Took my LS to the dealership...

mergner26

mergner26

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I dropped it (2001 LS V8) off at 9 on saturday morning, and just got the call this afternoon. They said the valve covers, 2 coils, and the o2 sensor all need to be replaced. They said it would be around $1800 but hopefully some of it will be covered in the warranty. Does that price sound right though? Also, how long do u think it will take once they get the permission to do it?
 
Seems a little pricey to me, although dealers have outrageous hourly rates.

I would suggest replacing the 02 sensor and coils yourself, honestly...a girl can do it. If you are mechanically inclined at all I would do the valvecover yourself too. Its as simple as undoing some bolts, regasket, and rebolt.
 
I just had both my valve covers replaced at the dealer on Friday. I paid $264 for parts and labor. My car is not under warranty. I would definately try somewhere else. They should get it done that day or the next.
 
yeah...i'm not too happy with this dealership, but this was the best weekend for me to get it done. The fact they lied to us on saturday started it all off then it didn't help when they called today and said $1800 and 2-3 days. If i could do the work myself i would have, but the fact i'm only 18 and don't have any experience really doesn't help. I guess i'll wait to find out how much the warranty is covering and go from there.
 
age is no excuse, if you find out what coils are bad, they have to be so easy to do. The valve cover gaskets don't sound to hard either from the likes of this board. O2 sensorss, I don't quite know where they are on these cars, but if people say they are doable, then do it yourself You say you are only 18, where are you going to get 2 grand from? I hate to preach, but man you can do it we all started somewhere. I am 22 now, but I started messing with my volvo at 17 with a motor rebuild at 18/19. The more dumb stuff you fix on it the more you will be able to visualize where things are for when the next things break. We are here for help if you need it.
Eamonn
 
I believe your warranty is only going to cover the 02 sensors (~$200). I had the same problem with my car and had to borrow money to fix it. I felt the same way you do now.
When it is fixed, the car will run 10x's better and they will give you a 12 mth warranty, but if you don't have $1800, do a search (in this forum) on replacing these coils and get some tools. Take some time on the weekend and try to work on it, I wish I could do it again.
The problems you listed are the only issues I've had with this car (I got it at 64k miles and I'm up to 92K).
Good luck and don't feel bad. This is a great car and is worth fixing. :D
 
I just had to have my valve covers done it took thwm 4 hours to do and at a cost of around 700
 
:q:q:q:qKKKKKKK THAT THERE IS NO WAY I WOULD PAY THAT MUCH. TAKE IT TO SOMONE THAT CHARGES BY THE JOB AND NOT THE HOUR... BY THE HOUR THEY TAKE THEIR TIME
 
alright they called back today with some more news. Warranty is covering $600 of the $1800. I never got to talk to them but what they told my dad was that they had to replace the valve covers ($800), 2 coils which they said were not damaged by the valve covers, 2 spark plug boots, and they said the o2 sensor the other day. I never got a price of anything else and the total cost will be $1800+tax and i will end up having to pay $1200+tax. They also said i should have the car back by Thursday night hopefully. Does that all sound reasonable or am i getting ripped off here.
 
Thats insane. If you WONT get your hands dirty, my advice is take it to the dealer so they can rape you for every cent you have. :rolleyes:

I dropped my transmission last week, took 45 minutes!!! Dont be lazy. My dads got an 04 intrepid, i changed all coils, plugs, boots, pcv, air filter in 40 minutes last saturday!! Now obviously the LS is a different car, but seriously it doesnt get much easier than that.

To sum it up, yea your gettin ripped off. Dealership or not. If you dont do something now, your going to be one those guys thats 40 yrs old and has to wait for AAA to show up and change a spare tire. Pathetic.

Age has no bar on anything, Im 20 and put a 5spd in my mark vii. Wake up dude. I wish mommy and daddy bought me an LS, wait no i dont. I work for mines. :rolleyes:
 
LuxurySportCoupe said:
Thats insane. If you WONT get your hands dirty, my advice is take it to the dealer so they can rape you for every cent you have. :rolleyes:

I dropped my transmission last week, took 45 minutes!!! Dont be lazy. My dads got an 04 intrepid, i changed all coils, plugs, boots, pcv, air filter in 40 minutes last saturday!! Now obviously the LS is a different car, but seriously it doesnt get much easier than that.

