1500 USD for an alternator and new battery right?

[ikkaro]

Hi,

I had trouble starting my 02 Boxster S and after I "glided" the car to the nearest Porsche dealership (HBL Tyson's in Northern Virginia) and they took a look at the car, they told me that I would need to replace the alternator and the battery. The price for this, according to them, was 1500 USD, but it was my impression that this type of repair should hover around 400-500 USD.

Does anyone has any clue as to what is the acceptable price for this repair? The fact that this did not pass the smell test was compounded when all of the sudden they found a "nail" on my 20-day old tires, which were entirely fine when I turned the car in. Something is just a bit off...

Would appreciate any help,

RBG

[blinkwatt]

Buy a Boxster Bentley manual. $70
Buy a battery from Sam's Club. $85
Alternator from www.************************************************************ and D.I.Y. for $280 - $350(tiptronic - manual)

http://www.************************************************************/search/product.aspx?sid=fxzu3o55dqqkca4504u0ci2w&makeid=800019@Porsche&modelid=1388358@BOXSTER%20S&year=2001&cid=alternator@alternator&gid=2412@Alternator

[blueillusion97]

+1 for the above

But i got my alternator rebuilt for $150 and local napa store with life time waranty

[gstoli]

FYI, while browsing on ebay I found this
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Porsche-911-Boxster-Bosch-Alternator-97-2003-120-AMP_W0QQitemZ360029123874QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item3 60029123874
Remanufactured and with 90 days warranty for 139$. You might want to give it a try.
or this
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/1997-99-PORSCHE-BOXSTER-FACTORY-ALTERNATOR-120-AMP_W0QQitemZ320224120089QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item3 20224120089
or this
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/97-98-99-Porsche-911-Boxster-Alternator-58696A_W0QQitemZ320224597932QQcmdZViewItem?hash=it em320224597932

1500$ for an alternator???? Come on...
George

[steve00s]

The sad thing is that a lot of people just don't know any better and pay these kind of prices to the Porsche dealers. I think that it is a crime.

[Bob Z.]

I stopped by HBL when I lived in Maryland - some snotty folks at that time and they made it seem I was wasting their time. Regardless, that is way too much coin to fork over! And there are lots of independents in your area - I used to take my 930 to a shop in N. VA but I cannot recall who they were...great place though.

[racer_d]

Realize that a shop like HBL will use PORSCHE parts.. A porsche battery likely goes for double a normal "sears" battery if you will. Same with the Alternator. Then factor in the approx $100/hr labor charge.. Then consider that all of this work is done at "book rates" - not necessarily the actual amount of time a seasoned tech needs to perform said work. The book could say this is 8hrs of labor ($800) but it might only take someone 4hrs to do it.. hence a nice profit for the shop.

Does $1500 sound high? yes.. but did they give you the breakdown of how they got to that number? specific part costs and labor costs?

A new battery for a 6 year old car? yes that seems reasonable. I am suprised that the alternator is also an issue too... I have never had to replace an alternator in 20 years and 300,000 miles of driving history.

There are lots of "independant" shops nearby.. Intersport in McLean, ASG and IMA in Fairfax are 3 off the top of my head. I will say that most independant Porsche shops labor rates aren't much less than dealers these days. Shops like this also tend to get their parts from the Porsche network too, unless you specifically ask for something else to go in.

[Perfectlap]

^ this book rate issue really ticks me off. Who wrote this book...smurfs?
I could see Papa Smurf taking 30 minutes to change an O2 sensor, you know since he only has three digits per hand. But an eperienced, certified mechanic?
And it's not like you have a choice to not pay the book rate either.
INdependent shop near really aren't all that much cheaper than the local dealer and they refuse to install parts you provide. One guy wanted to charge me about 5X's per spark plug vs. what I found on Pap-parts or autohauz.
I mean c'mon I can see a marginal mark up but not enough to buy the product several times over.

[boxs2000]

My alternator went out about 2 years ago. When I called the dealer they wanted about 1300 for the job so the 1500 you were quoted was about right with a new battery. I still felt it was way too much. In researching the internet you can find a rebuilt alternator for about 200-250 not oe. An oe for a little more. I did find a tread on Renntech which they showed how to replace the voltage regulator, which is the common part that goes bad and not the whole alternator. I decided to give it a try, the voltage regulator cost me about 65 bucks and the labor took me about 4 hours and voila, that fixed it! I don't have the part number for the voltage regulator, but if you take the old one off the current alternator, you can take that part which is a Bosch part to the Mercedes Dealer and they can get it for you since its the same one as they MBZ, Audi and BMW uses. Porsche does not sell it because they want to to spend the 1500 or 750 buck that they charge to sell the part alone. The labor was not hard just time consuming because the bolts that hold the alternator in is hard to get to (so make sure you have many different socket extensions). Also if you decide to do it yourself, you may as well change the serpentine belt since you will need to remove it anyway. So with some elbow grease you can do the job for less than 100 bucks!

[Jeph]

Originally Posted by Perfectlap

^ this book rate issue really ticks me off. Who wrote this book...smurfs?
I could see Papa Smurf taking 30 minutes to change an O2 sensor, you know since he only has three digits per hand. But an eperienced, certified mechanic?

I don't know if I can agree with that. Papa Smurf seems more like the service adviser type. I see Handy Smurf doing all that actual labor. It was probably Brainy who wrote the book on rates.


(4 digits per hand)

[Benny986]

an OE bosch alternator for a manual box S should run you about 150. tiptronic is 350.

FWIW, the tiptronic alternator lists for $1,400. YIKES!

a good battery is another $100.

you should be able to change your own battery. as for the alternator, depends on how handy you are.