Is Repair Shop Scamming my Elderly Mother?

[MWave]

Hello all,

My 76 year old mother recently brought her 1996 Jeep Cherokee in to diagnose and repair a stalling issue (and a weak A/C). This resulted in the replacement of her crank shaft position sensor, which did resolve the stalling problem. However...

She was charged for two hours of labor for a procedure that I've watched someone do on YouTube, in almost real time, in less than 5 minutes. When I asked the shop to breakdown the cost they said 30 minutes was replacing the sensor ($65.00), and one hour was to perform a "cam/crank sync procedure" (which I thought was a standard part of the install process).

Is 30 minutes to swap a crank shaft position sensor reasonable? If not, what is?

Is 60 minutes to perform a sync procedure reasonable? If not, what is?

Also, she has a $50 "shop charge" on her invoice, which the shop told her was for "rags, sprays, paper, ink, etc.". A couple 50 cent rags, a shot of WD-40 on the sensor bolts, and the page and ink for our invoice… that's less than a buck-fifty. And I've never seen a "shop charge" of more than $9.00.

What else are we missing?

What is a reasonable "shop charge"?

Finally, they said her A/C was "slightly low" in Freon (actually says this on the invoice). After charging her $182.00 for 1.4 hours, they now claim they had to completely "evacuate" the A/C and then completely recharge it (using 1 lb. of R-134a).

Is it really necessary to completely change out all of the Freon in an A/C that is slightly low?

If so, if 1.4 hours a reasonable amount of time to do this?

And now the A/C pulls a negative charge on the battery making it virtually useless. I've heard this is a symptom of overcharging. Is that true?

Before pursuing this with the BBB and perhaps even in Small Claims court, I really want to be sure I have a legitimate issue here. Or, am I just being overly protective of my mom?

Thanks. I appreciator your feedback.

Len Clements
Las Vegas, NV

 

[MEP001]

This really isn't the right forum for your question. That being said:

Shops charge what they charge. Unless they're charging people like your elderly mother more than they're charging others, then they are doing nothing wrong. They go by a book that lists how long jobs will take, which is usually way over-estimated, but it's just how they do it. Years ago, my mother was billed $400 ($200 for the motor and four hours labor) by the dealer for a blower motor for her Regal that took me literally 45 seconds with a cordless screwdriver to change again later and cost $12 from Auto Zone.

Bottom line is, either find a shade-tree mechanic that charges by how long the job actually takes to do, or do it yourself with the information you obtained via the YouTube video.

As far as the AC problem, no, it's not indicative of being overcharged. All that will do is cause the high-pressure switch to trip and shut the AC off. If it has electric fans that come on with the AC and the voltage drops below 12.6V when it does, the alternator is bad.