Yeh, this is corporate America and everything is business but should not be to the extent that dealers or auto shops would enrich themselves at the expense of others!
Shame on those who prey on unsuspecting customers. They should be cursed.

 

Regarding dealership costs: Yes, I agree that some of the prices that were quoted are absolutely ridiculous. However I'm currently doing some work on my wifes Jeep and found out just exactly how obscene the the dealer markup actually is on parts. A single lower control arm bolt costs $55 at the dealership. I could not find an alternate source, and had no choice but to buy 3 of them at that ridiculous price. The intermediate axle shaft on the front was going to cost me $244 at the dealer. I found a Dana distributor that gave me the same brand new OEM part for $65 shipped to my door.

Granted I'm dealing with a Jeep dealership in the above example, but my experience with the Volvo dealership wasn't any different.

 

LOL for sure.

 

Sad to say that dealerships are independant and can charge what they want. Volvo does not set their prices and i have found that some charge more than twice what others charge. Even for parts. I'm sad to hear that so many of you have put so much money into those S60's. I'm a pre-ford guy and have driven late 80's Volvo's for more than 400,000 miles with less than $3,000 in service and repairs. Heck, I went about 10,000 miles once without checking the oil and 20,000 without changing it.

With reports like the ones above, I will gladly keep seeking out clean pre-ford Volvo's and drive them till I can't drive any more.

 

I'm not sure if it's Ford, or the transition to FWD where the change occurred.

Having owned Volvos from the 240 Series in the 60's now through my recently acquired S-60, the "good stuff" seems to have stopped with my much missed 965. It wasn't perfect, or quite as tough as a red-block, but it was close enough that I can call it bullet proof.

In comparison, the FWD Volvos seem "fragile" or the dealer network changed over the RWD-FWD period to make them appear fragile. My S-60 "knowledge" is second hand in that I listened to horror stories from my nephew (source of my S-60) about their Volvo, and of course I have $18,000 in repair receipts I acquired with the car. Whether that speaks to the car, the greed of repair shops, or even the decrease in quality of components sourced from suppliers is up for grabs, but the result is a perceived loss of quality and reliability of recent models.

 

all this talk about who and what charges are being said u can ask what chilton time pays to a dealer to see if its a fair price u are getting charged for . oh and your problem with your trans. it might need to be flushed with a tcm reload usually solves that problem. right axle boots are just torn if u would do it your self axle shops
usually charge $50 per axle might want to do both while u are there. the boots are rubber what do u expect. suspension wear is like any other car. engine coils and spark plugs are also not going to last forever.


Ah, "All Volvo prices I have seen from the dealer is $600-800 for timing belt install." That's a disclaimer, and a wise statement on your part, since you have not seen the invoice from the Dallas area dealership I got when I purchased my '01 S-60 T5 from my nephew last month. The $1600 timing belt replacement was on the same receipt for repair of the driver's door window regulator and window that totaled about $1100 ($453 being for the piece of glass alone).

I am out of town now, but when I return I would be HAPPY to scan and email, or Fax you the receipt on the off chance you are with Volvo USA and would like to put those crooks at that dealership out of business. If so, please PM me, and in about 2 1/2 weeks when I return home, I will happily send you the paperwork. Because of the cost of Volvo ownership, my nephew sold me the car at a nice price (same as what CarMax offered him), but vowed NEVER to buy another Volvo. (Unfortunately they bought two Audi's as replacement, an S-4 Avant for "her" and a Q7 for "him," neither of which will be cheap to keep on the road after the warranty expires, I suspect.)

I agree with you that it should have cost far less. The nephew was, in fact, able to get a new alternator installed for just under $500 (just before I bought the car from him) from an independent shop after I told him he would be NUTS to pay the dealer almost $800 for the alternator and an additional $400 for labor.

why are u paying for a glass when u are replacing a window regulator ?

 

Read it again dude! He said: "repair of the driver's door window regulator and window" And its not just Dallas with these cost. Im up in Canada at a Toronto area dealership where i got most of my work done, and the cost even with a 10% discount on parts and labor is still very high. I have worked in the automotive industry for 5 years at Ford and Chrysler dealerships and they are all the same. If you dont know better it is very easy for them to take you for alot. I left one dealer because of what i saw. An old lady came in for a oil change and left with a tune up on a car with 30k on it. She even had to pay for the oil change which she got free oil changes for 5 years when she purchased the car 2 years earlier. When i spoke to the manager he said that i should shut my mouth and go back to work. Thats when i said i quit. The Dispicable nature of autodealers have soured me. When will this change.

 

Remember, I am relating what happened to my nephew, the car's former owner, and I have the receipts for the work. I was not involved in the decision-making process of "Oking" the work to be done.

Yes, I now have a bad axle (probably due to a torn boot before I acquired the car) and I am going to replace the axle myself (I have fairly extensive auto repair experience as well as am a licensed aircraft mechanic). I pass along what I do as a witness, if you will, to how most non-gearheads can be treated and charged for owning one of these cars, or indeed, any sophisticated car today. It's not exclusive to Volvo, but that doesn't excuse Volvo, either. A friend just told me he brought his MB to the dealer for an oil and change, and they would not reset the "service" light since he hadn't requested an "Oil Service", which was considerably more money (the only difference being resetting the light).

As far as replacing the side window glass when the regulator was replaced, the dealer said that there was a chip in the bottom of the glass that occurred when the regulator detached from the glass, so they would only replace BOTH. It struck me OVER $450 JUST for the piece of glass was a LOT in view of the fact I can buy after-market windshields (from a glass installer I know) for the S-60 for $100.

I could go on and on (how about the engined mounted torque rod engine mount the dealer wanted $350 for the part plus an hour labor to install that FCP sells for $60 and which takes 15 minutes to replace), but my point is simply that owning FWD/AWD Volvos is no longer as simple and inexpensive as it used to be for someone who does not do his own work. Only part of the equation is that the newer cars seem to have numerically more, and more complicated, failures that often cannot be addressed by the shade-tree mechanic, even if he is a pretty decent wrench, which on the old RWD Volvos COULD be easily addressed.

Bob

 

You guys... I bought a Camry...let's move on. Thanks.

 

Glad you are done your whining, and thanks for letting the rest of know to stop as well, even if we haven't bought sensible Japanese cars yet.

 

Yeh Bob, but for us who r still owners of Volvos, let's all post in different forums about our problematic cars to let them know of our miseries esp. on the elec'l side(arrggg) and tranny on others. I have decided that this is gonna be my last Volvo. I'll stick to Toyota (we have 3 in the family and r almost trouble free) or Honda.

 

Listen Bob, don't be bitter. I wasn't wining, I was upset about my car and unsure what to do.