Archived Need your input ASAP

[NHays]

I have the truck in shop right now. It had a stuck piston, and I was on the road. The shop wants to charge me $4000 labor $2300 parts and final stuff. The shop is Brattain International in Bend, OR. I need some input ASAP.



What is the flat rate for a rebuild. #6 piston,machine work (out of house) from shop. I need an hourly rate and time it takes to do the work.

 

[Whiskey]

It seems to me that you coould buy a complete engine for Less than that

whiskey

 

[moparguy]

Hate to hear about your bad luck. I can't help to much with the flat rate or shop labor rate, but I can tell you that my little bro and I did a ring job or a 2500 a few weeks ago and we had about 40 man hours labor in it. $75 to $100 per hour shop labor isn't unheard of in my neck of the woods for a major diesel shop. So your quote seems to be in the ball park.



On parts, if they do everything, all gaskets, 6 new pistons and bearings and use Cummins parts, again, sounds like the price is in line with what I found. If they are using non-Cummins parts, I'd look very carefully at their pricing. Non Cummins parts should be half that price or less.



Good luck, RR

 

[NHays]

Very irritating

Yeah if I had known it was going to be this much I would have towed my tuck from OR to OK and done the work myself. I am a pretty fair mechanic and have all tools and machine shop to do work. Oh I am ****** right now. Originally they quoted me 3900 to do everything. come to find out they have only machine one cylinder and replaced only one piston. that plus gaskets and a few odds and ends should not even be close to the $1600. 00 mark for parts. FP Diesel makes a whole kit for $657. 00. now the labor is what is getting me. at $75. 00 thats 53. 3333 hours, that seems a little much. I have done close to this job MYSELF and spent about 15-20 hours for everything. I can get a longblock for 4799 shipped. thats an ALL NEW engine. OH BOY. to have the schooling and the tools and knowhow, its like a slap in the face when something like this happens.

 

[R C Cola]

Engine

Sounds like it is too late to back out now. My old truck will need engine replace sometime and my plan is buy engine from rolled truck with less than 150k and replace entire unit. Good luck. R C

 

[NHays]

Yeah, timing sucked on this one. thanks for the info

 

[moparguy]

Sounds like they've already done most or all the work. If so, I don't see much room to work here. Might have a member that can interced on your behalf. Sometimes a heartfelt plea to the owner works to get a bit of the fluff off a bill. Might try threating to bring the wrath of the internet down on them. But really, most shops charge rates like that and companys/people in the trucking biz just accept it as the cost of being in business. Not happy about it but they pay up.



If on the other hand, they haven't done the work, prehaps just pulled the head, I'd say put er in the back boys, and arrange to get it back home.



Good luck, RR

 

[tkerrigan]

If it is just one piston stuck, I wonder if the piston squirter was plugged?