Dealer price gouging?

WOW, Pug, you are one great mechanic. If I see right, you are able to monitor the forum and turn wrenches at the same.......

DK35vince said:

How often does an Intek need the valves adjusted ?
How many hours did a homeowner put on in 3 years ?
My Kawasaki engine calls for valve adjustment every 300 hours, the previous Kawasaki on my FasTrak called for every 250 hours.
Takes me 4 or 5 years as a homeowner to put on that many hours

Click to expand...

The 3 year old Kawakasi had a little under 200 hours on it but never got the essential 50 hr first dealer service.
This is the one where everything gets adjusted to it's normal operational specifications having settled in.
It is also when things not tightened properly at the factory get sorted out.
Around here it is a bit like California 4 months of weekly or less mowing 2 months either side of weekly to fortnightly mowing and the last 4 months every 2nd to 3rd week.
No such thing as an off season .
50 to 100 hours / year is about average.

Inteks neede valve adjustment every service for the first 2 years then at about 2 year intervals.
You don't need to pull the covers off because you can hear when they are too big or too tight way before the engine will not crank due to excessive valve clearences.

Your Kawakasi calls for an adjustment at the first service which should be 50 hours.
The valves are held in position by a pip cast into the head floor and a single bolt.
This single bolt needs to the retorqued after the engine has run for a while.
If not, it may come loose allow the housing to twist slightly snapping off the pip and rendering the head scrap.
And yes you can machine it flat and press in a pin, I have done this a few times but the labour ends up at 3-4 hours, do it wrong & you have stuffed the head and a new head costs about 4 hours with no chance of me making things worse.

Courage engine develope the "Kohler Krack" opposite the exhaust cam which will eventually go all the way down to the front right mounting bolt just before the engine explodes.
Caught at 1" or less you can weld it up. One over that length it is beyond gas welding due to heat distortion and to electric weld you need to remove the engine , fully disssasemble the engine then degrease the cases thoroughly , weld the crack , machine the lip , check for distortion and reassemble the engine with a full set of new seals & gaskets by which time the bill has exceeded a new engine cost.

These are the sorts of things service technicians should know and check for. And there are a lot lot more. Each engine has a unique failure point that needs to be monitored.

Rivets said:

You don't give us the exact model numbers for the unit or engine, so I am making some assumptions as to parts. You must have a copy of the bill, breaking down parts and labor. Here is how I see it, realize that my labor rate is just a guess for your area. Three blades would cost $20-30. Air filter would be $25-40. Oil filter would be $10-15. Two quarts of oil would be $3.50-5.00 qt. Forty five minutes of labor at $100/hr. Parts would be $102-155. Differences in prices depends on exact part and whether OEM or aftermarket parts are used. Labor would be $75. Using this figures gives us a total bill of $177-230+ tax. Doesn't really look that far out of line. I used forty five minutes because you would have to be a great mechanic and everything would have to go perfectly to get done in thirty minutes. I'll bet it took them close to an hour to do the job. As IL said, I'll bet if they are a good shop they did a quick once over, plus scraped the deck before installing new blades. If you do it yourself, time it. This might be the way it goes. Start timer. 1. Starter unit and bring to the garage. 2. While warming up the engine, gather all your needed tools and parts in a neutral area. 2. Engine warm, bring in unit and drain oil. While oil is draining, remove and replace oil and air filters. 3. Fill with fresh oil and run, then double check and top off. 4. Get out the jack and raise the unit. 5. Remove the blades (hope you have air tools or a good electric impact as those nuts are on tight) and clean the underside of the deck. 6. Install new blades and grease spindles. Stop the timer. Do you still feel that you could do it in less than 30 minutes. Now let's include things I did not include in the timed sequence. Taking the time to look up parts and getting them from stock. Taking extra time to double check my work, so I'm sure it is done right. Moving your piece of equipment out of and back to holding area. Time needed to right up the work order. Always giving the unit a quick safety and defective part checkover. I have to protect myself from the guy who had his unit in for an engine tune-up and two weeks later has a drive belt break, then claiming I should have seen it was bad. Again, I say these are just guesses as I am not in your area, but at least now you can see the work order from the dealers side of view. Did he overcharge you? Only you can decide that after reviewing your bill and what I just posted.

Click to expand...

Measuring the clearence to ensure the spindle is not bent or housing cacked under the 1/2" of caked & baked on dirt & debris then checking the blades are spinning true.
Followed by checking and adjusting the deck because no matter what you do the new blades never seem to align properly.
Checking the balance of the new blades before you fit them.

bassadict69 said:

Thanks guys! As long as it looks close, I am good with it!

