Repair Labor Ripoff For Rewiring and Fender Shield Cost..

[infiniteking09]

Long story short..BTW..My name is Kris and I joined this forum to get valuable information from Infiniti expert HONEST mechanics. So, taillights went out and of coarse, she doesn't even know it..So, I tried and looked everywhere. Front right passenger FENDER SHIELD is missing and wires hanging down. Took it to a local shop that replaced the transmission last year (GREAT JOB..NO PROBLEMS WITH THE transmission THUS FAR.) This time..This guy wants to charge $267.00 labor just to rewire the wires that were hanging down that I had already spliced and tied together myself! He says I got a couple backwards causing the relay to blow..I SAY BS>>If the relay blew then why do all the other lights work properly, Sir? Anyways, he also says that the shield once located is $100 if he ordered it and hardly even acknowledged the fact that one was locate online for over 1/2 that price..The $100 does not include labor BTW..Please tell me why it takes 2.5 labor hrs. to reassemble these wires..Approx. 8 wires..That sounds ludicrous..Can anyone give me an expert opinion? BTW..He also says it was the loose wires causing the taillights not to work???? Not sure on that one either..

Thanks very much..

[BrandAidDesignG35]

Yeah, sounds crazy, get the part yourself for half the price, and get the wires back together as soon as you find another shop to work on it.

Get some more quotes, that does sound off the wall to me.

Warm welcome to nico

[Sentientbydesign]

I got the fender splash shield for $25 from my buddy at the local dealership. I think list is closer to $40-$50.

The technician at the dealership installed the shield in less than 10 mins. I provided the plastic pop screws ($10-$15 those buggers are expensive). They didn't charge me for the install because of the long wait (other issue).

I'm curious what you ran over to make the shield fly off and take the wires with it. On mine, I lost it because the idiot previous owner rubbed the underbody cover on pavement (I assume) until the pieces down there didn't hold any more. The wind on the freeway made the shield hit the floor and then get caught under my wheel. If flew off lol.

[awdjdmtalon]

2.5 hrs seems a bit much to me. Unless they were charging you an hour diag, 1 hr labor to repair the wires, and .5hr to install the fenderliner.

I would stil double check the wiring to make sure that you respliced them correctly, wire to wire, and properly butt connected and heat shrinked.

[C-Kwik]

Instead of leaving it purely to speculation, why not ask the mechanic to show you the problems and explain why it will require so much labor? I agree my initial impression of a blown relay is a bit off, but only because a relay only passes a current if it is energized. If you grounded a circuit that shouldn't be, you might blow a fuse, but chances are the relay would stay in tact as I would think the relay could handle more current than the fuse. Then again, modern cars can have some complicated electrical systems. Nissan is known to have some odd circuits in their newer cars (CAN-BUS)

As for part price, you can try to negotiate it. Most mechanics aren't on the internet looking for the best deals. They have a set of suppliers they work with and they take the price they get and add on a small amount of mark-up.