I have recently acquired an 86 740 wagon with only 140K on it. I am unable to get a title for it so in becomes a parts car. A friend in the landscaping business just cooked the engine in his 89 760 and I have agreed upon a swap with him. I am selling the engine for $500, and we are trading labor, (he makes my yard beautiful and I make his car run). So, what is the engine job worth? I figure it is worth about 15 to 20 hours so I want to put a monetary value on it. Is a labor figure of $500 to 700 realistic? What would you guys with more experience in billing out jobs charge? I want to be fair.
Jon

I think you should charge at least 500 because your forgetting one small detail. I'm assuming both are 4 cyln. engines. Most 760"s are turbo. Now I have done this myself but its a little more work than you think.One you will have to drill and tap into the side of the block for the oil feed line to the turbo and then another hole about 15mm into the bottom end of the block for the oil return. Not forgetting the rest of the componants which are obvious. Use the same trans for the turbo because its a aw71 which is a heavier duty trans. And once done you will have a very strong and fast car because the 740 if it was not a turbo has higher compression pistons and once turboed turn into screamin demond. keep the oil clean and have fun. I did this to my girl friends car who has a lead foot and its still going strong 5yrs later.

If you're not already committed to the swap (and you know somebody in Maine or NH), you could get that car titled without a problem. In fact, a vehicle that's 15+ years old doesn't require a title out here (but they will issue one if you need it when you move out of state). So you could register it without a title, then request a title for CO.

Just a thought.

Jeff Pierce
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'93 945 Turbo ( one kickass family car ! ), '92 Mercedes 190E (my daily driver), '53 Willys-Overland Pickup (my snow-plow truck/conversation piece -- sold to a loving home), '85 Jeep CJ-7 w/ Fisher plow

I would feel ok asking $400 for swapping in an identical motor.more if i have to adjust for a different fuel/emission system. I would skew the rate a bit if the motor is extra heavy, hard to acess, or realy simple. IE. swapping a carbed motor into a 66 only involes 5 or 6 wires and a fuel line, take less than a day, I would give a cheaper rate. A Diesel V8 crammed into a van, I might start around $1000, even for a friend.

BTW, I find there is less paperwork using a "lost title form" than if you actualy use the title.

Well let me see, you are selling him the motor for $500.00 outright correct? So their is no labor charged involved in you pulling the first motor or it is covered in the $500.00. Now you have the issue of pulling his barbequed motor out, swapping components, and dropping the new/used motor in and making it run. The standard time to R&R a red engine has always been 20 hours in the dealerships I have worked in. I own my own shop now and charge $70.00 per hour and when I did the occasional side job while working at the dealer ship I simply charged them 1/2 the hourly rate. Albeit I am a professional technician with all the tools and experience that comes with it and I assume that you are an amature (simply meaning you have a real job and it is not fixing Volvos for a living) I still think that the 1/2 the hourly rate rule is a good place to start. That being said if you base it on the $70.00 labor rate that I charge, you should be billing around $700.00. If you factor in the shade tree versus the professional angle I would say that $500.00-$700.00 is about right.

A few other things you might want to consider are that there will be a couple of hundred bucks in miscellaneous b.s. involved in an engine swap, what about the a/c do you have what it takes to evacuate and recharge it, are you set up to pull transmissions as part of this swap?

If you decide to do this I strongly recommend that you do not do this on a handshake. That is a sure fire way to piss away a friendship. The two of you need to sit down and draw up something on a piece of paper and sign it so both of you are on the same page. You need to outline the time frame, exactly what the value of the services provided is worth on both sides and what will be provided by both parties. Who is responsible for purchasing what, he's going to need supplies for your yard and you're going to need supplies for his car. What you are considering here is business and business needs to be kept business period. I have three children and when they come to the Bank of Dad for anything I take care of it and handle it like business. I have a receipt book right in my desk and I write them a receipt for every transaction and if it is a big deal we sit down a draw up a contract that is agreeable to both parties so that months down the road when payments are still being made neither one of us can say "but I thought you said/meant, or that was not the way I remembered it"

With all that being said I would charge no less than $700.00, draw up a contract and get it done.

Mark

A garage around here bills @ $80-$120/hr. You don't have any overhead and are probably not ASE certified. A typical shade tree mechanic never makes a monetary profit, it is the gratification of a job well done driving down the road. I would think a case of beer or two would suffice for me, which equates to about $1/hour. Better mechanics could claim minimum wage at $5/hr. Your landscaper is already paying you $500 for the old engine, I wouldn't charge anything extra - except a free beer!

Klaus
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98 V70Rawd(108Kmi), 95 854T(88K mi), 75 164E(173K mi)

Klaus , where do you live? I need an engine pulled.