I can definitely buy the parts cheaper online and do myself and save most of that money, but that extra time is hard to find!

I have not picked up the mower yet, as I am stuck working all weekend. I will post the itemized list, probably Monday.

Click to expand...

But can you ?
Or are you buying inferior copy parts sold only on line & particularly on evilbay.
An internet retailer can always be cheaper than a shop front due to the fixed costs of actually running the business and that is assuming they are buying quality parts & not Chineese knock offs.
I buy a lot of parts from Jacks.
They get my money, then place an order on their supplier then post the parts to me and 30 days or so latter , pay the supplier for the parts with my money that has been sitting in their bank for a month or so.
I buy parts for stock from my supplier , pay for them 30 days latter then when needed fit them to a customers mower & they pay me when I am finished.
Thus in order to have a turnover of 1 week or less I need to carry $ 150,000 in parts on my shelf.
Thus the price the customer pays for these parts reflects the fact that I could have made significantly more money on that $ 150,000.
By the time I get the inventory to the level sufficiant to be able to turn around all my existing customers mowers in 1 day the parts inventory will be near $ 250,000.
And we are talking only about the actual parts that are needed for existing customers mowers ( I buy double every time I need a part that is not in stock )
There is over 1000 different belts alone, if one was to keep one only of each you are looking at $ 50,000 min. And I need a weeks supply so par stock on some common belts is 5
About 600 diferent blades which would go to around $ 15,000. Again most common AYP blades, par stock is 5 sets.
I need to keep 16 different grades of oil, 25 different oil filers, 300+ air filters many of which I have to buy by the box full.
So my parts are usully more expensive than on line shops.
I do occasionally fit parts the customer supplies with a written & signed disclaimer that I will not be liable for damages if the parts fail in service.
When confronted by this document , most of the cheapskates shrivel away & either fit them themselves or renig and allow me to fit my parts that carry insurance with them.

Who will you sue if the blade breaks when you hit a rock , goes flying across the road and hits a passing car/ person/ animal , knocks a hole in your window/wall /car? slim chances , but always possible.
Or if the $ 5.00 Chineese chain breaks, wraps around the limb you are trimming then takes a sizable amount of your anatomy with it ?

And when you buy on line remember there is time involved in finding the correct parts & placing the order. Time is money and some one has to pay for that time.

bertsmobile1 said:

Your Kawakasi calls for an adjustment at the first service which should be 50 hours.

Click to expand...

I can't find that mentioned anywhere in my owners manual or service manual. (I have a Kawasaki FX 1000v.)
It says oil and filter change after the first 8 hours, then every 100 hours.
Transmission oil and filter at 50 hours, then every 500 hours.
Valve adjustment every 300 hours

Rivets said:

WOW, Pug, you are one great mechanic. If I see right, you are able to monitor the forum and turn wrenches at the same.......

Click to expand...

No not me rivets, iv not got the time to have over 6000 posts ☺

Rivets said:

WOW, Pug, you are one great mechanic. If I see right, you are able to monitor the forum and turn wrenches at the same.......

Click to expand...

I see a lot of this on this forum and wonder this myself. Yes as for myself I do have a lot of time to play with the forum being retired. Now when I was making a living turning wrenches there wasn't computers to even monitor. Most of my working years I always had a full time job with part time repairs at my home shop and then I was working on my big boy toys in between. I would of never had time for computer monitoring in my younger years.

I'm just a paranoid troll who works part time (less than forty hours per week if I'm lucky). This gives me plenty of time to be a troublemaker and play around on this forum. Read my signature and don't take me seriously, as I just want to increase my numbers.

I refuse to buy cheapo parts when ordering online. I also use JacksSmall engines for quite a few parts, but will shop around to get best price for brand name stuff, including the best shipping deal.

With the rain we are getting today, I think I will wait until later in the week to pick up the mower. The rain may not hurt it, but don't want to take the chance...I am just quirky like that!

bassadict69 said:

I refuse to buy cheapo parts when ordering online. I also use JacksSmall engines for quite a few parts, but will shop around to get best price for brand name stuff, including the best shipping deal.

With the rain we are getting today, I think I will wait until later in the week to pick up the mower. The rain may not hurt it, but don't want to take the chance...I am just quirky like that!

Click to expand...

I buy a lot of my parts from Jacks. OEM parts and fast delivery on most of their parts but not all. Seeing you must buy a lot of parts, Jacks will give you better prices if you open a commercial account with them. Seeing I am doing customer work fast delivery and OEM parts means a lot more to me then cheap parts, don't want to spend a lot of time shopping for price.