Was quoted 900-1000$ for labor plus cost of oil to regear front and rear Jeep JK '12 to 4.88. I later asked how much to weld on C-gussets, was quoted 2 hrs per side (I was fine with that). I had him replace ball joints while they were out. He later told me he had to drill out 2 wheel hub bearing bolts. He bought all 6 new bolts at $6 a piece, and on my invoice wrote "drilled out 2 bolts, tapped all 6 holes). I was charged for a total of 30 hours. This doesn't add up to me. If I subtract out $1000 for regear, that leaves $800 at $60/hr. Comes out to 13.33 hours minus 4 hours = 9.33 hours. I don't see why they need to retap the holes, he only broke 2 bolts. Even so, almost 10 hours on replacing those bolts is too long.

Ask for a break down of the 30 hours and go from there.

It sounds like it yeah. As Lee said I would ask for a good explanation.

I can see retapping the holes. That basically chases the threads, cleaning them out. That makes perfect sense. However, that act shouldn't be more than a couple minutes a hole for the ones he didn't drill.

10 hours is a really long time, even with drilling out 2 bolts. I would want a breakdown too. Something sounds fishy here.

If there is a shop doing work on your vehicle, just expect to get screwed regardless. You'll find they dont use lube either!

The reality is that you were quoted $900-$1000 for the job, and I assume you agreed to that since you allowed the work to subsequently be done.


Doesn't really matter how they break down the cost. Its going to equal what you agreed to pay them.

I only take our Jeep to shops I trust, for starters. And I would never take it to a dealer for work like this.
That said, why were they messing with the wheel hub bearings?
They should have been able to leave the wheel bearing hubs attached to the knuckles. They had to pull the knuckles to do the ball joints, I would think you would leave the wheel hub bearings bolted to the knuckles and remove them as a set. Maybe I am wrong, but that seems easy enough.
How many miles are on the Jeep, and what kind of shape is it in?
I just replaced the wheel bearing hubs on the front of ours, I was upgrading to RCVs and figured while I had it apart for the RCVs I might as well replace the wheel hub bearings as they are something of a wear item. I had no issues unbolting the bearings. Ours has over 50,000 miles in three years, with a lot of wheeling. The bolt heads were rusted enough that it was hard to get the socket on the bolts, but after using penetrating fluid on the threads I had no issues getting all six bolts out.
And while drilling and re-tapping is certainly an involved procedure, chasing threads is not. It is basically like running a bolt through the threads, only it is a thread chaser and not a bolt.

That sounds about right. You added two additional jobs onto your original quote. They probably replaced all 6 bolts so they match. If you have ever drilled out a bolt and tapped, it takes a little longer than a few minutes.

I’ve luckily never had to drill out a broken bolt (always used penetrating oil well in advance and obviously just been lucky - I have spun out a couple broken bolts though), but I thought they have to be drilled out larger than existing and replaced with a larger bolt. I removed my diff covers to ensure he had installed lockers, thankfully they were there though I can’t guarantee they were exactly what I ordered - fckr didn’t save the box or any literature that came with it despite me asking him to do so. Saved the ball joint box, and gear literature though. C-gussets looked well done, and ball joints were present and greased.

I am not following your math. Are you saying the total job cost you $1800 in labor? The $800 for the gussets and ball joints doesn't sound bad. I wouldn't focus on hours listed, just the cost. My trusted mech frequently does not charge me the shop's hourly rate on big/ time consuming jobs. He cuts the rate significantly. He lists the total hours, but doesn't charge me for nearly all the hours needed for the job.

that's what I was wondering, brando. seems like a decent deal if it was $800 plus the originally quoted $1000. regardless of the hours breakdown.

I feel like I was over billed. Seems appropriate if all this work was done separately, but I did all these because it was supposed to be a labor saver.

Have you spoken with them yet? What this sounds like to me is a billing error. It sounds like whomever did the billing took all of the hours spent including the regear and billed you that way. Honest mistake if that's the case.

If you feel like you were overbilled then it was your fault for not agreeing to a price ahead of time. Instead your post sounds like - hey while you got everything apart why don't you do a couple of other jobs that we didn't talk about, and not charge me much for it.

He's a mechanic not a maths whiz.

My guess is that you never called Joe?

The only thing we didn’t discuss with price was the extra work of drilling out the bolts and retapping. He clearly padded the bill by at least 4 hours. I’m not going to make a stink about it now because he’s the only one within a 4 hour drive that does this work (though I was plenty willing going out of town). When I bring it back for 500 mile fluid change I’m going to insist that’s done for free and tell him why. Otherwise this is what online reviews are for (which in the middle of nowhere has a lot of weight). This shop was also recommended by a separate shop as being “honest” - they will also get a review.

Man it's probably just an oversight. I'd go and question it, ask how he arrived at that figure. If he can't see the mistake, point it out. Maybe there was a valid reason. If you go in ready for a battle, he may just refuse your business. If he's a really great mechanic but doesn't know how to use a calculator, don't punish. With a Jeep, you need a friend in that industry.

Insist on free work or leave multiple bad reviews.
What a joke 🙄

You need to subtract the hours spent installing the ball joints. How much time does it take for that? If two bolts snapped off you definitely want him to chase all holes to insure it doesn't happen again.

Good luck with this route and get ready for the longer drives, if he truly is the ONLY shop within 4hrs he won't want to see you again and likely will charge you more next time.
You are paying him for skills that you don't have, yet...
Invest in some tools and start wrenching yourself and then you may have a better picture of what you are indeed paying for and respect the value a bit more.
Now if he screwed up the work that would be a different story but it sounds like everything was done right, at least to your knowledge, guessing you haven't checked any of the work done.

10 hours is about what it would take me in my driveway. Bad!