Charleston Jet - $2800 alternator on Cherokee

Y

yachtjim

Pre-takeoff checklist
Joined
Oct 16, 2011
Messages
104
Display Name
Display name:
Jim
$2800 alternator on Cherokee

edited/resolved 10/1/13- The job was off-site at a different airport so much of the labor was travel. They should have explained this on the invoice and it would have made more sense. They also reduced the bill to $2200. Still high, but not outrageous as I initially thought.

My partner recently had the alternator fail while he was in SC. Took the plane to Charleston Jet to have the alternator replaced. The final Bill was $2800! They charged $170 to replace a fuse. $235 for misc. 17 hours labor. $240 for shipping! I talked to my shop in MD and he said it is a 4 hour job at worst. I am thinking it should be an $800 bill. What do you guys/gals think?
 
Last edited:
yachtjim said:
What do you guys/gals think?
Click to expand...

Sounds like a rip-off job.

That said, when I brought my cherokee to a shop in MD with a failed alternator, the final bill was also $2400. But that included a complete new exhaust and some other 'while we are here' items (when they had the cowl off, a crack in the exhaust was visible and after some further digging, it was clear that the components had reached their useful life).
 
The only part on the bill was the alternator.
 
yachtjim said:
My partner recently had the alternator fail while he was in SC. Took the plane to Charleston Jet to have the alternator replaced. The final Bill was $2800! They charged $170 to replace a fuse. $235 for misc. 17 hours labor. $240 for shipping! I talked to my shop in MD and he said it is a 4 hour job at worst. I am thinking it should be an $800 bill. What do you guys/gals think?
Click to expand...

Sounds to me like the "broke down away from home" premium. Bend over :hairraise:

I was at Destin on the beach, FBO calls and said during their random walk around of aircraft they noticed my nosewheel tire was flat, chunk of metal in it. So I say yes, replace.

Pick up the plane to fly home, $462 for a Goodyear Flight custom II nose tire. Oh well, it's not like I'm going to fix it myself. Broke down away from home pricing.
 
yachtjim said:
My partner recently had the alternator fail while he was in SC. Took the plane to Charleston Jet to have the alternator replaced. The final Bill was $2800! They charged $170 to replace a fuse. $235 for misc. 17 hours labor. $240 for shipping! I talked to my shop in MD and he said it is a 4 hour job at worst. I am thinking it should be an $800 bill. What do you guys/gals think?
Click to expand...

weilke said:
Sounds like a rip-off job.

That said, when I brought my cherokee to a shop in MD with a failed alternator, the final bill was also $2400. But that included a complete new exhaust and some other 'while we are here' items (when they had the cowl off, a crack in the exhaust was visible and after some further digging, it was clear that the components had reached their useful life).
Click to expand...


Are you guys nuts? I don't care how much money you have, throwing it away it still dumb. Sorry for the blunt response, but $2800 for an alternator? :mad2:

Did you send them a tip also? :rofl: :no:
 
yachtjim said:
My partner recently had the alternator fail while he was in SC. Took the plane to Charleston Jet to have the alternator replaced. The final Bill was $2800! They charged $170 to replace a fuse. $235 for misc. 17 hours labor. $240 for shipping! I talked to my shop in MD and he said it is a 4 hour job at worst. I am thinking it should be an $800 bill. What do you guys/gals think?
Click to expand...

RAPE!:yikes:
 
Ha, I got that same bill for the Aztec from my home shop right after buying it.

The first and last time I used that shop. When they asked why I never used them I said "Because you rip off your customers. And you're a jerk."

Yeah, way out of line.
 
I am hesitant to throw down on shops, but in order for that job to have legitimately consumed 17 hours, something would have to have been very wrong, in which event you should have been informed.

It is poor character, on full display.
 
I'd ask for documentation of the time. Many states have departments for repair shop fraud. 17hrs to replace an alternator? Even if they had to pull the prop to change the belt it should not have been more than 5 if even that. A reasonably skilled mechanic doing just the alternator could do it in an hour and a half.
 
yachtjim said:
My partner recently had the alternator fail while he was in SC. Took the plane to Charleston Jet to have the alternator replaced. The final Bill was $2800! They charged $170 to replace a fuse. $235 for misc. 17 hours labor. $240 for shipping! I talked to my shop in MD and he said it is a 4 hour job at worst. I am thinking it should be an $800 bill. What do you guys/gals think?
Click to expand...

I agree with Henning. Get the specifics. Question them. Lodge a complaint if necessary and publicize on Yelp as well. I am not a mechanic, but that seems high. That's over 2 days of labor at Chicago area rates. An single annual, assuming nothing is wrong, doesn't take that long so I've been told.
:eek:
 
Geico266 said:
Are you guys nuts? I don't care how much money you have, throwing it away it still dumb. Sorry for the blunt response, but $2800 for an alternator? :mad2:
Click to expand...

