Originally Posted By: Guitarhacker




Don't get me started on car service departments or most of the trades now.

I had an ignition coil go bad and a fuel pump that was intermittent. I honestly didn't feel like doing the repairs myself so I took it to the dealer. The dealer wanted $1500 for the ignition coil and $1300 for the fuel pump. They priced the coil over $100 and the pump at $500+. I decided to do the coil myself. Under $40 for the coil and 90 minutes total time including going to the store to get the coil. The pump, I had a local shop replace it. Total for the job was $425 and 3 hrs in the shop.


Here's the other side of the story:

Unless your car is has really low mileage, ignition coils don't typically commit suicide. They are murdered. The number one root cause of failed ignition coils is high resistance in the secondary. Usually badly worn spark plugs.

I can just about guarantee that it wasn't $1500 for one ignition coil. It was $1500 for all of them and the spark plugs too. A sizeable chunk of that might have been labor, too. Depending on what car you have, some of them are a real MF to get to.

No one in their right minds is going to be willing to replace just one coil because they are all the same age and have all been subject to the same abuse. And no one in their right minds is going to replace any coils without replacing the spark plugs too.

Anyone who does that is just asking for trouble. Because there is a high likelihood of another coil failing fairly soon. That and the worn spark plugs are liable to take out the new coil as well.

The shop has to protect themselves.

You're upset about the $1500 estimate? You're really going to be upset if they just chuck a coil in there and send you on your way and a month later your engine starts misfiring again because another coil bit the dust. You'll be back there in a heartbeat wanting them to fix it for free.

Either that or you'll go somewhere else and badmouth the first shop because they didn't fix your car right.

And on that I'd have to agree with you. They didn't. Because they didn't do the whole job.

So any shop with any sense is going to quote you the whole job and decline to do otherwise because they just don't want to deal with the headaches.

As far as parts costs, a Motorcraft ignition coil for my car costs $63.79 at one of my preferred vendors while you can get some bootleg aftermarket one for anywhere between $20 and $40.

There's a reason for that.

Aftermarket ignition parts are garbage. A crap shoot at best

If you chucked one bootleg coil at your car and got away with it then good for you but I'm not taking that risk and certainly not if I'm getting paid for it.

Byron Dickens

BIAB. CbB. Mixbus 32C 8 HP Envy. Intel core i7. 16GB RAM W10. Focusrite Scarlett 18i 20. Various instruments played with varying degrees of proficiency.

https://soundcloud.com/athanorsoundlabs