Gear install Seattle / Tacoma area

96SVTpilot · Mar 22, 2006

Can anyone recommend a reasonable shop to install gears? I called Brad's Custom Auto and they quoted me something like 400 for just labor. Seemed kinda steep to me.

thanks

codemonkey · Mar 23, 2006

Thats actually not bad for labor on that install if it's a quality job. Especially if that includes speedo gear and everything. Its not a fun job, I'm getting it done on my car right now, and I wont post what it's costing, but its in the ballpark. Still worth it to me to have it done right and better than me being under my car all day.

2004mysticobra · Mar 23, 2006

$400 for labor is just nuts imo.

fiveohwblow · Mar 23, 2006

Man, that makes me feel like I got a HECK of a deal.... $400 may be quality work, but I would hold off. I am sure you can get a deal elsewhere where they would do a good job for less... Just my .02 cents.

96SVTpilot · Mar 23, 2006

Thanks for the input. I'm pretty sure I would get a quality job there, but I still think 400 is still pretty steep. Thats what I would expect from a dealership, along with a tub of vaseline.

codemonkey · Mar 23, 2006

Man, that makes me feel like I got a HECK of a deal.... $400 may be quality work, but I would hold off. I am sure you can get a deal elsewhere where they would do a good job for less... Just my .02 cents.

Yeah but for me, there are certain things to save money on, and certain things to buy peace of mind on. If it is something that someone could mess up and make your car run bad, thats one thing. But someone screwing up your gears could mean major damage, and even an accident if it locks up for some reason. I can understand where you guys are coming from, but I've seen a lot of rear end jobs screwed up (mostly on trucks, but still) and I prefer to have someone who's done a lot of them do it.

Brad's might be charging a lot, but it's likely they've done hundreds of them, and will know the procedure by heart, as well as some "gotchas" that a regular mechanic wont know because he's never done a mustang diff.

You might get lucky, and most likely will with just a regular mechanic, but for me its just a peace of mind thing.

On a related note, I'm having 3.73s put in mine today. I would reccomend anyone with a fox to avoid the 4.10s. Great accleration, but shifting up to 4th gear in a residential area (and still doing the speed limit) gets pretty old after a while. Not to mention the extra rotation of the driveline seems to wear out u joints really fast. Just my two cents!

white 89 GT · Mar 23, 2006

2004mysticobra said:
$400 for labor is just nuts imo.

I agree, I will spend two days under the car for that much.

tsoccer3299 · Mar 23, 2006

yeah i need to get mine done too but can't fork out the $400 to get it done at Brads.

macjr · Mar 23, 2006

i know a couple of guys at my dealership that do gear installs on the side and do quallity work reasonable. one of the guys set up the 3.55 in my stang and no noise or whine from the . this guy has a 98 gt himself he stands behind his work. pm is interested. if u need another opinion of him ask cavallo he knows this guy also.

stock50LX · Mar 23, 2006

That is the kind of connection that will save you money. Labor is high in this area.

TheRedBlur · Mar 24, 2006

one my stang is running again, I wanna drop in 3.90

96SVTpilot · Mar 24, 2006

macjr said:
i know a couple of guys at my dealership that do gear installs on the side and do quallity work reasonable. one of the guys set up the 3.55 in my stang and no noise or whine from the . this guy has a 98 gt himself he stands behind his work. pm is interested. if u need another opinion of him ask cavallo he knows this guy also.

Thanks, I sent you a PM. It sounds like it might be close by since you are in Graham and I am in Spanaway. Where is the dealer at?

MikeStang00 · Mar 25, 2006

stock50LX said:
That is the kind of connection that will save you money. Labor is high in this area.

