My 66 beetle's wipers died the other day. (The car has been converted to 12v but the wiper is still 6v.) The local VW mechanic referred me to an autoelectrician. $150 later it worked... but all that they did was replace a dead resistor between the switch and the motor. My son, who's handy with a multimeter but knows nothing about cars, tells me he thinks that's a rip off. If it's the going rate I've got no issue, but it does seem pretty steep to me. For future reference, what do you guys reckon?

Cheers,
Angela.

Do a DIY... otherwise even a second hand can end up being cheap too. the majority of your cost goes to labour, some can charge between $80 to $150 an hr.

I got stung on a starter motor by an auto electrician. All i was asking for was for a solenoid, he insisted to look at the starter to check the solenoid type, then went on his merry bloody way pulling it apart and reassembling with a spare solenoid he found, only to turn around to me, hand me a starter, a couple of washers and screws he didn't know where they came from inside and a $150 bill. Oh... and had this strong stance to insist on reassembling all starter motors with no lubricant (grease) at all.

None the less, it didn't even work after all that. (solenoid did, but now he buggered the starter when the starter itself was working to begin with). I bought a Nippon Denso new high torque starter for $150 from the states on the next pay packet.

Just another automotive dodgey tradesman to put on the list, along side a number of mechanics and suspension shops. Everything apart from a wheel alignment and tyre changing/balancing i now do it myself (although i'd love the equipment to diy wheel alignments) and for some reason it all works out fine in the end, despite not being qualified. Not to pay out all automotive tradesman, just seems to be bad luck on my part and such scars have instilled a lack of trust after much money has been wasted on them.

Yours ended up working in the end so not a dodgey tradie, just maybe an expensive hourly rate? Chances are he would have disassembled the entire thing, check bushes, bearings and cleaned it out or even regreased. If it works and continues for years, then at least you know your getting your dollars worth on a professional. pay peanuts, get monkeys etc. etc.

you are lucky to get some one to look at your Vintage car,
, you need to be asking the guy that fixed it before you paid him , eg labour rate per hour ? , parts ? ,etc.
for a better idea in the future , it cost the same labour to work on old and new cars .

mmmmm.......... $75 an hour aint "too" bad.

How easy to find the resistor? just thinking it was a conversion, maybe he had to tidy some stuff up?? mount the rsistor properly?

If you got a bill of $75 I would say that was cheap - I would say rip off, more just not cheap

You never ever grease sintered bronze bushes. It stuffs them real quick.

Its a stickshift automatic beetle starter.

The starter was never rebuilt initially, but when i dissassembled it prior to giving it to the auto sparky it had grease for the many little ball bearings that were in the (what would you call it...) bearing tracks that curled around a shaft and was held in with the cage to have a 'throw out' motion when rotated.

I'd hate to see how it would be in a few years time running dry on the throw out tracks and cage.

Ouch....sorry, oil the bushes and grease the linkage......should have said lubed!!!! My bad. My post edited

I converted my 12v original wiper motor to a
12v magna wiper motor for less than $40
my wiper now wipe at useful speed or more :P
also should it break, there's plenty of magna at wreckers