# Ripped off? Idler pulley/belt labor question



## Rover (Aug 13, 2010)

A mechanic buddy of a friend of mine (acquaintance to me) offered to replace my girlfriends idler pulley and belts on her Altima 3.5 as it's squealing quite a bit. Told me he's going to give me a great deal because we're somewhat friends. He's a mechanic who recently lost his job (admittedly his own fault but he didn't elaborate) so told him to go for it as my buddy vouched for him.

He did it, and now wants to charge $160 labor in addition to the the pulley and belts, which she already paid for. I can't imagine that being more than an hour job. 

In addition to that, I recently bought a Land Rover Series II that me and my buddy had discussed him looking at. Saturday he called me asking if he could come take a look at it and try to get it running. Turns out he tacked on another $160 for three hours of his time to tell me it needs a new wiring harness and starter, which I would have easily figured out once I got a chance to tear into it. Basic math tells me he figured his time is worth roughly $50 an hour, so he's charging for 3 hours worth of work on my girlfriends car. 

My buddies ticked as well, since he vouched for the guy, now I'm thinking his "great deal" isn't so great. He did other things like rotate the tires, tighten a loose heat shield, check refrigerant, try to diagnose a check engine light etc. which we never told him to do and insists he did that for free. 

So what kind of labor would I expect to pay for a dealer to install belts and idler pulley? I want to have some numbers to confront him with.


Thanks for any info.


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## lilfoo22 (Mar 22, 2010)

sounds like a good deal to me.


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## jshrop (Aug 13, 2010)

I just actually replaced the idler pulley on my 98 Altima this past weekend, and I have never made a living as a mechanic, but I am a pretty handy guy. Anyway, it took me all of an hour to do this, but part of that time was spent trying to make sure that taking off the motor mount was the only way the pulley can come off. If I had known going in just to take the motor mount off and jack of that side of the engine from the get go, I can't see it having taken more than 30 mins. 

Not sure what to say about the Land Rover, but as for the work on the Nissan, no way would it take even a rookie mechanic more than an hour, which would be a minimum at most shops.


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## Paul79UF (Jan 23, 2003)

Doesn't sound like a great deal.

If he had done the troubleshooting on the Land Rover for free and then only asked for the $160 for the Altima, that would be a "good" deal.


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