Ford vs. Aftermarket parts

How much is the Ford dealer charging to replace the heater core?

They are going to bang you hard on the heater core, i'd say $600+

i think book labor is 14 hours for a heater core. but if i were you i would call around to the local tranny shops and ask to talk to the trans builder. call cottmans and aamco's and local shops also. i know the builder at my shop could get it done probably 45 minutes and would throw a few more little tricks into the mix. just make sure you go the the shop that has an older builder....you dont want some greenhorn messing your **** up. we actually put a shift kit into every tranny that we build. of course its not a drag race shift kit but the cars leave shifting a little harder than they did from the factory. it makes them last longer...believe it or not

I work at a Ford dealer as a tech and I could say that as the dealer would love to make money on the job and help you out, lots of mustang owners can be a headache if something were to go wrong persay with their baby. Because they are not repairing a condition using a part Ford engineered they risk the chance of having to deal with the headache of an expensive aftermarket part going and having a real headache on their hands. The deal doesnt know if that simple shift kit is gonna cause some sort of problem no matter what it is and then have to deal with it later. Its much easier to jus deal with stock replacement parts. Although some Ford dealers are very performance oriented like Downs Ford for example. Dealers that carry a motorspots division are a good bet. My dealer has installed a paxton supercharger on a new 05 but that was more or less to get the new mustangs moving. For the shift kit you might have a good chance if you were gettin a tranny rebuild and you signed some kind of a waiver, and the dealer has a performance oriented tech in the shop which is common. My dealer has 3 of em including myself.

yeah, its like 13.5 hours or something to do a heater core. i did mine in 7 hours but that was the first time i had ever worked on a car and having to keep coming back to stangnet for help didnt make it any faster either.