G'day just wanting to check if this labour charge sounds alright:

Car went in to check low oil pressure warning, checked with master guage, replace oil pressure switch, perform engine flush, and fill up with new thicker oil and filter.
Problem not solved so engine out, and stripped, problem FUBAR oil pump, timing case off, crank out, bearings replaced, then put it all back together.

NOw this has all been totalled to 18 hours, which sounds a tad too much. Am i right? if so, how do i argue the figure?

total bill stands at roughly 2k for parts and labour so hoping to reduce it a tad.

cheers lads

mmm sounds allright

most mechs are around $80hr or so...
then u have parts on top

most of the time they get their amount of work hours out of a book, like spark plug change=30mins and crap like that, so you really won't be able work them down on that, specially when they go throuh diagnosis of a problem.

$2000 is a fair bit but probably reasonable considering 18hrs of work! Big bills like that make u wish u'd done it all yourself and saved $1900 and only spent $100 on new pump and timing chain. Did the mechanic warn you about how much work was needed? I think they probably should have given u a quote once they worked out the pump was stuffed.

yeah they said itd be that much its just every time they said an esitmate, they've taken the longer end of that estimate for the job. They've had my car for three weeks too.....

Its a bit late now! Its all been done

It would have been cheaper to take a week off work and do it yourself.