I found a local independent shop that specializes in European cars. They work on Jaguars, Land Rovers, Maseratis, Mercedes, BMW and Mini. and I often see all of those frequent the shop. I asked about a certain red Maserati Gran Turismo that I notice frequently in the shop. It apparently belongs to the shop owner. He bought the car recently with a slipping transmission issue and is treating it like a project car to work on in his downtime. He told me the E-clutch is toast. He is currently awaiting on parts to rebuild the transmission. I figured, if he's tackling that on his own car, then this guy is an enthusiast and knows what he's doing. He's seems knowledgeable and after asking around his shop has a good reputation.

I decided to have them diagnose my leaks and to see if they came to the same conclusion I had. His diagnostic fee is $130, but if you decide to let fix what was diagnosed, they give you the diagnostic for free and you only pay for labor and parts of whatever is being fixed. He found the same issues I did:

• ATF and Motor oil Leak from the bell-housing; he say's it's the transmission front seal, rear main seal, and oil galley plug (he's done enough 4.2 V8 Jags to know that the Oil galley plug cannot be ignored. He confirmed that there is no leak from the mechatronic sleeve connector, which I replaced a few months ago.
• Timing cover leak, which I already knew was there and in hindsight, I should've changed when I replaced the front main seal, but I was in a time crunch at the time and couldn't wait for the timing cover inner and outer seals to arrive. I wish I had been patient.
• Engine oil pan leak - is the only one I am not convinced entirely by. It's cheap and easy enough to fix. However, I wouldn't be surprised if the timing cover leak is what's making it look like the oil pan is leaking.

I decided to have them do the rear main seal, the oil galley plug, and the front transmission seal. The labor quoted to drop the transmission and replace the Rear Main Seal, the Transmission Front Seal, and the Oil Galley plug came out to an even $700. Based on their labor costs and the book value from Jaguar service manuals. As for parts, the rear main seal was quoted at ~ $62, and the Transmission front seal was quoted at ~$16. After taxes, the total cost of fixing the ATF and rear engine leaks including, that is labor + parts + shop supplies comes at ~$868.

I decided to go for it since trying to source a transmission jack, and jack-stands that can keep the car high enough to do the work myself is actually more expensive than what the shop quoted. This was actually a middle of the road quote I've gotten for the job. I had one place quote $2500, another quote $1400, and one guy quoted $650. I realize the first two quotes were inflated because they didn't want to do the work, and the other low-end quote, which isn't far from the $868, was from a mechanic who didn't seem to know much about Jags, which also deterred me.

Having said that, if I had decided to do the timing cover gasket, they were going to tack on $931, and $135 for the oil pan gasket, but those two I can do on my own for the cost of parts. Is the $868 for the rear main, oil galley plug, and transmission front seal a fair price?

 

It sounds pretty reasonable to me.

 

Thanks! I had to ask because I almost always do my repairs myself and became out of touch with what is a fair rate at a mechanic, especially considering the current economy. This time, delegating appears to be more cost-effective than investing on tools I will rarely use.

 

Welcome to my past ten years!
If I hit any money I'll reach out for my teeth issues.
WJ

 

I know you were joking about it, but this is a sad reality of the American Healthcare system. Healthcare, including dental care, should not be restricted to the rich nor should it be a reason to fall into debt or bankruptcy. That's like putting a price on someone's right to live. Yes, dentistry is expensive. The materials and instruments we use are expensive. The same applies in medicine. It doesn't need to be so.

First of all, health insurers make a killing out of ****ing over both the providers and the patients. Denying coverage for frivolous reasons, requesting non-sensical pre-authorizations that only serve as a roadblock to timely treatments as well as a venue for them to practice medicine without a license by conditioning what treatments can and cannot be given and always trying to go above the clinician's clinical judgement. Second of all, they also very often deny billing, leaving dentists, doctors, and hospitals providing treatment for free. No in fact, for negative pay, because they still have to pay for the materials and medicines used, which I must stress, are not cheap. One bottle of 0.3 mL of dental bonding adhesive for composite restorations costs well over $150. That is crazy expensive, but I digress.

