Outrageous MAF sensor change cost/rant

Just got a call from my daughter earlier on the Marine Corps base in Hawaii. Check engine light came on in her 2008 prius. Was running OK. She took it to the auto repair shop located on base and then called me. Was quoted $487 for a new Mass Air Flow sensor that they said needed replaced. I told her just get a can of MAF sensor cleaner spray and keep an eye on it. She said they had dropped it off. Had her call and she said the quote was for $236 for the sensor, an hour minimum charge for labor at $160 an hour, plus another 100 bux for the diagnostic.

Did some quick price checking online and MAF sensors were as little as 25 bux to 108 bux from Toyota. They would have it delivered today so I figured it wasn't coming from a dealer but maybe Honolulu. She said they would get it from OReillys in Kailua. We priced one there at $87 so even with delivery, there must be more than a 100% markup from the repair shop. She decided to pay off the repair shop for the 100 buck diagnostic, which Oreillys would have done for free, and get the $87 part from Oreillys.

Told her she could get a screwdriver and pliers and I would walk her through it over the phone. She talked to a couple neighbors who were out today in the hot Hawaii sun and they said they would change it.

So that is my rant for the day for the ripoff of the day. I know of dealers who have charged $100 for diagnostics and some who charge a lot less. Everything on any of the bases anymore are all privatized. The base exchange, PX, and Navy Exchange have all been privatized and from my shopping in them have found they are higher that Walmart but tend to carry higher end stuff like a Macy's which doesn't sit well on a military pay scale. Even the convenience, clothing, and gas stations are private. I remember some real bargains from the PX back in the day. I go to the commissary at McConnell AFB and Fort Riley every once in a while if in the area and the commissaries are cheaper than the local stores and walmart, especially for meat.

When I went there to the base in Hawaii last March for 3 weeks which then turned into 2.5 months because of the virus, I talked to some parents visiting from Maine who told me about their son being charged $400 for front brakes on an old Chevy pickup which didn't fix it.

Just got a text from my daughter. Took the neighbor all of 5 minutes to put her new MAF sensor in. Figured if nothing else I could put it in when I get back this spring. If she would have asked, I would have sent her to Oreillys to start with and then probably ordered one from Rock Auto, but oh well. I have one of those code readers bot from Amazing for around 20 bux that I can move to any vehicle and read the codes from an app. Guess I'll get one ordered for her and her husband's cars.

FYI.

Most times, a simple scan for codes does pinpoint the problem. However, the diagnostics get a bit more
complicated when the codes only point you in the direction of the malfunctioning circuit. Rich and lean codes are
the toughest to diagnose followed by evaporative system and EGR system problems. In some of these cases, being
able to read live data, make charts, and do live testing on some systems is a big help in diagnosing the real
problem.

Most times, a code points to a simple failed sensor - like a temperature or pressure sensor.

In any case, $160 per hour is excessive in my opinion. I know that the shops do have high overhead, but at those
rates, even the drug dealers are getting jealous. The markup on the parts is also excessive. If you can buy a MAF
sensor from Toyota for $28 to $108, the shop can buy it for even less than that. So, in all, the profit on that
job was quickly approaching 80% of the cost of the repair.

That is the exact reason that I do repairs for friends and family. I have no problem with a shop making a fair
profit, but I do have a problem with outright theft. Good for you for spoiling their day!

Why could'nt her husband change it?? Or is he deployed right now. You know from being there that EVERYTHING is expensive. Of course
all comes by air or sea so transport costs are an add in. But it sounds like someone was overcharging in our opinion. gobble

Military has always been a target for shishters Young people away from home you get the point. Just now the Gov is getting in on making money off them.

My pickup has been at the local shop for 3 weeks now. Has a random electrical issue that puts it in limp mode.

Local mechanics are very good.

The codes you get as mentioned, list off some problems that are not actual problems. Need to figure out where the electrical gremlin is......

Paul

Tom, he is a corpsman, computer guru, and city kid. They don't teach car repair and mechanical skills anymore, you have to grow up in a family that does that. Even I need giggle and utub and tractor forums to work on anything anymore. He could have done it but a neighbor offered first. Base housing is duplexes and they are close together and everyone spends their time in Hawaii outside with the kids anyway. All those guys have table saws and tools and do a lot of carpentry work. Bad thing is that wood is more expensive there. One is an EOD expert so he knows everything explosives and electrical. The others are infantry platoon sergeants.

Is that MCAS Kaneohe Bay?

I think part of that is just Hawaii.

When I was a Claims Adjuster working vehicle service contracts, we took claim calls from Hawaii, and they were always 'way higher than here on the Mainland.

