Amber Gramps

Peter,

Just for snits and jiblets.....What would this have cost in your shop say in 1985, 1995 and what would it cost today at a shop of the same quality?

theiceman

replace the limiter ..... no harm in doing this ..

Peter Zimmermann

douglas: I can't really remember the first time (probably early 90s) that we saw a failed speed limiter, but I do remember that it took hours to diagnose. We too, at that time, fell into the trap of trying to find something wrong with the factory alarm. We did all of the routine stuff, OXS relay, fuel pump relay, pin check at the Lambda ECU, spent too much time with the safety switch/harness, nothing made sense. After the car was fixed we had about 6-7 hours of diagnosis time, maybe more. The customer opted to not replace the black box, so we charged him two hours labor (probably at about $65/hr then) and sent him on his way. Today, with salaries the way they are, I would have probably had to charge more, and today my labor rate, in SoCal, would probably be in the $120-130/hr range. I hear stories about some shops doing biz right now that charge a tow-in fee, an initial look at it fee, a BS this fee and a BS that fee, none of which are waived when the final bill is added up. In this case a "look at it" fee would be part of the diagnosis, so it's actually a double charge. Pretty sad...