Labour charge for changing KAD300 Alernator belts.

[admisi]

Hi,

The mechanic I use has just tried to bill me for 4 hours labour to change 2 alternator belts on my KAD300's. That seems a bit steep to me. Can anyone tell me how long it should take to change 2 alternator belts and what I should be charged for the labour time?

 

[volvopaul]

Just

Hi,

The mechanic I use has just tried to bill me for 4 hours labour to change 2 alternator belts on my KAD300's. That seems a bit steep to me. Can anyone tell me how long it should take to change 2 alternator belts and what I should be charged for the labour time?

Yes that's excessive unless he had issues with the top alternator bolt as the seize up in both the timing case and support bracket, sometimes they will not adjust because of this, it can take a while to free it off to give movement swing of the alternator body. 4 hours in effect is half a day, on a good engine location it can take 10 mins per side , this is usually done on a full serive where all the belts are changed at the same time, other belts have to be removed first so maybe he had an issue with the others before attempting to remove the alternator belt.
Out of interest what make and model is your boat? Then I may add to this post.

 

[admisi]

It is a 2003 Cranchi Endurance 33. The engine bay is very tight I admit, and I would love to know how 2 of them got down there, lol.
You'll really laugh when you read that they are charging me 4 hours labour for diagnosing and replacing the potentiometer on the Bow Throttle Lever when the engine couldn't find neutral, even after I had read out the Fault Code 2.7 from the EDC, which is specifically a potentiometer fault. Ho Hum (btw it's in Spain, Costa Blanca, I'm sure nobody is surprised!)

 

[volvopaul]

It is a 2003 Cranchi Endurance 33. The engine bay is very tight I admit, and I would love to know how 2 of them got down there, lol.
You'll really laugh when you read that they are charging me 4 hours labour for diagnosing and replacing the potentiometer on the Bow Throttle Lever when the engine couldn't find neutral, even after I had read out the Fault Code 2.7 from the EDC, which is specifically a potentiometer fault. Ho Hum (btw it's in Spain, Costa Blanca, I'm sure nobody is surprised!)

Spain hmmm sounds fair to me.

 

[jrudge]

This is a dupe thread, however I used to have an Endurance 33 and it used to munch belts like no tomorrow so I know exactly what is involved!

Issued bolts aside from memory you had to...

1. remove the cover

2. slack off the adjusters

3. loosen the alternator ( usually a pain in the bum)

4. on one side take off the hydraulic pump belt ( stbd i think)

5. replace belt

6. tension

7. put the rest of the belts back

Getting a persons in the engine room was a challenge let alone 2!

I used to do this in about 45 mins, including when at anchor. So 2 hours seems not a million miles out but the time they have run it up etc.

The actual query hence is are they justified in charging you for 2 people? My view no, but maybe they only hunt in pairs ( which is actually pretty common in my experience).

Learn to do it yourself!