I remember in 1960 how shocked I was to have to pay 50 cents for a cup of coffee at Honolulu International Airport. Coffee was still a dime most everywhere else.

Worked on my own cars (and my families) since I was 16, couldn't afford to pay anyone else to do it at the time.

Been gently poked fun at over the years by my wife (who I love dearly) when I get aggravated working on one. Kids picked up on that.

Anyway, few years ago, daughter #1 had an 04 Taurus. She calls me, said it's running real bad. I ask if she can make it home (she was living a few hours away). She didn't think so. Told her to take it to the local dealer.

End of the day she calls, upset.... $750. But the car is OK.

Next time she's home, shows me the bill. Coil pack was bad, not firing on 2 cylinders. Not hard to diagnose. And the dealer changed plug wires and plugs while they were at it.

Looked up the parts on O'Reillys, told her I could have done it for about $150 in parts. Dad labor is cheap.

And now she knows why I work on my own cars.

So I am the family wrench, only rule I have is if I'm working on their car, they're passing me wrenches....does NOT apply to my wife, who I love dearly. And they've learned a few things over the years.

Our son is in the Navy. When he was stationed in Groton, Ct. he had car trouble. There was a place on base where service members could work on their own cars and base people would help them with tools and know how and he did most all of the work. Saved him a ton of money, might be worth checking to see if they have anything like that on base. When he was growing up, he wasn't much help working on things. I'd get him out to help me and after while I figured out it was easier to do it myself than to have to fix his screw ups and listen to his whining.

I get so tired of the "ripoff" rants about
auto repair. I run my own shop, so I know
what my overhead is in Indiana. I can't
imagine the overhead in a leftist state
like Hawaii. Taxes, insurance,
environmental disposal costs, training,
paying a living wage, etc. You think it's
bad now, just wait until the minimum wage
is $15/hr. In California, minimum wage
for a mechanic that supplies their own
tools is $28/hr, wouldn't be surprised if
Hawaii has something similar. While I do
agree some charges are excessive and I try
to keep mine as low as possible, fact is,
auto repair is a convenience service. No
different than going into a convenience
store and paying $3 for a $.50 bag of
chips. I don't see anybody complaining
about Walmart's hundreds to thousands of
percent mark up on almost everything in
the store.

Since auto repair is so easy and everyone
can do it cheaper, possibly it's time to
hang out your shingle and get after it.
What this industry needs is more parts
hangers, Autozone and their contemporaries
appreciate it.

While I do preform almost all of my own
repair work I also understand the cost of
running a legit repair shop. Good
mechanics earn more than the average 4
year degree people and if you don't pay
them they go on to the next shop.
Expenses of opening the doors, your
overhead, especially in a abundant area
like HI are tremendous. While it is
certain that there are rip offs, and this
may be one of them, simply comparing the
cost of the cheapest part available with
the bill at a legit shop is not
justification for saying it's a rip off
IMO. While the china parts stores may
advertise 'free diagnostics" they are
actually only offering a code reader, big
difference. They also offer "free"
battery installation, next time price
that free battery and install VS same
quality battery at Rural King and stick
$25-50 of those free installation dollars
in your wallet. Every time I work on the
wife's car I try to get her to pay me
shop rates,, hasn't worked so far,LOL

X2, if we hadn't been posting at the same time I wouldn't have replied.

The field is indeed wide open for anyone wanting to get rich quick OR try to make a good living charging 25% of what the competition is quoting!

While I understand your frustration, how can anyone be surprised about prices in Hawaii? For a start, the link below will tell us that the basic cost of living index is pretty much double most other states, Missouri being the cheapest place to live in the last quarter of 2020. Check the link out below for a detailed look at the actual numbers. I'm sure there is a valid system from which the numbers are calculated. Just curious BC, where do you live?
Cost of Living comparing USA states ....

I always check the members map before I ask where someone lives. A lot of times the answer is there. You should add yourself.

I have had some really strange ones in my time.

One time, a guy brought in a car claiming that it stalled every time he put it in reverse. Sure enough, it did just that! Service writer thought it was a transmission problem so it ended up in my bay. After looking it over, I figured it for an electrical problem.

I could duplicate the problem, but I could not get to where I thought the problem was while it was acting up. I finally had a helper in the car while I was under the hood. It turned out to be a bracket that was plastic coated and supported the wire harness had a bad spot in the insulation. When it was put into reverse, the engine moved just right to short out something in the wire harness to stall the engine.