Labor is only high if you go to the "tuner" shops or stang shops.. where a mechinic works on one kind of car all the time and he and everyone else thinks he is a god becouse he can quickly get work done on the same car over and over again.. I would mention a few places where you can go but since most of the mods are buddie buddie with a few shops anytime its not brads or Rev or one of the good old boys club shops where mods are getting kicked down discounts for making sure noone else gets any referals, It just gets deleted like i am sure this will. So i wont even bother.. i have been trying to get ahold of Mike the guy who owns this site and get him involved in this situation but he has been out alot lately. Mabey if i can get ahold of him and let him know whats going on some of you will have the option of hearing about shops that DONT charge $80 to $100 an hour to install bolt on parts.
I might be heading down to the oregon area to introduce myself to some of these people at the meetups they have.

Anyway.. just look around a bit dont get suckered into thinking everyone charges those rediculas prices to do things.. and be aware that alot of people that work at these shops come here and will bad mouth every other shop.. IE.. they havent been around long.. we are the best blah blah blah..

MTMMAN · Mar 25, 2006

stock50LX said:
That is the kind of connection that will save you money. Labor is high in this area.

Labor is high in this area because cost of operating a shop is high. Its not cheap to run a business in WA state. WA is not friendly to business. Between taxes, insurance, utilities and paying your employees there isn't much left when its all done. For those who keep saying the local shops are expensive you haven't stepped into a dealer lately have you.
Several things to think about when getting work done.

Has the person doing the work done it before.
In the case of gears, is he just swapping the gears or really doing an install?
Will your speedo be correct after the install.
What kind of recourse will you have if the work is done wrong causing damage to your rear end.
Does the person working on your car have insurance if the car gets damaged.
People on this forum have had their cars at friends houses that burnt to the ground etc. They thought the person was covered. Nope and they were out of luck.

There are number of people around who do know what they're doing and work out of their homes. Thats why they can charge what they do. Low overhead. I love a good deal like the next guy, and I understand. Most of the good shops in the area aren't getting rich doing this type of work. People do this because they love it. Randy's Ring and Pinion is, but I will leave that alone. Look at the shops that have opened and closed over the years. Mike's Mustangs, Affordable Performance, Competition Development, Little Monsters(now called Marysville Speed and Custom) and the list goes on.
One final thought, use the search feature. This topic along with subframe connectors has been gone over time and time again.
Best of luck on your gears.

codemonkey · Mar 25, 2006

Labor is only high if you go to the "tuner" shops or stang shops.. where a mechinic works on one kind of car all the time and he and everyone else thinks he is a god becouse he can quickly get work done on the same car over and over again.. I would mention a few places where you can go but since most of the mods are buddie buddie with a few shops anytime its not brads or Rev or one of the good old boys club shops where mods are getting kicked down discounts for making sure noone else gets any referals, It just gets deleted like i am sure this will. So i wont even bother.. i have been trying to get ahold of Mike the guy who owns this site and get him involved in this situation but he has been out alot lately. Mabey if i can get ahold of him and let him know whats going on some of you will have the option of hearing about shops that DONT charge $80 to $100 an hour to install bolt on parts.
I might be heading down to the oregon area to introduce myself to some of these people at the meetups they have.

Anyway.. just look around a bit dont get suckered into thinking everyone charges those rediculas prices to do things.. and be aware that alot of people that work at these shops come here and will bad mouth every other shop.. IE.. they havent been around long.. we are the best blah blah blah..

I have never recieved reimbursement of any type from any shop, nor have I ever knocked Brad's or Rev. In fact, in this very thread I was defending the price Brad's wants to charge for this.

Shop rates are high because of the reasons MTMMAN already stated. If it weren't for unusually high overhead, they wouldnt be charging what they do. I'm not trying to be a jerk here, but this is also economics 101, basic Supply and demand. Some guy doing work on the side isn't going to charge what a bunch of competing shops will. And if the guy doing it on the side can do a good job, and you trust that work, you'll save money. It's that simple.

Accusing the shops of having backroom deals with deals with the moderators is ridiculous to say the least.

TheRedBlur · Mar 25, 2006

MTMMAN said:
Labor is high in this area because cost of operating a shop is high. Its not cheap to run a business in WA state. WA is not friendly to business. Between taxes, insurance, utilities and paying your employees there isn't much left when its all done. For those who keep saying the local shops are expensive you haven't stepped into a dealer lately have you.
Several things to think about when getting work done.

