Hi all

As you may remember, I was looking for a water pump for my 3lt 12v XM. Well, the pump was found and is now i nthe car, and all is working well again.

So tried the car for a week, all is okay, and went to pay the bill today.

What I'll say is this: the amount of time they counted for putting the pump in -oh! and a thermostat...- can better be used to count things like the Himalaia's height, or the depth of the oceans, or similar dimensions, rather than the time needed for the said job.

So I invite everybody, whether you have done the job on a 12v PRV V6 or not, to offer you estimates of how many hours are needed for this. FYI, all u need to remove to access the pump from the top is: 1/the inlet manifold (4 bolts+a few plugs), 2/the ecu box, and, 3/the pump's belt. The pump then becomes accessible for removal -it lives between the engine's Vee-.

So be my guest.

Then I'll let you know the time they charged. And, depending on popular+expert opinion, decide what to do with the matter. I'm no expert myself and have never done the job so might be wrong, but I think it took them way too long.

cheers and thanks
George

Hi George

Citroen standard time for a V6 water pump is 3.5 hours.

John

18 hours?

Ciarán

George, ominously from the way you're talking, the final fee is far in excess of reasonableness
or even the car's market value? Did they not supply an estimate for the repair? At the end
of the day do they have any justification for any excessive time spent above and beyond the
stated official 3.5hours carrying out the repair that was unforseen in the first instance? For
heaven's sake, what is this place's hourly rate!? Are they all on footballer or filmstar's wages?

At any stage where things are going wrong on estimated time spent with consequent increased
costs beyond an agreed level a professional operation will seek the client's feedback and go
ahead decision if matters are going out of hand and the costs ramp up - there shouldn't be an
open ended fee for what appears to be a straightforward job where a case of fait acomplie
ambushes you. There must be a maximum estimate that seems to have been eclipsed for
matters to get as bad as they sound?

If there was never a written estimate you're in a massive grey area on a verbal contract
between yourself and the garage who may argue misunderstanding on either parties position.
Not an easy position from which to counter apparent excessive billing...
Andrew

I can easily see it blowing out from the "book" hours... eg: half the studs and bolts shearing off etc... Espeically in places like the UK where they have a fetish for pouring salty water all over there cars

seeya,
Shane L.

If the stated book time is 3.5, even allowing for stuff ups I would say 7 hours would be generous.

I reckon you probably got stung for 12 hours.

Well, there were probably two of them, one to do the job the other to pass the spanners, and they both have to be paid.

Come on George, put us out of our misery (and into yours )

Ciarán

Well 10 hours at £50 an hour brings a tear to the eye...

Regular British working practices actually requires one guy to actually physically do the
spannering, another to chip in offering suggestions on how they would do the job better
if they were doing it and finally an apprentice holding their cups of tea and being shown
how it's done...

Andrew

£50... that's cheap.

Our local Shitron place charges a humble 80 and hour, and such is their expertise they couldn't tell you the difference between a CX and a C5.... or a C5 and a (Sinclair) C5

Either way George if they have bodged it and spent a week on it, their funeral. There is plenty of supporting evidence, not least in official service documentation, to backup the fact that they have spent a completely unreasonable amount of time on it.

Ciarán

Well chaps,

They spent 9 hours on it. 9 hours during 3 days. @£47/hour. £444 bill incl £25 parts.

When budgeting for the job, I had thought: "this looks like a 3-4 hour job. But let's allow 5 hours, things often do go worse than u expect".

I've now also asked the XM-section of the (french) Planete-Citroen forum and they all agree it's way out of reality, unless something went seriously wrong. Among htem are 2 non-professionals that did the job themselves.

The single thing that went "wrong" is that they had to separate the manifold-body from the throttle-body because the 2 little cooling pipes attaching to the later from the block wouldn't unplug safely [the PRV bleeds the air through the throttle body hence the 2 rubber cooling pipes that lead to it]. The extra burden of this job is to undo 2 or 4 bolts without any access difficulty. As far as they've said, no other thing went wrong.

Like John-xmexclusive, 2 people on Pl-Cit informed me that the Cit specification is 3.5 hours. I will ask them for their sources.

My friend from Hungary who runs a Cit-specialised garage, also assures me he can do it in about 4 hour max, and 6-7 hours max if he includes "coffee, banter etc".

He sent me this document I attach, from the citroen service manuals I guess, which says the job is 330 minutes = 5.8 hours for the V6. It's about just above the middle of the list, "Wasserpumpe und Dichtung" [waterpump and gasket], code 0530 0910. And this is the usual, inflated figure of manufacturers. So should really be *the* maximum for the job. The time quoted for the pump alone, if all else is out, is 40 mins.

They also fitted a thermostat wich is 10 minutes job according to attached doc when all else is out which is the case ("Kuhlwasserthermostat", near the bottom), code 0545 0920. So we are getting to 6 hours with the thermostat.

At this point, I'd like to ask John where did he take his figure from (3.5h) because strangely (or maybe not), 2 people on Planete-Citroen also quoted me this exact figure, but this document says else.

Have to go see them on Friday with precise unshakable information to hand!

Unfortunately there has been no precise estimate/agreement whatsoever -I was so sure that this is a 3-4-5 hour job that I didn't even think of asking an estimate-. So all negotiation will be conducted just under the context of a good customer relationship that lasts for more than 4 years and, would like to think, extends a bit beyond that thanks to our common Citroen passion. I hope they'll show good faith.

One thing I don't know, are they allowed to charge for time the various sealing-putty took to cure so their ramp remained unused? I find it ridiculous of course, but better be prepared...

I hope logic will reign at the end, I'm myself perfectly prepared to listen their explanations and accept them if they are plausible.

Will let u know.

cheers and thanks all!
G

Hi George

My figure came from the Citroen "Invoicing Times" manual. Job code is 0530 0910. I rounded up a bit as the figure quoted is 3.30 with the time being in hours and hundreths of hours. So the actual official time for the job is 3 hours 18 minutes. Citroen main dealers are required to invoice to these book times however long the job takes. Jobs on XM's are so few and far between that their staff typically take longer much than book time and the car blocks working space awaiting parts.

John

Thank you John

This explains my confusion, have the same document as you but was reading 330 in minutes = 5.8 hours.

All is clear now.

thanks
George

Perhaps they had the car in the air on the lift expecting the pump to be underneath so just carried on until they worked their way up to it..

Last question gents

If their explanations fail to convince me, what is the body/organisation to (threaten to) seek assistance from? Would it be Trading Standards?

Or thanks for any other idea.

cheers
G