I had others that were even more bizarre. One car had an issue when it was cold, it would miss. No codes,no other indication of problems. Once it ran for 30 seconds, the miss would go away and it would not repeat until it was overnight cold again. Turned out to be the delay module for the windshield wipers was causing RF interference that was just enough to affect the fuel injection when it was in open loop. This was solved by Ford engineering department. That was way beyond the scope of a dealership mechanic. Changing that module with a revised one solved that problem.

Good luck with your gremlins. Some times, they can be really tough to track down and solve.

I also had my own shop for a few years.

Yes, expenses are high. BUT, these folks don't need to try and pay their entire month's expenses out of one job! Figuratively speaking of course. As cars get more and more expensive to maintain, repair shops are eventually price themselves out of the market. When it gets cheaper to trade than repair, a tipping pint will be reached and cars will become a disposable item.

Something else to consider is what can the average working person afford? Does any shop really consider that when they are writing up that repair order?

Ultimately, the cars that become too expensive to fix are the ones that end up at the local car auction. Then, repair shops or used car dealers get cheap cars to fix and resell because they have their own facilities to fix them economically.

When I had my own shop, I tried to keep things affordable for the customers. Not everybody has a bottomless checking account or a bottomless credit limit on their master card.

Also, how do you figure that Wal-Mart's markup is so high when they are selling the same things for less than the local merchants? Whether it be groceries, cosmetics, hardware, or automotive accessories, they are selling for LESS that the local competition. So how does that translate into hundreds to thousands of percent markup on everything they sell?

I'm in KS and on the map. MCAS KB is part of what they call MCBH there at Kaneohe Bay on the northeast/windward side of the Oahu. Catches the trade winds across the Pacific. Mainly an airgroup located there with an infantry regiment, all part of the 3rd Marine Division with the rest spread out in Okinawa and Japan.

Nice place called by most as K Bay. The pier there next to the airfield is where some movies were filmed such as the scene in Mr. Roberts where the guy drives a motorcycle of the end coming back from liberty. Out in the bay just off the south end of the runway is what is now called Bird Island where they filmed exterior scenes for Gilligan's Island. The university studies birds their now. Good fishing on the shallow flats half way to the island. Gilligan could have swam a little across the channel and walked to land. I fished off the pier but they recommend not keeping them because of the old oil contamination around it.

I understand the rants against my rant. That isn't some mom and pop sole proprietorship but part of a large corp with the power to get those gov contracts. Anyway it's done deal now. My beef is with the whole privatized system where the military should be getting discounts instead of charged higher when on base. There are plenty of auto repair shops off base but hard to get to during duty hours or weekends.

(quoted from post at 11:41:59 02/15/21)
My beef is with the whole privatized system where the military should be getting discounts instead of charged higher when on base. There are plenty of auto repair shops off base but hard to get to during duty hours or weekends.

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So how much were any of the off base mom and pop shops or even a dealership prices in comparison??

I bet the on base pricing is quite close to off base.

Up to twenty-five years ago on base pricing at the PX etc. was a BIG bargain compared to the surrounding civilian retail.
As a base becomes surrounded by civilization, on base pricing gets closer to the local civilian community.


On base contractors and privateers can't pay their employees what they want. The DoD dictates the minimum pay.
The DoD likely (I do not know) also dictates minimum pricing for on base services and goods from privateers also.

If she does end up replacing it be sure to get an OEM part. A lot of brand x sensors won't last a month.

If a $400 billing over cost of parts paid your overhead for a month your shop must have been under a tree in the driveway, LOL. 5 years ago our all in cost of opening the repair shop doors each day was very close to $150 per BILLED hour, not dream world, fact. Something has to pay the bills and it isn't favors.

Jim, it's called economy of scale. The local mom and pop might buy, say, a couple cases of t shirts to sell. Buying a couple hundred shirts at a time might get them bought at about $3-5 dollars a piece, because there is a middle man, shipping, etc. Those same shirts, Walmart might buy 100, 40 foot shipping containers of product direct from the manufacturer, at a net price of less than 50 cents a piece. Walmart sells the shirt for 5 bucks, mom and pop sells for $5-6 bucks. Who's making more money? Walmart doesn't make $500 a second by running a standard 30% retail markup.

Amen, Butch. I tell people all the time, "I quit doing this fun years ago. If you wanted shade tree pricing, you should have caught me when I was 17." The time I used that line that sticks out the most was when I quoted a 6.5 Turbo diesel swap, labor only. Guy told me he would only pay $250 because it was "basically a small block Chevy and I used to swap those in 4 hours when I was younger." Gave him my line, and told him to get after it, times a wastin'.

I only use OE new MAF sensors. Yes, they're expensive, but the car doesn't come back.

Do some arithmetic. $500 a second isn't that much if you have thousands and thousands of stores with lines at the cash registers. Have you ever seen a time when there was NOT a line at the checkouts? I sure haven't.

