Hello fellow Jaguar Enthusiasts!

I have a customer with a 2011 Jaguar XK 5.0L and he was told by the dealership that he needs his valve cover gaskets replaced. Okay no big deal, he has over 100k miles which I told him wasn't uncommon my problem and confusion is this... The dealership he went to quoted him just at $5,000 for parts and labor. I was very confused when he sent me the estimate and they determined it would take 18.4 hours in labor to complete this job! As a service writer I have access to multiple labor rate systems and to perform this job it is listed at 10.9 hours. There is nothing in the estimate that shows other parts are being replaced during this job and I am just wondering if anyone else has had this job done. If so would you mind sharing what you were quoted? Perhaps we are missing something or maybe the dealership just knows there aren't a lot of shops that specialize in Jaguars and are charging what they want?? We have been specializing in Jaguars for going on 30 years as a family owned shop and to be honest this really upset me and if I am missing something that would make up for the additional 6+ hours I'd like to know as well so I can inform my customer.
Any advice or personal experience would be greatly appreciated.

Also here is a list of the parts that would be replaced for a total of $683 before tax:
C2D3524 CAMSHAFT GASKET
C2D3527 (4) SPARK PLUG SEALS
C2D3525 CAMSHAFT GASKET
C2D3526 (4) SPARK PLUG SEALS
C2D3522 (17) BOLTS
C2D3523 STUD

 

If that's their quote, it's because that shop just doesn't want to do the job. Sure, they WILL if they get that huge sum of money, but it's a Bid Super High to avoid, but take it if they pay.
You can tell him to drive to my house, pay me $1200 for the job, and drive back for less money than that bid.

 

Maybe that's the rate for XKR? As the supercharger would have to be removed??

 

Before you move forward with the work, have you determined that they indeed need this work done? If you've been a Jaguar specialist for 30 years, surely you have access to factory service manuals, and surely you and your shop foreman have consulted them to determine if the extra labor is legitimate or not. If you have, then you'd have seen that the XKR requires supercharger removal whereas the XK does not, hence the difference in time.

 

At 100K miles, and on this block, valve cover leaks are common. They are also alternator killers as oil leaks into the housing and assembly, so beware. For the supercharged variant, 11 hours seems reasonable, not certain for the N/A version, but there is a lot of labor involved so I would not be surprised if it's close. But something else to keep in mind, to do this, the injectors must be pulled as well and at this age, likely a good idea to replace them as you'd not want to have to pay double labor AND there's the potential for them to be damaged in the removal process. I also can't comment on the parts required as I've not looked it up. But again this would be a good time to replace anything else involved in the R&R which may be prone to failure.