Dealer prices!!

[superloopy]

Daughters C1 has just had its 'small' service. They flagged up a 'leaking water pump' at a cost to repair of £310 and 'perishing arb both bushes' at a cost of £199. Both seem laughable to me. Are these prices legit i wonder? ARB bushes are about a tenner a pair. Surely there's not £189 of labour involved. As for water pump, even a genuine cit is less than a third of the price quoted. It just enrages me! The car's a Citroen C1 if anyones interested in future categorising.

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[411514]

Certainly sounds too expensive, although probably par for the course with a dealer. I guess it is also worth noting the difference between 'perished' bushes and 'perishing' bushes. Being cynical, a brand new bush sat on a shelf is 'perishing'. I wouldn't be at all surprised if there is nothing wrong with the bushes. I am not familiar with the C1, but with most cars one would need to remove the timing belt covers to detect anything but the most catastrophic leak from the water pump. Assuming that they haven't done this, either they are lying about the leak, or the leak is indeed very bad.

[GiveMeABreak]

Everything in there is so tight, I expect it's the labour. Officially, Citroën quote fixed price repairs on their website with all in pricing. I think timing belt change is from £199 ish from memory, but our C3 1.6 HDI is in the dealer on Monday for the age related timing belt change (as only some abot 40k) and its nearly 10 years old. We're not expecting much change from £500, as of course hey are doing the water pump too. So with a bit of reduction in labour, that wouldn't be too far off the £300 for the water pump alone. It's getting to the thing and on these I think the engine has to be lifted off the mount to get at it.

[RichardW]

Pretty sure the C1 has a timing chain, and therefore the W-P is presumably driven off an Aux belt (or is it electric?).

Timing belt kit from Cit for the 1.6 HDi is about £150, I think it's 4 hours book time, so with the coolant, you are probably not far off with your £500 est Marc! Got to do my 307 later in the year - will probably go for the 'lower cost' kit from Pug, which is <£100.

[Peter.N.]

The day I have to pay those prices will probably be the one when I give up driving.

Peter

[Richard_C]

I have had a 3 year old C1 for a few months*, been looking at the C1 owners club forum which is, dare I say, less 'mature' that FCF, innit. They almost have cult status like VW Beetles did. There is a linked City Bug Store which I see has water pumps for £47 ish. I ordered a rear wiper and a pollen filter from them and it was fine.

There are enthusiastic members in Eastern Europe who post some really good you tube content, here is the one on water pump:


Not an engine out job, a bumper off job and the way they are fitted its easy. Well designed, plastic comes off, lights apart from LED DRLs, stay put. If I had to do one I would tackle it myself, but a decent indie should be able to do it for you. Some members say that Toyota parts are much cheaper than Citroen for the same thing but not tested that out yet. "You go your way, Aygo mine", to channel the inner Dylan.

It should be fairly easy to see the water leak for yourself if you watch the video and then park with NS front wheel on a kerb. I have started to use my mobile phone in 'selfie' mode as a sort of mirror for peering at things.

* we live in a village with no public transport so its for local trips and for when the student offspring are home. Haven't quite worked out whether I love it or hate it yet.

[superloopy]

This little petrol C1 has a timing chain and from what i can see theres next to nothing in there. The pump is in full view, 5 bolts by the look of it. I'd diy it but she's a teacher and needs car for the 40+ daily roundtrip. Guessing it'll have to be done next half term (easter?) by local indie if i can gather the bits together. Seen an Aisin pump kit for £66. Think they are oem? Any comments on arb pricing. At nigh on £200 to change a pair of bushes!

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[RichardW]

Water pump is £103 from Cit, book only 1.2 hours, they are taking the Michael at £300!!

They're deffo taking the mick on the roll bar - the bushes are only £1.60 each, and although the official procedure is to remove the roll bar (the first operation of which is to remove the steering gear!), I imagine you could do it by taking the bracket off and then levering the bar up enough to get the bush in and out - although they are on top of the subframe, so perhaps the steering gear gets in the way.

[white exec]

If those roll-bar bushes are Toyota-originated, I have really bad experience with these - short life, and go sloppy and clonky. RAV went through two sets of them before I replaced them with polyurethane bushes, then no more problems. These are really high-quality products. Fit them with a smear of silicone grease inside.

Try looking at superpro.eu.com. If C1/Aygo not listed, if you have the bush dimensions, you'll find universal shouldered ARB bushes in their catalogue, of various dimensions, which fit under the standard U-clamps/trunnions.

[daviemck2006]

I'm on the C1OC. I will never again order or buy anything from their store again. There are hundreds of instances of folk ordering stuff off there then not getting their stuff as the guy dosent keep stock, once you order and pay then he orders from citroen dealers. You think he is selling stuff he has but then you have to wait months to get it. Then if you have the audacity to say anything on the forum you get all sorts of threats from the admin by pm. Then it is full of young chavs mostly trying to put on exhausts and induction kits then claiming their extra 2 bhp makes their cars faster than audis and beemers on the motorway. I go on to it about once a year now.

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[Richard_C]

I did say

which is, dare I say, less 'mature' that FCF,

I agree there is a lot of immature comment about how fast you can make one go and my visits are increasingly rare. But there is a whole series of very useful you tube videos (nothing to do with C1OC), first one I found via a link from there, mainly originating from Eastern Europe. A you tube search finds loads of stuff. With any new (to me) car I read anything I can find just to get to understand it all. Would rather watch a video of someone taking front bumper off a C1 than " I'm a celebrity bake me a dancing cake " or whatever.

My buying experience was fine, but they were consumables and the pollen filter was about half of even Euro Carparts price. Total order only about £15 so I thought I would take a punt, not much to lose.

I heed your warning though, maybe best avoided for bigger items.

[daviemck2006]

He is OK for service kits because they are generic items, and from what I heard clutches. My own experience was a passenger door courtesy light switch, ordered and paid for, 4 months later still not received or refund offered despite several emails. He blamed a citroen dealers, I had got one from Toyota off the shelf. It was not a lot of money, but the principle of it and the guys attitude and the forums main admin at the time really passed me off.

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[Zelandeth]

Sounds about right for main dealer prices - when I first got my Pug 107, they charged me £269 to change the oil, oil filter, pollen filter* and do a "visual inspection" of the car**.

* Not actually changed as it turned out.
** Where they completely missed the ABS light being on and the os indicator repeaters being full of water - both issues I'd asked to be checked.

They ended up charging me £15 to change the repeater in question because it was "wear and tear" and therefore not covered under warranty... Seriously, they car was a year old and had done less than 4000 miles by then...

Not surprised that chain went belly up shortly after...

[superloopy]

I'm going to ring around a couple of 'other' dealers for pricing cos the pump IS leaking slightly.

I can source an Aisin set, including bolts and gasket for £66, it'll need an alternator belt at around £15 as well as new coolant so am guesing a kit price for an indie would round out at about £100 plus labour so maybe I can find a dealer who needs a bit of work cos it's quiet

[van ordinaire]

No idea of dealer's price for a C15 belt ('cos once you get into £100's, it's another van time) BUT, f-w-i-w, my kit: both belts, WP, both idlers + 1 bolt, was about £60,65 & it's "Continental" - so hardly rubbish!