Then there is that economy of scale. For sure, mom&pop will pay more for a given item. But, to the tune of a thousand percent markup at the Wal-Mart? Sorry, I just can't swallow that. It just doesn't work for me.

Just as an example, there is a product that I use every day. I buy it at Wal-Mart because it costs about 10% less there. CVS and Rite-Aid have that same product for a bit more money. Both CVS and Rite-Aid could muster near the same buying power as WM. If markups were in the 1000% range, that would mean that the product would be costing Wal-Mart about $.005 each. That would not even pay for the packaging, let alone the product REGARDLESS OF VOLUME! No manufacturer could stay in business for long selling that cheaply!

I think you would be hard pressed to find any items with the kind of markups that you say. Typical retail is usually around 100% desired with "loss leaders" a bit closer to being sold at or near cost.

Now, with all due respect, I do enjoy some of the finer things in life - like sleeping indoors and even occasionally eating a meal. But the day I have to overcharge a customer to stay open would be the day I would find another line of work.

Needless to say, that was a bit of an exaggeration. But if it costs you $150 per billed hour to stay open, you are already broke and on your way out of business.

Shade tree very well discribes it and I don't mean that in a condemming manner, it's just factual.
We paid our men well and they had full benefits. Just our pure labor cost per man hour when I retired was over $50 per hour all in. When you run a legitimate business and have all the insurance and costs involved it costs money to open the door every day. A Shop supplies arent free, heat isnt free. The jobs you screw up and have to eat and redo arent free, electricity isnt free. Special tools, analyzers are not free. Update schooling for the techs isnt free. Then you have the people that don't really earn any money but are neccisary, service writer, secretary, Accounting. It's easy to tell the people who haven't been there and done that because they don't have a clue what costs are involved.

By the way yes the shop is still open and busier than ever,, And profitable, which isn't a swear word in my world, LOL

I didn't mean EVERYTHING in Walmart was marked up 1000%. Just a lot of things are, especially anything in the clothing or housewares department that comes from China, which is the bulk of their sales. My wife was friends with a lady that ran a charity, this woman would coordinate bulk buys for the charity. One year, she got hooked up with a Walmart purchaser that sold her an entire 40 foot container of t-shirts like I mentioned at Walmart's cost. 15K solid color tees that sold for $8 on the rack. She paid 15 cents a piece, granted, this was 8 years ago. That is the reason Walmart likes China so much. Chinese child labor makes everything in the store, so the margin is insane.

Folks think we read a code and throw a part at it life is good... It taint that good...

Sometimes it can go that way then there are times you lose your arse over a simple code... I had had my share of vehicles' come in with a MAF sensor code the owner has installed several and it turned out the MAF sensor are anything to do with it had anything to do with it setting a MAF code... So much for a code and I doubt we know are will ever know the whole story...

I am surprised they work that cheap in hi'Y'e... If it was a fix I would be happy as it can get time consuming and expensive...

Sorry. I wasn't trying to run down businesses it was just the way the gov does their base contracts and have a captive clientele. Guess I need to avoid the rants from now on.

They were going to get the part from Oreillys. Dealer wasn't open on Sunday anyway. She ended up getting the Blue streak one that Oreillys recommends for $87+ which was the same price that came up for my local store. Denso was a little higher and there were much cheaper ones and maybe they didn't stock the Denso. They were upping the price by an additional 150% above that. Then the hour minimum charge on top of that. If she had gone in with a blown fuse they would have charged her the $100 diagnostic plus the $160 hour minimum plus the price of a fuse. Somehow I don't think anyone here on this site would charge one of their customers $260 to change a fuse or tell their daughter to go ahead and pay it. Same thing if it was throwing a code for a dirty air filter I don't think anyone here would charge $260 to change it. On the other hand I know there are parts that can throw a code that can take a full hour or more to change it which I understand and don't have a problem with.

I know how the code chasing goes. I've changed more than one rusted in O2 sensor after crawling under a car skinning knuckles and hoping the jack doesn't give out only to figure out it is something else. I don't know what diagnostic equipment that place used but I know the dealerships have diagnostics that go through the car computer and can identify a bad relay, etc. That can't be done at a parts store and it is worth it for some problems. Not sure the parts stores can read abs codes either.

I remember a few times getting Prius oil changes at the dealer. They come to the waiting area holding a cabin filter saying it is dirty and needs changing. How much I ask and they say the filter is $15 and $20 for labor to change it. Well they have already taken it out so why are they tacking on labor for a new one. I tell them thanks but I do my own air filter changing and they put it back in at no charge. go figure.