It must be a Hard world out there for the small mechanical workshops!!!.

I remember the days when you could see the ground whilst looking down on the engine, now the gaps are filled with so much computer gear.................

Yes Axle Im a mechanic &unfortunately I have a son inlaw just like that & they live too far away to of be any asistance when there car gives trouble & he stufs it up.

Hope they didnt pay the $937 Not much diff between $937 and $1000 to get it done properly is there,

Subarus have traditionally been bloody expensive to work on tho.

Yep, I've found subarus are great for the first ten years and after that everything costs at least $1000 to fix!

My daughters learnt to drive and owned Subarus. The last one we had was an Lseries EA82 with twin timing belts - the idler seized on the LHS belt about 30,000k after it was fully reconditioned. I had the cyl heads reconditioned because the valves were bent ( the motor had aftermarket pistons which didn't have the cutouts in the crown of the pistons). New genuine belts and new aftermarket bearing - it ran great, but then same thing happened 20,000k later out in the country. Retrieved the vehicle (and daughter) and fixed it again. Sold the vehicle and it holed a piston the day after it was sold - so I paid the new owner to get a second hand replacement motor.

Boy, did that vehicle cause me a heap of grief (and money) - can't bring myself to buy a subaru again. At least no son-in-laws were involved and I didn't trouble any mechanics!

yep its hard, in small town we quote on these jobs all the time , most people rrealize it hard to no eaxtly whats the go.. so are happy if it change abit. but other want the the full thats what you quoted . when things go pear shaped you always help out the people who stick with you.anybody with small owner operated mech business will help some body in trouble. to keep youi going to bigger town.

We get customers all the time who think we are ripping them off because the guy down the road can do it cheaper.

People ask us how much an hour we charge and when told we charge $99.00 per hour they scoff at it and tell us we are a rip off.

We spend about $8000 a year on training, another $5000 per year to be members of different technical organisations and publications and about $12000 a year on upgrading diagnostic equipment and buying the latest and greatest tools to make the job quicker.

So theres over $20000 before we even start.

We did an advanced training course over here in Adelaide a couple of weeks ago starting at 7.30am and finishing at 5.30pm on a Saturday and Sunday and it cost about $2000 to put our guys through it plus pay, the funny thing was we had 16 people at the training session.....the sad thing was their was 3 from our company and 2 from another company who were from Metro Adelaide....the rest were from country areas and 7 were from interstate.

So not all repair businesses are the same.

So lets see........... a place charging $99.00 per hour with the best training and the right and latest equipment or a back yarder who charges $40.00 per hour!

So who is the rip off.