80,000 Mile Service
 

Decided to take the X in for indy service to have the valve cover gaskets replaced (right one was leaking oil), plug change, and oil change. A few additional parts were also replaced (o rings, etc) to a cost of $1300. Not too bad.

Dealer wanted $900 for the right valve cover and timing gasket.

Actual labor charged on valve cover gaskets (both) was $500.

X feels like it pulls SO much better. However, being that I normally drive my work 4cyl Equinox, anything feels better.

I'm betting it's the plug change that increased your butt dyno. I had my covers replaced recently too and didn't have any major difference.

That REALLY made my day to read that. I followed my Bentley manual, and an online tutorial linked here, and did the valve cover gaskets and plugs myself last week.

THANK YOU Xoutpost community for showing me it can be done without great difficulty!

Cost? About $300 including $164 for BMW plugs...everything from the dealer. Add $75 to that for the broken valve cover I had to get at a junkyard due to previous owner's crappy mechanic. So all told, $375.00...but no oil change in that sum.

butt dyno? maybe....but i'm sure gunky plugs decrease performance (although, i never saw what condition they were in).

The itemized break down went like this...using rounding....

Oil $70
Filter $20
Plugs $145
VC Gaskets (2) $180
O Rings (3) $20
Spark Plug Boot (8) $250
Seal $10
Guide Tube $30
Labor $500

I would have liked to have do it all myself.....I love to turn wrenches, but I have no time...and would have needed to buy a torque wrench (which isn't a bad thing and I'll probably buy one anyway at some point)

Were all the bolt seals included with the $180 for VG gaskets? They generally have to be purchased seperately. I hope so, as that's crazy expensive for those gaskets, especially if the seals did not come included. I paid $99.84 for these gasket AND all 22 seals from the dealer, (with a 10% BMW CCA discount), and that's more than you'd pay at mail order places, I just did not want to wait. You need 16 rubber seals for the VC nuts, and 6 for the VC bolts. I hope those got changed for your car. It's impossible to get precise torque on these VCs without new seals....and begging for another leak. Also, $250 for spark plug boots is highway robbery. These should cost less than HALF what you paid, assuming you needed them (or even got them,) at all. I think it's time to start questioning the honesty of this particular shop. $500 is not TOO bad for labor on this job, but even as an amatuer, I'd bet I could do these VCs now in under 3 hours now that I've done it once. I think this shop is padding a lot of prices in various areas, and in a big way, especially on some of the parts prices.

BTW, speaking of torque wrenches, I'd take a look at CDI. I used my Snap-on 1/4" Flex Head Digital Tech Wrench for this job which was perfect, but CDI makes these for Snap-on and their version can be had for about $100 less.

I do appreciate not having the time to do jobs yourself. Plenty of times, I have weighed what I would have to pay, vs. what my time is worth, and also what my free time is worth. But I do love to work on my cars. I'm just getting to the age where I don't enjoy working on my back on the floor anymore. There are other jobs that are just no fun, or there is no time.

But even if you want to pay someone to do the work, it's definately worth it to become an educated consumer, look up some prices on Realoem.com or elsewhere, and basically make sure you're not getting taken. You can look up the area of concern on this site's search function, and read up a bit.

Don't feel too bad about the cost... my Indy cost $1400 just for the VC gasket job. But I trust their work, and in some ways that is priceless.

I'm not feeling bad about the cost....the prices being charged for parts are in line with real oem and getbmwparts. I as well trust my indy and the shop is quite reputable. $500 for labor for the VC's, oil change, and plugs is fine for me. I'm happy they called and asked about the boots...it was my choice at that point to replace them or not.

No, they really are not in line. Between the boots and the gaskets you got overcharged by $200. That's $200 over dealership prices, not cheap mail order prices. You might want to bring that to the attention of your shop. Assuming they are honest, it means they either made a mistake, or they too are getting ripped off by whoever supplies the parts for them.

I think the price is inline with most BMW indy (talking about non-dealer but works only on BMW shop here), my indy shop quoted me around $900 for VC only, on my 4.4i. BTW I called two of BMW indy shops they are within $50 of each other, my research on pricing bring dealer to about 30-40% more. That's why I work on my car as much as I can.