To sum it up, yea your gettin ripped off. Dealership or not. If you dont do something now, your going to be one those guys thats 40 yrs old and has to wait for AAA to show up and change a spare tire. Pathetic.

Age has no bar on anything, Im 20 and put a 5spd in my mark vii. Wake up dude. I wish mommy and daddy bought me an LS, wait no i dont. I work for mines. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

first of all, my parents didn't buy me this LS. I got what I thought was a great deal with the money i had saved up plus a LITTLE that my parents let me borrow and yeah you're right i guess i should have done it myself, but when you go to school 5 days a week and the other two i'm at baseball, i don't have a whole lot of time. I took it in hoping it would be something simple and they could fix it a lot quicker then i would be able to since i have never really worked on a car. yeah sure i hope to eventually start doing most of the work myself but it's kinda tough to start with replacing the valve covers, 2 coils, 2 spark plug boots, and an o2 sensor on a lincoln ls without ever doing any serious work to a car before. That's good that you can do all that work yourself, but apparently i am not the only one bringing the car in for this type of work so it's not like i am the only one who can't do it. Plus, now atleast everything will be warrantied for a year and i don't have to worry about messing up my own car. THANKS for all your help though.
 
eh don't listen to LSC, seems he's a bit too absorbed with all his accomplishments. but despite his attitude he is right that you can learn how to do certain fixes to your car, it just takes a good deal of research, time, personal $$, and don't forget trial and error. also a good warranty will not cover your own mechanical mistakes when you take matters into your own hands. now hopefully that never happens ;) but if you have a warranty, use it - put the liability on someone else while you still can.

i just bought an '00 LS with no warranty so i am going to have to learn to do all these valve/coil/spark plug fixes on my own. seems like it happens to just about every early model LS on the road, so i'm already starting the research. it will save hundreds of dollars down the line and is well worth the knowledge you will gain.

PS - good for you for saving up for a LS, that is an expensive car to be your first (assuming it's your first). but you may have slightly overlooked the fact that it is not the easiest - or cheapest - car in the world to repair. but hey - you're in it now - so might as well learn!
 
To the guy who worked on the intrepid, those engines are very easy to do the repairs you mentioned, i own one, not impressed. You making the claims about fixing cars would be like me saying its insane that you cant make your own windows programs using visual basic and java scripting. Can you ? No. Everyone has different technical capabilities. But as long as you feel superior than thats all thats important.
 
First off, cry me a river Mergner. Shouldnt of bought a car you cant maintain and have no knowledge of how to fix, ESPECIALLY a lincoln LS when boatloads of parts ARENT available for it yet (i sell parts) ESPECIALLY if your in school and have baseball. Lincolns can be expensive when they break. I was going to college full time, working fulltime, had two side jobs, and other stuff going on and still able to hold it down and do tons of :q:q:q:q to my car. You've got too many excuses.

Secondly, steagle..."absorbed" by my acomplishments? What the :q:q:q:q did i acomplish? I put a 5spd in a mark vii..OOOOOOOH big deal, a freaking ten year old could do that. Easy as shiit.

Third, FLA- BEFORE you go running your mouth sticking up for your LS buddies maybe you should take :q:q:q:q to PM first. I CAN make my own windows programs, i have taken qbasic, visual basic, C++, AND java. So you my friend can kiss my ass.

After typing this post maybe your all right. I am absorbed that i'm 20 and built a 5spd mark vii. I'm also superior not only was i able to do that i was also able to make a 4000lb car outhandle all of yours, bet your ass its probably faster too. Yea, thats right STOCK 5.0 H.O. Maybe its slower, no fear, 351w stroker will take its place. Not to mention that even the V8 LS's are slow. FLA, Damn right i'm a jack of all trades, i can even write script.

As long as everyone understands that I > YOU its all good. :cool:
 
it's good that you can do all of that stuff and maybe cars are your thing. I know kids that can do all of that stuff too, but i know plenty more who don't even know nothing at all about cars. I'm sure there are a lot of things your really good at, but theres probably other stuff that i'm better at. It all depends on the person and experience. You can do all of the trash talking you want, but i usually don't get into that stuff. I let my actions do the talking, not my mouth
 
OMG. Anyway, atleast its getting taken care of dude, I'm going to the stealership once I get some more money and having them take a look and see if there is anything that needs to be done. Except if there is I'm making them tell what and where and asking for the price and wether or not the warranty well cover it or not. If its alot of money than I'm going to see about getting the stuff myself and than going to do it myself w/ the help of my father(mechanic) so I do not screw anything up. But if its not a bad price than I'll just save my time and let someone else do it.