Has the person doing the work done it before.
In the case of gears, is he just swapping the gears or really doing an install?
Will your speedo be correct after the install.
What kind of recourse will you have if the work is done wrong causing damage to your rear end.
Does the person working on your car have insurance if the car gets damaged.
People on this forum have had their cars at friends houses that burnt to the ground etc. They thought the person was covered. Nope and they were out of luck.

There are number of people around who do know what they're doing and work out of their homes. Thats why they can charge what they do. Low overhead. I love a good deal like the next guy, and I understand. Most of the good shops in the area aren't getting rich doing this type of work. People do this because they love it. Randy's Ring and Pinion is, but I will leave that alone. Look at the shops that have opened and closed over the years. Mike's Mustangs, Affordable Performance, Competition Development, Little Monsters(now called Marysville Speed and Custom) and the list goes on.
One final thought, use the search feature. This topic along with subframe connectors has been gone over time and time again.
Best of luck on your gears.

hey matt, where should I get my subframes welded in?

macjr · Mar 26, 2006

i agree what others have to say about labor prices and it is hard to do business in washington state because of the restrictive laws and high overhead for everything and disposal costs. i do not get a kickback from the two techs that i referr stuff to i'm just trying to help them out. i know that money is tight and just trying to help out who i can. if you have any questions you are free to pm me and i will give you my cell number.

wythors · Mar 26, 2006

MikeStang00 said:
Labor is only high if you go to the "tuner" shops or stang shops.. where a mechinic works on one kind of car all the time and he and everyone else thinks he is a god becouse he can quickly get work done on the same car over and over again.. I would mention a few places where you can go but since most of the mods are buddie buddie with a few shops anytime its not brads or Rev or one of the good old boys club shops where mods are getting kicked down discounts for making sure noone else gets any referals, It just gets deleted like i am sure this will. So i wont even bother.. i have been trying to get ahold of Mike the guy who owns this site and get him involved in this situation but he has been out alot lately. Mabey if i can get ahold of him and let him know whats going on some of you will have the option of hearing about shops that DONT charge $80 to $100 an hour to install bolt on parts.
I might be heading down to the oregon area to introduce myself to some of these people at the meetups they have.

Anyway.. just look around a bit dont get suckered into thinking everyone charges those rediculas prices to do things.. and be aware that alot of people that work at these shops come here and will bad mouth every other shop.. IE.. they havent been around long.. we are the best blah blah blah..

That is the most patently absurd thing I have ever seen in this forum. It's not the moderators or employees that promote the places that have been around a while, it's their satisfied customers. You're trying to get a new business off the ground and badmouthing your competition is the worst thing you can do. You'll do nothing but alienate a lot of the people you're trying to attract. The reason I go to Brad's is that they do the job right, they have factory trained technicians and they stand behind their work. From what I've read of your posts on MustangLife, you sub out most, if not all, of your work to low ball, independent shops. That means two levels of crap to shovel through if there's a problem. If something is wrong with Brad's work (very rare in my experience) a call to Dane or Brad results in a "come right in" and it gets taken care of. If they were ripping people off, Brad wouldn't have been able to stay in business in a very competitive field for so long. With the ability of people to order Mustang parts over the internet and not have to pay sales tax the thing that keeps them coming back to the places you call "tuner" shops is knowledge, customer service and good installers. As far as I can tell, you have none of the first or the third at your shop and I don't intend to come to Tacoma to find out about the second.

yello05 · Mar 26, 2006

Well Said

duner · Mar 26, 2006

MikeStang00 gets the boot for making unfounded accusatory statements and thinly veiled personal threats aimed at the staff of this forum.

Gear install Seattle / Tacoma area

Member

Hungrymonkey's helper monkey

New Member

Official Member

Member

Hungrymonkey's helper monkey

Member

Member

New Member

Curmudgeon

Active Member

Member

Banned

New Member

Hungrymonkey's helper monkey

Active Member

New Member

Get off my lawn!!!

New Member

Mr. Warmth

Similar threads

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency