Originally Posted by msvx95
wow, I'm very jealous.........just curious how much labor rates are and what your final bill was.....


Was it "service the SVX" day with that one pic??

Nope, it wasn't "service the SVX" day. There's usually at least 3 or 4 SVX's hanging around. More if Wolf's brother or other friends come by with theirs for a coffee. The Egelhofer Subaru garage in Altstätten is known as the best SVX place in the region. Folks come from Germany and Austria, too.

The original estimate was total 4000 Swiss francs, or about $3,200 US. Usually Wolf is very accurate with his estimates. We went a "little" over because I told him to not only repair the obvious stuff, but do a full inspection and also replace/repair anything that looked doubtful. So for example, the water pump wasn't completely gone, but he felt that it was on its way because of the overheating (it was starting to wiggle and shouldn't have any play), and recommended replacing it now. I also wasn't expecting to have to re-do stuff like the radiator hoses that had just been done here in Germany.

My attitude is/was that since the car was pretty much being taken apart anyway, may as well take advantage of it and do everything all at once so as not to duplicate labour costs later. More expensive in the short run, but less expensive and lots less hassle later, in my opinion. Now I don't have to worry about that doubtful water pump or other things that might have still been okay for another year, or might have left me sitting on the side of the road somewhere at exactly the worst moment.

To be honest, I got a special deal. I was in no hurry to get the car done, so he could schedule the work at his convenience. Because we have two cars and can survive with one, I never put pressure on mechanics to do a quick job. I prefer good, solid, quality work over speedy results. And I find that a rush job often means mistakes or things get overlooked.

In theory, my "no rush" attittude should and up until three years ago usually got me better service and better prices. But here in Germany, I guess it doesn't matter. I was charged top prices for hideous quality, and I will be taking our Justy to Switzerland one of these days for a full inspection, too. It seems fine, but I've lost all faith in our previous German mechanics. Our Justy is also a special car that not all mechanics have worked with. It is the ECVT model which is a bit rare now. Obviously there's not as much that can go wrong with the Justy, but I want Wolf to check it all out any way.