I do not blame you for being iffy on working on a car like this. I'm 22 and was not afraid to do work on any of my other cars but just something about this one that worries me, I was hesitant in doing my first oil change lol, but that is a breeze of course.
 
Alright, it's prove-your-superiority time! Let's see here...

I run a company...

Woke up to a great BJ this morning...

And I have the original 1981 metal Voltron figure, first issue...

BRING IT ON!! :p
 
steagle said:
Alright, it's prove-your-superiority time! Let's see here...

I run a company...

Woke up to a great BJ this morning...

And I have the original 1981 metal Voltron figure, first issue...

BRING IT ON!! :p
Click to expand...

ROFLLMFAO!!!!!!!!! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA That was superb. :lol: :lol:
 
I would really research your warranty, and do a little more arguing. I think most (well at least mine), will cover the motor, that includes all seals. Read very carefully.

My question is, If read this post right they replaced the valve covers??? :confused:

Hope you can get it all sorted out.
 
LSC, man I agreed with what you were saying untill you responded to yourself twice. Calm down, it's just the internet. Everyone else chill out too, I am sure putting a tranny in anything is harder then some valve cover gaskets, not that either is challenging.
Eamonn
 
That makes sense...no really it does. :cool: I'm calm as all hell...if i gave a pair of donkey balls to what anyone on the net did...i'd have to reevaluate my priorities in life. The internet is full of arrogant :q:q:q:q:q:q:qs, maybe thats why i fit in. Seriously. Anyway, back to our discussion to clarify the tripple posting.

I was trying to take up alot of space to feel important. :) See i get my jollies off by doing that. Gotta feel like the "big man" on LvC. While doing so, I scrolled back up and saw a :q:q:q:qload of gay ass :q:ing smilies. <-- watch there they go again, :q:q:q damn :q:q:q. AHAHA LVC filter licks my :q:q:q:qing sack. :D What a tool.

Back to all seriousness...neither are all that complicated and if dude really wants to save money, he'll buy a book or manual, Take the time and fix his car. IIRC, the VC gaskets can only be bought from a dealer for the v8's... not sure about the 6 bangers. Ive run into it before through work, felpro and alot of other gasket companies have yet to make all the LS stuff.

Yet another reason LVC Filter sucks --

"You have included 38 images in your message. You are limited to using 25 images so please go back and correct the problem and then continue again.

Images include use of smilies, the vB code
QUOTE]
Click to expand...
 
As a guy who grew up around cars his whole life, and tooled around dropping trannies, pulling engines and swapping rear ends, I can certainly appreciate anyone that has the mechanical ability to do it themselves. However I also realize I (personally) couldn't have done any of the above without the help of a father, brother, or friends (as well as the endless tools my father has (including all the computer diagnostic equipment. Diagnostic computers themselves can run in the thousands, and a nice loaded Snap-On box can be in the high 5 figures)).

Unfortunately, many people buy cars without fully knowing what might be entailed or what common problems might be encountered when owning one. Whether it's the LS, LSC, Mustang GT, Mercury Capri, Honda Accord, etc etc, they all have their problems. Hence, when things do go wrong, you often have to pay the piper the $95/hr+ to diagnose and/or repair it. Unfortunately people simply look at just the monthly payment, and not the "total cost".

What is really appalling though is when someone attacks another individual that is simply posing a question to make sure they aren't getting ripped off. LSC, you should be embarrased with that attitude, no matter how many cars you've fixed.

My father instilled some important lessons in me growing up, the least of which was that even if I chose not to go into anything automotive related, he always wanted me to have the knowledge to understand how everything worked, so that a dealer or mechanic wouldn't be able to "pull the wool over my eyes" and take me for my money. For the problems noted above, I personally would probably fix them myself, however if a tranny went bad, I'd simply pay to get it done, simply because one must weigh the cost of repair versus the time involved in completing that repair oneself and all the hassles and tools needed.

Back on topic, $1800 seems a bit excessive, however I would ask for a cost breakdown of labor and parts. If the labor is that excessive, find a local mechanic that won't charge as much hourly.
 
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