but it is a one time use

read Quintin's post again....

 

The TOOL itself is NOT one time use. Parts of the KIT that ARE replaceable are one time use. It's basically like a slide hammer. You use the parts that are "welded" onto the broken plug to attach to the TOOL the parts that are welded are the disposable parts. The TOOL itself is not one time use. The TOOL that answered the phone is trying to mislead me about the TOOL that is used to change the plugs. I am not a TOOL so I will not be using his services.

Besides using Quintin's cost numbers a complete plug change that broke ALL 8 plugs would add up like this..
$83 for the set of 8 pins
3 hrs normal time PLUS 8 hrs to extract the broken ones @ $95 an hour =$1045(that's consecutively, if you broke more than one why would you do one at a time?)
Plus the cost of plugs.

So at close to $1200 for a worst case scenario for a plug change compared to the dealership 15 miles away that says $225 for the change no matter what. Take a wild guess at which one I'm gonna use.

 

What mileage is in your truck? Let us know how you & the dealership made out with this job........Good luck!.....

 

Sorry Smokeybear, I just don't buy that the dealer your going to will do the job for $225. If the job is straight forward with no breakage or even if 1 plug breaks I could believe the price. If 3 or 4 break, I don't see them eating the extra labor to finish the job. Hopefully I'm wrong but I just don't see it.

 

Semantics. You'd be better off just saying "I found a better deal at another dealership," and quit stressing so much about what the other dealer told you about the stupid tool.

So the service advisor didn't describe the use of the tools to a tee. Boo-f'kin'-hoo.

And my personal experience is that sure, that other place told you $225 up front regardless of whether or not things go wrong. I wouldn't hold my breath on that, but whatever.

Some folks are just born to bitch.

 

First off, good to hear from you Quintin.

I realized the other day that this situation is all on mother Ford's shoulders, not the dealerships.

I posted a couple days ago in another thread about this issue "3 Broken Plugs" or titled something like that. I know a few techicians that really know their stuff, so I don't think that the vast number of them are incompetent. I also know that each vehicle gets driven a little, or a lot, different than others resulting in more carbon, fouling, oxidation, or whatever...so the plugs will behave differently from truck to truck. These things can add up to a "black box" that no one can predict. A dealership wants to keep up good business, so they more than likely do not want to tee-off the customer. If they have been unlucky enough to have multiple plugs break, then advising the customer of this is probably a good thing. That way there are zero surprises, and no back-peddling required. From the customer's point of view, this could be interpretted at being incompetent...but I think it's just being honest most of the time.

These privately owned dealerships agreed to sell Ford vehicles and to service them. They did not actually work out the engineering of the components...so that would be mis-placed blame and venting. Ford did the right thing with the injectors that stick open on the 04 and 05 models (recently had two replaced on Ford's dime) with a letter saying, "Hey, we messed up with these things, so we will cover you if they stick open." Great! I feel like they need to do the same thing with the plugs.

It really starts at the drawing board with the designers, so give the dealerships a break. If most of the techs are like me, I put every best effort into my job. I would like to think that most people are the same way.

My .02.