Wow, you really have a way to be an *******.

I know, on your rickety contraption that you glued togetther in your garage, you can just pick up an alternator at NAPA and slap it on. Us lesser mortals have to deal with aircraft parts and mechanics. As I said, I didn't spend $2400 on the alternator, it was just the reason the plane was in the shop in the first place. The alt job was a reasonable time allotment, 4 hrs including a belt. The rest was the exhaust, nose strut reseal and some other misc. stuff that wasn't that unexpected on a 8000hr airframe.

Now the deal yachtjims partner got was a rip-off job from one of the big jet-something places. Hint, anytime it says 'jet' somewhere in the name, you are going to get charged 'jet money'.
 
weilke said:
Wow, you really have a way to be an *******.

I know, on your rickety contraption that you glued togetther in your garage, you can just pick up an alternator at NAPA and slap it on. Us lesser mortals have to deal with aircraft parts and mechanics. As I said, I didn't spend $2400 on the alternator, it was just the reason the plane was in the shop in the first place. The alt job was a reasonable time allotment, 4 hrs including a belt. The rest was the exhaust, nose strut reseal and some other misc. stuff that wasn't that unexpected on a 8000hr airframe.

Now the deal yachtjims partner got was a rip-off job from one of the big jet-something places. Hint, anytime it says 'jet' somewhere in the name, you are going to get charged 'jet money'.
Click to expand...

And you call my plane a rickty contraption? :rofl::rofl::rofl: My alternators come from Plane Power. ;)

For the record, I said nothing about your plane, your abilities, or inability to contribute to a conversation in a useful manner. You said you paid $2400 when your plane was in the shop for an alternator. If you were going to use your POS plane as a meaningful comparison you would have deducted the amount spend on repairing or replacing parts ( irrelevent to the conversation) on your POS plane so the comparison would have been relevant to this thread and conversation. Why not include the fuel you have burned for the last 10 years also? :mad2:

I am always amazed when people brag about how much money they spent on stupid stuff. Why not pay the guy double the bill so you can have more bragging rights? Why not make it $10k and win all bragging rights? :mad2:
 
Last edited:
Don't allow this to stand. Take them to small claims. You might look like a jerk being a plane owner taking the shop to court because the public thinks all plane owners are rich. But this is inexcusable. Take depos(statements with a notary) from four GA mechanics that quote the total for the job and present that as your primary evidence.

Now, having said that, did you approve a repair with no stop limit or estimate? If you did, then you are going to have a hard time in court. So, we don't know what you said, and beyond that, even if you said 'just replace it', once the cost is 3X the U and P fees for the same job, the court will take a very dim view of it.
 
If you wrote a check put a stop payment on it. If you used a credit card put it in dispute. Write the company a letter and ask them for an explanation of the "gross over charging" of the alternator replacement.

How much was parts?
How much was labor?
Was fuel added to the bill?
Who authorized $240 in shipping? :eek:
Why did the fuse cost $170? :eek:
 
So GenAv eats its own fighting for scraps from the emperor's table. All is proceeding as he has foreseen.
 
Geico266 said:
If you wrote a check put a stop payment on it. If you used a credit card put it in dispute. Write the company a letter and ask them for an explanation of the "gross over charging" of the alternator replacement.

How much was parts?
How much was labor?
Was fuel added to the bill?
Click to expand...

Do Not put a stop payment, worst idea ever, it opens you to criminal charges in most states and open to a Marshal's seizure of you plane. Take them to court.
 
Reminds me of a construction term we affectionately use.

BOHICA

Bend over here it comes again!!!
 
Simple actually -

Find the owner of the business
Ask the owner of the busines to explain 17 hours labor to replace an alternator on a Cherokee . . .

I can see that to replace you might need to R&R the prop if you replace the belt.

Did they do that? Did they ask him if he wanted the belt replaced?
 
comanchepilot said:
Simple actually -

Find the owner of the business
Ask the owner of the busines to explain 17 hours labor to replace an alternator on a Cherokee . . .

I can see that to replace you might need to R&R the prop if you replace the belt.

Did they do that? Did they ask him if he wanted the belt replaced?
Click to expand...

R&R the prop is an hour. Cowl and uncowl is a half hour, R&R the alternator is 45 minutes including safety wire.
 
Based on what? The same book you use to quote 20 minutes for wheel bearings?

Henning said:
R&R the prop is an hour. Cowl and uncowl is a half hour, R&R the alternator is 45 minutes including safety wire.
Click to expand...
 
