I've been ripped off, the question is how badly?
 

The job: Replacement of fuel pump and fuel filter.
The bill: $800.-

The shop refused to give me a bill separated in parts and labor. On my insisting they said verbally 4 hours of labor and did not show my old parts.

How badly was I ripped off?

was the work already done? i don't know if your w124 is set up the same way as my w126 put it should not take 4 hours to replace the fuel pumps and filter (on a w126). now the fuel pumps are a little pricey (bosch around $300 for the set i think). i would def. find another shop for future work.

edit: sorry just now saw it's a 96 E320, no idea how the setup is on those

Before things go much farther, post details on the car, we are just making a guess that it is the one in your sig.

Did they do any diagnostic testing?

Did they do any other work?

Did they give you any receipt? ( If not and they charged tax they may run afoul with the state. If they did give a receipt, post it _exactly_ as written. )

Any chance the person giving you the bill was running they own repair while the shop owner was away? ( In this case it isn't the shops fault, rather the employees fault. )

no more than an hour job when its on the rack.

Yes it was my 1996 E320. I was back from shopping then on the parking lot the engine cranked but wouldn't turn over. I had the car towed to the local shop, where I had had small things done like oil change or tire mounting.

I don't think that I can legally go against them since I had approved the job.
In hindsight I knew that they ripped me off but then too late, lesson learnt.

Thanks for all inputs!

Here is the shop to stay away from

David's Automotive Repair
4915 Branch Hollow Dr.
The Colony, TX 75056

Yes, it was my 1996 E320 W210.
I did talk to the owner himself, here is the bill:

http://i787.photobucket.com/albums/y...car_repair.jpg

no tax? did he work out a price with you or something?
sure did get ripped a bit though..

also another question, how does your 210 compare to the 124s

According to that they did the pump too... the pump isn't the cheapest part.

Is the pump in the tank on that model? I have heard from other makes when they go bad it is quite a pricey endeavor to get it repaired.

I forgot to mention that I came to the shop at 1pm to approve the job and at 3pm got a call from them saying the car was ready for pick-up. So there was no way that 4 hours have been working on the car, unless 2 hours were spent on finding the cause of the defect.

Ha! I had a thief do the same thing to me. I let him install new motor mounts in my car. He called an hour and 15 minutes later and said the car was done. He charged me for 2 hours labor and said with a straight face "that's actually how long it took me." It actually took him less than 45 minutes because I watched from a distance until he brought my car into the shop. That took 30 minutes. I just shook my head and paid the idiot.

Anyway, I say they got you good. Real good.

shops always go by how long the book says itl take them. the book usually has very liberal amount of time it might say something takes a hour of labor when it really takes someone 10 minutes lol it sux but thats just the way most shops run

Not hard to figure out....why dont you look up the cost for the parts online and then subtract that from what you paid and whatever is left over assume that was labor.

Like the others said, it's not a big job to replace the fuel pump (s) on our cars, unless it's an in-tank job. My fuel pump took about 45 minutes from start to finish and made an immediate improvement in the performance of the car!

Actually, the car was on the rack for an extra 30 minutes or so while he worked on some other vehicles. I don't mind, as these guys like to talk about stuff.

You got ripped off. They did not even itemize anything on the receipt. Labor $800, total: $800?!?!!

I bet they found a bad connection or relay, then took you for a ride for $800.

Recently they did a sting in NJ on home repair/appliance people. They found 8 of 8 places they called in to repair their broken A/C (they purposely damaged a wire each time in the unit) listed things that did not need to be fixed and vastly overbilled/scammed. Once place even put parts on the invoice that did not exist in the A/C system! And billed for them!

Pretty bad, I bet it happens all the time in auto shops as well, just like this incident.