I Took My $200 Mercedes C43 AMG To The Dealer For An Estimate. Here's How Much They Want To Fix It.

[Music] today I'm in the garage with this my 1999 mercedes-benz C 43 AMG now I'll admit this car cosmetically it's in pretty rough shape but mechanically it's not all that bad it just needs a few repairs that are very common to this era Mercedes so I figured why not bring it to the mercedes-benz dealership for an estimate that's a good idea right and so that's exactly what I did I brought my c43 to the local mercedes-benz dealership for something that's called a pre-purchase inspection now this is an inspection that you would get if you were looking to say buy a used car and you wanted to know everything that's wrong with that car at the dealership they give you this it's a multi-point inspection form it's got a lot of boxes and it generally tells you the condition of your car now at some dealerships they give you a really cool pamphlet showing you pictures of all the parts on your car that need to be replaced and why actually really really cool them to do that at the end you get this a repair estimate and in this case a very large repair estimate they break it down line by line on exactly what needs to be done to your car and how much it costs so in this video we're gonna break down the cost of some of the repairs on this car I'm gonna show you what the dealership would charge I'm gonna show you what you could do this on your own for and then I'm gonna show you how much this would cost if you were to say pay a mechanic that works out of a garage like this one to do it for cash on the side as you can see behind me I have all the parts to fix up this car now I receive these parts from a really cool place called FCP euro it's an online part supplier for European cars and they sell everything on their website with a lifetime warranty it's completely insane this includes where items like brakes and clutches you could wear them out for many many years send them back in all ruined and worn out and they send you back a new part in exchange it's an unbelievable program something you're never gonna find really anywhere else and especially not at the dealership so definitely check out FCP euro the link will be in the description below along with a link to all the parts that I'll be replacing on the C 43 with all that being said let's get started under the hood let's take a look at the radiator and that's probably the biggest problem with this car right now is that it is leaking antifreeze and it honestly can't really be driven for that long like I said the radiator on this car is leaking and what happened was one of the previous owners replaced the fan clutch and they didn't properly secure the shroud which is normally around here I actually had to rip the shroud out just to get the car home as this wouldn't spin at all as all jammed up so what happened was it hit the shroud as you can see some of the fan blades are actually well pretty much all of them are broken and what happened was one of these eventually hit the radiator and you can kind of see down here that the radiator is leaking so basically what we need here is we need an entire new radiator we need a new fan we need a new fan clutch and we need a new shroud at the dealership this is fourteen hundred and fifty five dollars and forty eight cents sticking with the cooling system we have the thermostat on this car now not really sure of its age but the car has one hundred and seventy eight thousand miles so kind of like as a preventative measure I want to replace the thermostat so two hundred and thirty four bucks for a thermostat from the dealer up next we have a couple very common transmission leaks on this era Mercedes and they're coming from right here that's where the electrical connector plugs into the transmission there's a little sleeve with a couple of oring see that little yellow connector there and when that leaks it a leak both externally and more importantly the leak internally will go all the way through the wiring harness and the fluid will actually make its way to the control module right here fill this module up with fluid and then cause it to short out now this one is shifting just fine and I don't believe this module is bad so this can totally just be cleaned out and obviously the sleeve replaced and then our biggest transmission leak is coming from right back here where the shifter cable goes into the back of the trans there's a seal inside of there and look at all this fluid so that needs to be replaced and the pan does need to be dropped in order to do that repair so while you have the pan down and all the fluid out there's a part called a transmission conductor plate in here it sits on top of the valve body and it basically is a circuit board for the valve body that holds the shift solenoids they go bad a lot in these cars so while you're in there definitely something smart to replace so I had the dealership quote me on doing that both the leaks the fluid the filter the pan gasket everything for the dealership is 1778 plus tax next up we have the cheapest part on the list by far and that is a shifter bushing if you look at the shifter linkage there there's a bushing and a clip and then if you follow that linkage towards the front of the car it's pretty much impossible for me to get on camera there's another bushing just like that one it falls out and then your shifter sounds bad when you're going into gear just kind of clunks around so that needs to be replaced the dealership wants 4495 to replace the bushing in the clip up next we have one I don't really agree with and that is a power steering Li count clearly it is leaking pretty bad but the dealership quoted me for a brand new power steering pump and reservoir stating that it's the pump that's actually leaking so let me show you up top what's really leaking on this car and that would be right here that is the reservoir and in between the reservoir and the pump there is this this is a little tiny seal and that leaks it gets really hard and it starts to leak flue and it kind of looked like the pump but those always go bad so I would have definitely not quoted on the pump and the reservoir I think that's a little nuts but they wanted eleven hundred and forty-five dollars parts and labor to do this repair here we have the rear brakes the dealer is claiming that the pads are low and that the rotors are heavily rusted and need to be replaced they're not rusted at all not even the inside not even a little bit but regardless six hundred and eighty seven dollars rear pads and rotors from the dealer here we have the front pads and rotors now the dealer did not claim that these need to be replaced I just simply had them quote me on the front pads and rotors to give you guys an idea of a complete brake job they want fourteen hundred and eighty nine dollars for the front pads and rotors last up on the list is the rear differential they claim that the entire differential needs to be resealed although it looks to me just like a side seal and possibly a breather up top but either way they want twelve hundred and forty eight dollars to do this repair and I'll probably hold off on this for a little bit maybe do it over the winter time and that's everything that the Mercedes dealership