I was fed up with the dealer so I went to a recommended independent. They want $435 to replace the timing belt (including rollers and tensioner $125)and auxiliary belt. Am I being overcharged or is this reasonable?

There is no way you need rollers and tensioner replaced unless you have 200k on the car. They are merely ripping you off. Barrier Volvo in Bellevue, WA (Seattle) does the exact same thing. I swear...they should be lined up and shot. The belt replacements on your 850 are a piece of cake. The belts themselves should be no more than $35 each. Labor is no more than 2 hours. Heck, a rookie can do the job in two hours so a pro can do it in 1 - 1.5 hours. Pin them to the wall on this one.

I've seen people post here that timing belt replacement ran $250

to $300 (including parts) at dealers. I'm not sure what the

auxillary belt should add. $435 does seem a bit high (I would

expect a dealer could do it for the same). Might also

depend on where you live (labor charge is $135/hour at dealers

in the Bay Area and $435 might be competative here).

Was it the cost of the dealers work or the quality that caused

you to be fed up with them?

> Was it the cost of the dealers work or the quality that caused

> you to be fed up with them?

Quality. I posted this story a while ago here. Briefly: During the 60k service they gave me the car back, running very rough. (luckily I didn't drive it home, but instead gave it right back. They tried a few things, changed the plugs, etc. Finally, when they saw the oil flying out the dipstick tube, they realized that there was about 12 qts of oil in it! I had told them that I do my own oil so don't do the oil. This was written on the service order. They must have added 6 or 7 qts of oil on top of mine, and had the audacity to say that I must have driven it in that way, since nobody at the dealer would admit to the mistake. (thanks for asking, it helps to get it off my chest again).

BTW: the other thing that bothered me about SD Volvo was that the service rep can never give you a firm number in advance. It seems like they need to wait for the printout to tell them the results. For example, at the 60K service, they didn't do an oil change, at least intentionally, AND they did not replace the aux belt, merely inspected it. However they could never tell me accurately, say within $20, how much less it cost me since they did not do those elements of the 60k service.

Landin,

I assume by the "SD Volvo" you are referring to San Diego Volvo. If that is true, I am kind of surprised. I have heard very good things about them...

Yannis

By SD Volvo, are you referring to San Diego Volvo? If so, try Carlsbad Volvo. I've had good luck there and Timing Belt replacement was $185 with parts.