Unlike most physicians, dental treatments are fee-for-service. Which means that dentists can pass on the cost of those materials to the patient and health insurer. If the patient's insurance covers, then great, everyone's happy as long as the insurance company pays up. But if the patient's insurance does not cover dental treatment, or they have no dental insurance, the patient is out of luck. Also, as if insurers not paying in a timely manner or outright denying payment weren't bad enough, they are also not allowing the providers to negotiate a payment that justifies the procedural costs involved. As an example, it took health insurers 25 years to be open to re-negotiate the fees dentists make for each procedure. This was after most of the island's dentists went on to protests and strike. And even then, the new fees were not much better. The same issue applies in medicine both here and in the US.

To add to that, the exorbitant student loans incured in medical and dental schools (about $186k in Puerto Rico, and anywhere from $250k to $1 million in the US), plus the upfront costs of starting a dental practice (easily $500k), and the costs of overhead to run said practice (as a rule, 66% for general dentistry, and higher or lower depending on the specialty), make it so it's no longer as profitable a career as it once was.

The Puerto Rico and US healthcare systems are truly ****ed up. These are backwater systems that only serve to enrich the executives at the health insurance companies. This system is responsible for ruining the lives of millions of americans who HAVE to seek healthcare. The health insurers are the primary reason the healthcare system in Puerto Rico is collapsing. One of the major hospitals here, HIMA San Pablo had to close its doors earlier this year. Another major hospital system, Pavia, is on the brink of bankruptcy. Sure, some of it is because of mismanagement from the hospital administrators, but the burden of it lies with the health insurers. If I recall correctly, SSS a major health-insurer in PR that also represents BlueCross/BlueShield in the island, was at least half a year behind on medical billing payments to the HIMA San Pablo hospital. That was multiple millions of dollars that the hospital was owed. Not only that, a substantial portion of those payments were never going to make it to the hospital, because SSS found every tiny loophole NOT to pay for the patient treatments.

The latest letter that was sent to all hospitals by SSS and other health insurance companies stated that "Treatment for patients that were re-admitted for the same diagnosis to the hospital within 1 month of having been discharged will not be paid." Furthermore, that letter also stated that "for patients who were admitted to a different hospital within one month of having been discharged from another hospital for the same diagnosis, the bill from the first hospital will not be paid". In other words, the patient is going to be stuck footing the bill. And this is the most evil and unreasonable ever to be devised. It is all too common for a patient to have a relapse of their health after being discharged, especially if they are elderly or they have a serious chronic condition. My wish is that every executive that is at the top of these health insurers be criminally charged for violations of the third article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. May a Satan in hell reserve a spot for these businessmen right next to him.


Sorry for the rant and I know this is not the correct forum to talk about this subject.

Wymjym when I graduate residency and have my dental office up and running, you are more than welcome to come to my clinic for periodontal treatment. You and many other forum members have been very helpful to me over the years and I am grateful. I promise not to take an arm and leg in your treatment, just one of the two. The arm or the leg, but its your choice. Hahahaha, I kid.

 

Around these parts, shop rates are at, or fast approaching, $200/hr. So, under $900 seems pretty reasonable.

 

Yep, quite reasonable indeed....

And I have very good dental coverage. Not superior, but much better than average here in the U.S....

 

Thats a steal! I figured $1200 minimum.

 

Great! I’m glad the price is reasonable.

I stopped by the shop today because I remembered that when I replaced my octopus hose a few months ago, I slipped and ended up breaking the transmission breather tube. At the time I had to get the car out of my mother-in-law's garage as quick as possible. To get by, I spliced in a new section of fuel hose with the breather tube.
I tried finding the part to replace it after the fact but never could find it, nor someone who sells it. So far it has been holding up.

Having remembered that, I asked if they can replace the vent tube? They said sure. The cashier/secretary tried looking up the part number in their system but she also couldn't locate it. She said that she'll tell her boss about it so that he may find it since he is more knowledgeable than she is. Of course, the boss wasn't there at the moment because of a family emergency. She left him a note.

Does anyone know the part number of the ZF-6HP26 breather tube that runs along the top of the transmission from the main body of the transmission to the Bell-housing area? It's a small, thin, plastic tube. Or a suitable alternative? Before I spliced it, I had tried initially to use the fuel hose section (I can't remember the diameter, but quite thin). Although it fit inside, it was too flexibl and wouldn't lock with the O-rings in the breather vent holes.

Something noteworthy, my car must be the only one that didn't have a loose oil-galley plug when I asked him about it. He showed me and indeed it was tight.