My brother in law knows a guy who is a mechanic. I seen him before but don't know him personally. He talked to the guy about seeing if he could fix my car tie rod end. When he came to my house to inspect it, he discovered i need to replace my rack and pinion. We was going over our options for getting the new part from junk yard or a new or re manufactured one from offline. He said he would do it all for me for $290 that's including the rack and pinion. basically he said the part offline would come to $296 so that is what I have to pay him.. So my question is , Is that common for someone to offer to fix your car for basically free all i have to do is pay for the part? Is there usually a catch?
I have a 95 honda accord v6.

Thanks for any feedback.

 

One possibility goes like this... He orders it through his shop, and it comes with a "suggested retail" price of $296 and actually pays a wholesale price of lets-say $230. So he's doing the work for $66. and not reporting it to the shop owner or the tax man.

Still might be a good deal or a bad deal, cause I really don't have any idea how much markup there is on parts like that. Normally a shop will do the same thing and still charge labor (for customers that aren't friends or relatives).

 

More likely he's going to simply replace tie rod ends; inner and outer and charge you for replacing rack. Rack's rarely fail and replacing rack to cure tie-rod problem is crazy.

good luck

 

Yeah, I have my eyes open just in case he try to pull a wool over my eyes, I want to see receipts and everything.

 

Do get receipts and a warranty on all the parts from the store he's buying them at..Just in case they fail..

WheelBrokerAng