Mechanic Charging me $1440 for replacing bad ECU

arniewallace said:

Rip off merchant, done ecu swap on 2002 1.9Tdi Jetta in the uk for £90 sterling (approx $110), ecu was £40 ($49), whole change took approx 30 mins incliding reprogramming immobiliser.

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He dropped it down to 1 hrs of work after I argued with him about that.

The $300 one on eBay is mine, but it's factory new, still in the VW box. And yes 30+ over the years have sold for that.
Used they are $50-100 on average, as has been mentioned.
As I have been known to say, "something is rotten in the state of Denmark..."

LexTDI said:

It does not matter I did not approve of it to be changed.

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I should have made it clear that my comments had nothing to do with your situation, just the one comment about how long it takes to do a job. People only think about that simple R&R part and don't think about all of the other time that the mechanic spends on a simple, two minutes job.

whitedog said:

"it takes 30 seconds to remove, it's literally staring you in the face when you remove the plastic engine cover."

Ok, let's just say it takes 30 seconds to replace. But what about the time to order the part and receive it, move the car into the shop, remove the cover, get the tools, take the 30 seconds to replace it, inspect it for problems, clean up spilled fuel, test it, check for leaks install the cover, clean the tools and put them away, drive the car out, do the paperwork. Too many people only look at the time to R&R and don't consider the entire job. Doesn't the mechanic deserve to be paid for all of that time as well?

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agree, but do you charge an hour diagnostic fee, botch that up, then 2 for an ecu, find out its not the ecu, then another hour for the shutoff valve?? You (and I don't mean YOU, but a person charging a customer as a mechanic)are supposed to be a professional, because if I wanted to throw random parts at a car in hopes of fixing a problem, I wouldn't have sought the help of a professional.

Right, that's not the way to run a proper business. I have spent enough time to burn through a tank of fuel in a Duramax plus some more fuel (that I didn't bill for) and only billed a couple hours to figure out it was a rubbed wire. I was taught that troubleshooting and finding out what is good is worth as much money as finding out what is bad, but there is a limit. If I am chasing the wrong rabbit because of my ignorance or a mistake, the customer doesn't pay for that.

And remember that there are times when replacing a part that doesn't fix the problem is the proper thing to do. One example is a no start with no glow plug light. Most old timers here would look at the relay 109 and if they see a black one, they would replace it. But what if there was a wiring issue? To me, it's perfectly reasonable to charge to replace that relay because the black one is a known piece of garbage.

Of course none of what I'm rambling about has to do with your situation, but I mention it just to remind folks that there is more going on than they see. And we are all human and can make a mistake be it not communicating properly, or being so busy, they miss a vital bit of information that costs a customer time. They true tale of what kind of business they are is I how they handle it. I just went through something like this from the customer side. An assembly I needed was held up because they missed something I told them. When talking to them on the phone, I could hear the regret and apology in their voice without then even saying the words, "I'm sorry". And they gave me a few extra parts for free. It cost me half a day, but I would do business with them again because of how they handled it.

Hopefully you can get them to get to the point that you are neutral about your opinion of them, which would be a long ways up from where you are now. Unfortunately, after reading those reviews, I doubt that will happen.

Update: I ended up only paying $800 after arguing enough about how everything was handled. This guy was billing me double for labor and the parts section. He had to correct the stuff that he added on the bill.

So, clearly, he chose the right profession: automotive technician and not accountant

So, is the car now running fine and out of limp mode?

I cringe hearing this stuff. SO GLAD I do 80-90% of my own mechanical work. Been through this, it's heart wrenching to feel you are getting hood-winked. Good luck OP.