trust level with the dealer.

 

There are a number of variables here. The first is knowing what guide they're using, most main dealers will use book time, either from JLR or Alldata or another provider, for billing. This's meant as a guide for calculating labour cost and may not represent actual time spent. On a service this significant, this scenario's most likely. IN some cases though the dealer may have enough experience to quote actual time. The second variable's comparing exactly what the dealer's doing to what I've done, there's likely a difference.

I've been disassembling the 3.0 & 5.0 litre AJs for about 5 years but have 20+ years with servicing JLR models (mostly my own but some for friends and acquaintances). I can remove the supercharger and related components in less than an hour. The rest of the time was spent removing the valve covers and related parts, very carefully, with much cleaning and meticulous prep for each step. A bolt snapped too in the head and that took some time carefully extracting. The gaskets had been leaking for a long time, so much time was taken with thoroughly cleaning the engine block and heads and other related parts as well as polishing the injector ports, intake ports, etc. Reassembly was slow to because I took my time replacing and checking each part. I'm not on a clock so it doesn't matter.

How thorough a paid technician is varies greatly in my experience. Some are like me and others want it done quick because they're compensated based on volume.

 

Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it!

 

I’ll add that I don’t charge gaskets, I use new valve covers.

also do the upper timing covers as well. As mentioned, cleaning is a big part of the job, but $8k is too much. With cooling pipes and water pump $4-$5k is more reasonable.

 

I'm hoping you mean you use the gaskets pre-fitted in the covers as supplied by Land Rover?