Thread: The LR service wood duck ripoff is alive and well

G'day Philip.
Your spot on mate,if your not a bit clued on with mechanical work there is a lot of places out there that will rip people off.Most places up here charge around $110 an hour,Tim out at LANDROVERS ONLY, charges $90 an hour.

And he is a bloody genius and does top notch work.I guess us blokes in Townsville are very lucky.

Hi Phillip, refilling the auto should be done by sitting under it whilst it is running on a level surface and the gear shift is worked then when oil is running out of the filler plug hole then it is full as per rave instructions. Never assume that x amount of litres came out and replace it with same amount of litres as if it is initially the wrong amount your only replicating it.

Rave has a section on repair times it quote the hours allowed for service times
So if it takes the mechanic less time he still charges the scheduled time, the list price of the service kit is pretty exxy, so if the mechanic like a lot do charge list price then the cost of service also goes up..

Thanks Mario, yes I always start it up , run through the gears then fill with the engine idling in neutral.
I must admit I may have been low in the past as this time there was nothing, nothing then a rush, as I presume it was pumped through the cooler. I don't recall this before, but it was not down that much.
Regards Philip A
The out/in check is just a double check.

I just had some auto transmission, engine and other work done and, while they had the auto open, got them to empty, clean, re-fill and replace the internal filter and generally service it. The cost for that bit of the job was $240.
I think one of the problems is that some workshops don't have much experience with Land Rovers, so they sometimes get it wrong when estimating how much work is actually involved. It may not be a deliberate rip-off, just a mistaken estimate of what is involved.

It may not be a deliberate rip-off, just a mistaken estimate of what is
involved.

This is a long standing Land Rover specialist who has mechanics who were previously dealer trained. They really know their stuff as they were able to ID the LT230 problem straight away and had worked out a fix . I am absolutely sure that they know what is involved.

Regards Philip A

Fair enough, they should know. Its not as if ZF gearboxes are unusual.

At least they did the work,I had a coaster bus that came back from being serviced with the same filters on it,I had my Hilux serviced with new filters but without the oil being changed,I was having lunch and the bloke I was working with had his wifes corolla stop at the same place with three mechanics from the dealership he dropped it off at that morning get out of it and buy their lunch,they were using it as their personal transport. Pat

You're pretty much spot on on what a trannie service should cost.

I had mine done last year at AMV in Ringwood, $370.

Unfortunately, mine just gave out recently (SOS - Blown Transmission in Shepparton) but that isn't the fault of AMV, the transmission appeared fine at the time and they didn't have the benefit of removing it to inspect it. If they had, they probably would have discovered the deliberately bent drive plate which was the main cause of the failure.