am i getting screwed around?

treedoc

NAXJA Forum User
Location
tennessee
i think i am. generally i do all my own work, but being busy and not a expert led me to take my '93 manual w/ chrysler 8.25 to a local shop with noise in the rear diff. i had diagnosed the trouble as a pinion bearing which they confirmed. i paid them $669 to replace carrier bearings, pinion bearings and seals, as well as axle bearings and seals. i thought it was a bit high, but i am a bit expensive as an arborist, so fair enough. 3 months/ 3k miles later noises from the rear. i drop it off with them. they are claiming that the spider gear is coming apart and that it needs to be completely regeared. the owners claim is that this problem is unrelated to the work his guy did, and wants $1000 for the work. help me understand guys, please.
 
Sounds crap to me.

They should have noticed the problem in the first place.

For way less thatn $1000, you could get a rear end from another jeep in a junkyard and put it in yourself.

Any mechanic buddies that could look at it for you?
 
holy crap, $1k for regearing? does that include lifetime BJ's?
Out here in CA regears cost about $250-$400, depending on where you go.
If you have the free time, drop your axel and take it in to a semi-truck repair shop, they do gearing for those big boys all day long, and your tiny 8.25 would take them about 3 hours.
And honestly... it sounds like that repair shop is seriously tugging on your ears and taking you for a hog wild ride. first the $700 for bearings and then $1k for regearing? come on... that's a lot. Might wanna look into the BBB (better business bueruea)
 
could the spider gears going bad be unrelated???--------yes

could the noise (maybe not the spiders) be related???-----yes

can you prove it???---------could be very difficult

was the original price high???------not really

is the new price high???-----------yeah they're trying to rape you

like KarlVP said, for a couple hundred you could get a complete junkyard axle and swap it in. most likely even yourself.

i would either recommend getting a second opinion and trying to make the first shop pay for the repairs, or going with a new axle for less than any of those quotes.
 
OMG yes, that's ridiculous. Gear labor for most folks is 250-400.00, i would pay no more. And not to restate the obvious, but you could have an new 8.25 or even a 44 under it in a matter of hours for less than 200 bucks. Not only would i NOT go back to them, i'd consider reporting them to the Better Business Bureau, they are way out of line. Changing that stuff takes all of 15 minutes, i've seen it done, and recently, at a Chrysler shop. Total time shouldn't be more than 2 hours and you are out of there. If the parts aren't 800.00 (which they are NOT), then they are obviously trying to bend you over. That's my 2 cents. I'm no expert, but i know for a fact that is too high lol.
 
Yea, i WATCHED my buddy, who works at Chrysler, do the exact same thing the other day to a big Ram 1500 truck. I know it didn't take him more than 15 min to take the tires off, pop the diff cover, get the axles out and take the whole carrier out, then pop off the pinion gear and he was checking the race out for the pinion, which turned out to be the problem. Now of course this was warranty work, but I have a big problem believing that this is over 500.00 worth of work. I hate to see anyone get ripped off, it just shouldn't happen. Best of luck with that man, I sure hope you get out of this having to pay only a few hundred bucks.
 
taking it apart definitely doesn't take long. hell it'll probably take me longer to take the tires off then it would to rip the axle apart. but if for any reason they have to set up the gears, then that's where it gets expensive. now if they are saying that your spider gears are making the noise, then that is only like a 1hour or less job to replace them, and there shouldn't be any reason to have to reset the gears to replace the spiders. so i'm thinking that either

1) maybe you misunderstood what they said is bad
2) they told you the wrong thing because the service writer has no clue what he is talking about (not uncommon)
3) the dealer spider gears cost $800 (hard to believe, but i haven't checked recently)
 
Hold on a second. I am about to put my 8.8 in and you can have my old one for 100. Don't know if it is an 8.25 or d35. Its in good shap, no noises, and will be ready in about 2 weeks.

I had that same problem when i was looking around to get my gears done. I ended up buying most of the stuff to do it myself and had a buddy of mine help. Doesn't really seem that hard but I have not had a chance to test my work yet.

oh yea, I live in around nashville

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