Well, just because it is coming doesn't mean you really have to take it. The OP would be very justified in fighting back.

On a much smaller scale, my first oil change came to almost $300. I was there for the service and questioned the Service manager. He defended by saying well it tool x hours to do it. I replied with, yes it did, but your two mechanics stood and watched the oil drain for 30 minutes, then spent 45 minutes working on an APU for a business jet. I shouldn't have to pay for that. He reduced the bill to just under $200 and I proceeded to purchased the tools to change my own oil.

The repair shop I use now has a flat fee for changing oil that is very reasonable and they let me help with the annual.

Shops that over charge give all a bad rap.
 
What does your shop quote for an oil change? We know it's a sensitive subject and also know it takes longer than some owners prefer to think, mostly because they conveniently forget (or don't know) some of the required steps.

tmyers said:
Well, just because it is coming doesn't mean you really have to take it. The OP would be very justified in fighting back.

On a much smaller scale, my first oil change came to almost $300. I was there for the service and questioned the Service manager. He defended by saying well it tool x hours to do it. I replied with, yes it did, but your two mechanics stood and watched the oil drain for 30 minutes, then spent 45 minutes working on an APU for a business jet. I shouldn't have to pay for that. He reduced the bill to just under $200 and I proceeded to purchased the tools to change my own oil.

The repair shop I use now has a flat fee for changing oil that is very reasonable and they let me help with the annual.

Shops that over charge give all a bad rap.
Click to expand...
 
wabower said:
Based on what? The same book you use to quote 20 minutes for wheel bearings?
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, there is no flat rate book in aviation, I wish Mitchel would put one together. No, the experience of doing them.
 
comanchepilot said:
Simple actually -

Find the owner of the business
Ask the owner of the busines to explain 17 hours labor to replace an alternator on a Cherokee . . .

I can see that to replace you might need to R&R the prop if you replace the belt.

Did they do that? Did they ask him if he wanted the belt replaced?
Click to expand...

This seems like good advice.

I always ask for estimates up front. If the actual work grossly exceeds the estimates, I have leverage to decline payment for the overages. It would be tough to make a claim for monies if the shop can't document that the buyer agreed to the work. If the buyer agreed to the work without an estimate of the charges, then I hope he's good with negotiation, but he's certainly not in a good position to negotiate on the backside of the deal.

Also, I rarely pay with cash or check unless I know and trust the merchant. There is some protection afforded by using a credit card if fraud is discovered during or after the transaction.


JKG
 
DJTorrente said:
So GenAv eats its own fighting for scraps from the emperor's table. All is proceeding as he has foreseen.
Click to expand...

Indeed. You gotta be real careful with the certified folks. It's a real mixed bag of apples with razors in them. It is a very fine line that separates those of us stuck attempting to undercut the gouging going on from those who relish in the obscenity of certified parts and service cost structure, as a means to gloat and socioeconomic status chest-poke. Very insidious but very much part and parcel with the decaying popularity of general aviation.

RV-overhead and helmet-wearing stupidity included, I identify with those fools every day of the week and twice on Sunday over the certified owner that gloats at a 2.4AMU alternator job on a cherokee (which is the amount I would expect for annual/13th month maintenance on my cherokee) with that stoopid "if you gotta ask..." retort. And I say this a certified spam can owner..begrudgingly of course, the FAA won't let me operate owner/EXP and there's no equivalency in the experimental market to a fully depreciated Piper Arrow II.
 
No. F__ing. Way. Ask for full justification, and tell them upfront you think it is BS. 17 hours? You could likely R&R the entire engine in 24 hours...

Did someone approve an estimate that looked like that? You did get an estimate first, right??
 
My on the road alternator story is quite the opposite. Six years or so ago ee departed Beef Island in the BVI's for Provo T&C and both alternators at some point quit. We diverted into Isla Grande PR where we were recommended to a flight school maintainance facility. They jumped on it immediately with 2 mechanics. Less than 1.5 hours later both broken field wires were fixed and we were electrified. Assuming we were going to pay dearly I asked the owner if they took plastic. He said yes but we'd have to go to the office. Whe I asked how much the bill was he said $75. I dug out a hundred and left smiling.
Charlie Melot Zephyr Engines
 
wabower said:
They could own the local airport. Well, for a few months anyway, then they would be broke.
Click to expand...

I know a retired A&P who was considering doing some of this kind of simple work like $70 dollar oil changes. He always thought the shops he worked for charged way too much. Then when he found out the minimum liability policy was $5k or 71 oil changes, the hangar was $1000 a month or 171 oil changes, other expenses were $3k or 43 oil changes. In other words about the first 270 oil changes a year were free, then he could start getting paid.

He decided he'd rather just play golf.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top