Hi all,

I just purchased a manual 2.7t a6 with 93k miles. It needs a timing belt, so I brought it in for service at a reputable local performance/tuning shop and was given the following estimates:

Timing Belt, water pump, etc. - 900

Serpentine Belt tensioner (if needed) - 100

Cam seals (or adjuster seals, or both, not exactly sure. He priced the work per head, but I guess both have leaks. I could smell the burning oil from the engine, so I somewhat expected an oil leak) - 700ish total

CV Boots - 500 (900 if the joints need to be replaced.) (This seems high; Do they really need to pull the axle for this? Can't you cut off the old boots and replace with boots that can be put around the joint without removing the whole axle? What are the chances that the joint is bad? Is this something that I can check fairly easily if I replace the boots myself?)

Wheel bearings on one wheel - (won't know the price until he pulls it all apart to do the CV Boots and confirms that its the wheel bearings making noise.)

Any opinions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Brian

 

I've got a 2000 audi a6 2.7t automatic and I had to get the water pump changed because it went bad and dumped all my coolant. But I had them change the timing belt while they were in there and it cost me about 600$.

But the 2nd half of the story goes like this. After I got the car back, a couple days later my car wouldnt turn over and didnt want to start at all, shipped it back to the same place that did my timing belt, turned out that a bolt "broke" on the timing belt causing it to break and ******* up the whole engine. Atleast the place covered the cost on fixing everything, not to mention it took them about 2 weeks to finish, on top of that i got the car back after those 2 weeks and the timing belt wasnt even timed right causing cylinder misfire codes so i had to bring it back to them for them to time it correctly

Moral of the story, maybe its worth it to pay the extra money to get a qualified and competant shop to do your ****.

Other than the water pump and the timing belt im not sure on the other work.

 

$900 is a good price for a timing belt and water pump job. Replacing the cam seals is not a $700 job if done with the timing belt job, but that's a great price if done standalone. For adjuster seals that is a flat out rip off (or he doesn't know the short cut).

Start your car and get it good and warm. Take a flashlight. Smell around for the burning oil then shine your flashlight in that area and look for smoke. If it is at the back of the head on the passenger side, it is the adjuster seal there. If it is at the back of the head driver's side, it is the cam seal there. If it is coming from the middle of the head either side it is the valve cover gaskets. If it just leaks oil, it is the cam seals and/or the adjuster on the driver's side. Most likely it is all of the above.

And, for all practical purposes, the axles have to come out to replace the boots. $500 is kinda high, but, again, he might not understand the short cuts (or, maybe he does!). Odds are the CV joint is fine and just the boot needs replacing. While he is in there have him look over all the control arms, which are also a failure item of the C5.

Good luck,

Bob

 

Thanks for the replies.

I authorized the timing belt/seals work already, so hopefully 1600 for the whole thing (assuming all the seals are bad) isn't too bad of a price. And I've only heard good things about the shop, so everything should be done right.

I looked up some additional information about the CV joints and it seems that most people estimate that to be a 1.5 hour job per boot with maybe $ 50 for a boot kit. At 500, that leaves a $133/hour labor rate which seems high. Additionally, the joints seem to go for 70-95 online(and the whole axle isn't much more) and there should be minimal or no additional labor from what I understand. The 400 jump to 900 seems a bit high too, when the parts don't cost that much and the amount of labor shouldn't change. I'm going to call around and get some estimates, as well as ask this shop to break out the parts/labor.

Any thoughts on how much the wheel bearing fix should cost if its broken?

Brian

 

$1600 for TB, seals , WP, and tensioners is about right for the dealer costs. you can find goo folks that will do it for $1,000 to $1,200 and less than $1,000 if your lucky.

The CV boot sounds expensive.. You can get a rebuilt axel (two new boots) for a bit over $100 and even if it costs $100 per hour and takes two hours to replace your only out $300 for the job. $500 is way too much for boots and $900 is robbery for CV joints. Yes the axel has to come out --

Doing the wheel bearing at the same time will save a bit of money--

 

Ditto to all of the above. TB etc. is good price, CV work seems pretty high.

 

I just had my front axle boots replaced at 159k for $300 total.

A TB kit with all parts is about $400 (check blauparts) and book labor is 6 hours x your mechanic's rate.

 

damn, i would have done everything for you for a 1,000.00

lol

makav3li is right, you'd be surprised at how many botch timing jobs i've had to redo for an independent shop

 

If you mechanic is a good guy than those are fair prices for good work. You have to let the guy make some money. The cam seals are a little high but if he's making a little extra he's less likely to take short cuts...If he's honest. The CV joints are a real messy job so even though they don't take too long it takes just as long to clean up the mess when your done and that's if you don't run into problems like frozen bolts etc.

 

Usually, only the outer CV joint boot fails and a good boot kit which includes the grease and all of the parts, such as the axle bolt and circlip is approximately $25. However, depending on which year and model A6 you have, the labor may vary to remove and reinstall the axle. On older cars the bolts are sometimes frozen by rust. Some of the bolts, such as the axle bolt, need to be replaced per the BentleyPublishers.com Audi shop manual.
I have only replaced one outer CV joint, because the previous owner or their mechanic had stripped the axle bolt hole threads in the CV joint before selling the car. The axle bolt must be torqued with a torque wrench and then tightened more as the Bentley specifies. The Bentley does not mention using a pneumatic impact wrench on the axle bolt, which may have stripped the threads.