Re: Frustrated with McCoy Freightliner...
Brought my 2008 Sprinter in for it's 20,000 mile service work into McCoy on Friday.
They did an oil change/fuel filter change and checked any codes along with seeing of they can diagnose my intermittent key not starting the van issue.
I picked up the van later that day.
20 miles later, my CEL comes on.
I haven't had a CEL in probably a year or so.
I called them up and they said bring it in so they can check it.
I bring it in the next day, and they want to charge me $130 labor + $30 for them to hook it up to the machine.
Huh?
Maybe it's a coincidence that this CEL light came on, but I think that it is something on their part to create this and I shouldn't have to spend any money to have them look at what the code is.
Does that seem fair?
I have had some many customer complaints about diagnostic charges that the basic scan charge is built into the charge out rate.
In today's repair environment, even resetting the ASSYST on an MB product really demands a scanner; other brands are likewise equipped.
Every vehicle that comes in the shop has the scanner hooked up to it even for a quickie looksee. All info is recorded and logged to the J/C.
The only time a scanner charge is added is prolonged diagnostic equipment use and tech billable time to run down a problem.
One general problem is time spent on the job.
1) There is usually a fixed time for the repair task. Example EGR valve replacement on a 903 (NCV3)
The job calls for 3 hours. In many cases the valve can be extracted and a new one installed in about 0.5 hours. The rest of the time is spend verifying the valve works, the harness etc is OK and then comes the drive cycle road test to see if it is being commanded properly and looking to see if there isn't an underlying problem like a overly sooted up DEF system.
In short there goes an hour on the back side of the job--Us cabbing about in your vehicle going through drive cycles looking at live data.
With billable shop time on one side, and customer concerns about that bill on the other, the job in abstract get squeezed and people cut corners only to find that the CEL comes back on after a drive cycle in you the customer hands. One big issue is the customer impatient to get it back on the road!
In fact we had one just like that only the other day!
A 2012 NCV3 came in having been diagnosed with a bad EGR unit by a Mid West MB dealer. A scan confirmed that defect. We installed it and tested it --worked fine! Next day it was back for some unrelated issue then yes there was the CEL on again!
A quick rescan shows ADBLUE adaption out of whack, was it related to the EGR--who knows? It was working to spec the day before with no pending codes now its not! Now some extended use has thrown a code
In that case it was a simple re-adaption exercise no cause for a diagnostic charge. Most dealers I know would have charged for that.
I suppose the general posture about CEL's and emissions related issues basically hark back to time spent on the job and billable hours.
2) Nothing to do with Diesel Sprinters specifically, but using the gasoline vehicle as an example the vehicle must be driven through the drive cycle to close what are called monitors. Some monitors will close themselves, others need to be driven through the drive cycles, & some can be forced to close by scanner. The only way to verify if the repair is "good" is to to a cold overnight soak and restart.
Now doing a gasoline E failure comes out to around $800 (shop average ) to get it into compliance on I/M 240 regs.
BUT due to local/State and sometimes Fed new rules the OBD2 monitors must be closed at the time of the E test (in Colorado as of Jan 1 2015).
This in effect means much more time on the job to make sure ALL the monitors are closed. That means the customer is VOR'd for another day to go through all the drive cycles AND cold soaks to ensure the fix was right!
In consequence the job cost is going to go skywards; I bet my average charge out for a new E test compliance in 2015 with get close to $2000, with the customer previously electing not to do that vital repair to close a monitor like secondary evaps ; now he has little choice.
I suppose it back to what is fair and reasonable but that commodity is in short supply these days.
Dennis