found wrong with the c43 and exactly what they wanted to fix it all so let me fix this car up for you guys really quick and give you a breakdown in exactly what it cost to fix it the dealership do it yourself and what you could expect to pay someone on the side [Music] [Music] all right it's a couple days later in the c43 is all fixed up I'm cleaned up there's no parts on the table and this gave me a great opportunity to put together a very simple chart for all of you out there comparing the cost of the dealership doing it yourself and pain someone cash on the side now the first two very easy to figure out we simply go off of the repair estimate for the dealer cost and the DIY cost is just what you pay for the parts which I'll link everything down below so you can see that for yourself now the cash side job cost is a little bit tricky this depends on quite a few things but what I did was I simply pulled a few mechanics that live all around the country and do this type of work out of their garage and we came up with a figure of 75 dollars per hour now essentially what we did was we took the labor rate at a dealership in your area and we just cut it in half that's about what you should be paying a qualified technician to work on your car for cash on the side now this can go down drastically depending on who you're paying to work on your car but you've got to be very careful here because someone that doesn't know what they're doing can end up costing you way more than even the dealership so be very careful at the end of the video I'll go over briefly how you even find a guy like this that does work out of his garage so let's just get into it first repair radiator fan clutch fan blade and shroud dealership 1455 I did this all for three hundred and eighty five dollars the dealership calls for four hours of labor so times seventy five bucks we get six hundred and eighty five dollars cash side job moving along we have the transmission conductor plate the sleeve the interlock seal the fluid the filter everything out the door at the dealership 1787 I did this forget this two hundred and seventy seven dollars using a factory Mercedes conductor plate yeah it's that cheap now you figure the dealership quoted six hours of labor which i think is kind of high but for comparison's sake we'll use it multiply that by seventy-five and on the side this is a seven hundred and twenty seven dollar cash repair next up shifter bushing with the clip this is like eight bucks and parts you figure cash side job twenty dollars at the most maybe throw him a six-pack of beer it's pretty simple to do that then we have the power steering pump in the reservoir what if you remember wasn't even bad but for comparison sake let's just pretend it was DIY cost one hundred and seventy eight dollars for the pump and the reservoir and then you figure two hours of labor to do that so you're looking at three hundred and twenty eight dollars to do the entire power steering pump and reservoir repair also if you want to just look at what it really costs to fix the car it was just the seal the dealership would charge around one hundred and ninety for that seal the part is like six dollars so you're talking eighty one dollars on the side to actually fix what was wrong with the power steering moving along we got the rear brakes which I didn't do I'll do those a little bit later they're really not that bad six hundred and eighty-seven dollars at the dealership I can do this for a hundred and fifty four dollars out the door two hours of labor for the rear pads and rotors so three hundred and four dollars cash side job front pads and rotors very expensive at the dealer fourteen hundred and eighty nine dollars I could do this for four hundred and seventy six dollars and then you figure cash on the side six hundred and twenty-five dollars out the door compared to almost fifteen hundred that's that's quite the difference at the end here we have the differential resale the dealership wants twelve hundred and forty eight dollars I haven't done this yet I'll do it over the winter time DIY cost is like a hundred dollars these seals are very inexpensive if you replace all of them it's really cheap but it is labor intensive seven hours of labor times seventy-five bucks we're looking at six hundred and twenty five dollars for the rear differential reseal tally it all up and you're looking at a little over fifteen hundred dollars to do it yourself thirty three hundred dollars to pay someone cash on the side and that's comparing to the full $8,500 dealership estimate that includes the brakes and the differential and it includes the power steering pump and reservoir that isn't bad at all on this car so needless to say there is a ton of savings to be had out there and in a future video I'm gonna go over the pros and cons of going to the dealership where it's paying someone cash on the side and I'm also going to show you another option which is going to a good independent shop because there's a lot of money to be saved there as well but for now how do you even find a guy that does this type of work out of his garage well there's a couple different ways first things first talk to your neighbors the ones who have been around for a long time and who drive older cars it's a very good chance that one of knows of someone who works out of their garage secondly get online there's a ton of forums there's a ton of social media groups that cover basically every single make and model in existence join those groups join the forum's put up a post sating where you live in exactly what type of work you're looking for and chances are you'll get some people that'll comment with the mechanic that they use and make sure to get a ton of references meet the person trust your gut you want to be safe here and make sure that they've at least worked at a dealership or an independent shop in the past that you're getting good quality work done and that'll do it for today's video I really hope you enjoyed this one I plan on making more in the future with different makes and models and no I do not work out of my garage any longer I've retired from this kind of work my full-time job and having two babies and YouTube and I also write definitely has taken up all of my time but you can email me at legit street cars at gmail.com or follow and message me on instagram at legit street cars and I'll try and answer all of your questions you can send me an estimate I'll let you know if you're getting ripped off or not with all that being said if you're new please consider subscribing I'd absolutely love to have you know all my current subscribers thank you so much for watching the videos I hope you have a fantastic day and I'll see you in the next video [Music]

Channel: LegitStreetCars

Views: 166,926

Rating: 4.9047618 out of 5

Keywords: Mercedes Dealership, Dealer, Car Dealer, Dealer Estimate, DIY, Auto Repair, Car Repair, Save money, Mercedes-Benz, AMG, C43, Mechanic, Technician, Auto Tech, Dealer Tech, Broken Car, Service Center, Pre Purchase Inspection, Inspection, Cost Comparison, Dealership cost, European car repair, Stealership, Rip off, Legitstreetcars, Alex Palmeri, Scotty Kilmer, Chrisfix

Id: g7hThN66ejs

Length: 13min 47sec (827 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 19 2017