So I dropped my subie off this morning b/c of a CE light and a hesitation. They want to charge me $89 just to check the CE light! What?? Well, after telling him I have an extended warranty, he said if the cause of the CE light was a warrany covered issue, they wouldn't charge me, but if it was b/c of spark plug wires or plugs, etc. it would be $89. Has anyone else paid this much to simply diagnose a CE light?
BTW, it's a '99 2.5 RS w/ 44xxx miles.

CHad:cool:

YEP...
CE light can mean you altered something and caused the light to go on... etc... so they are just covering their um... bum bums... :)

j.
www.subiegal.com

Okay Jamie, that makes sense. So what do I do if they claim something rediculous caused it, like my silencer being removed? Should I ask to see a printout with the code they read off my car?

Chad:cool:

I'm no scooby specialist, but I AM very opinionated and think I know a lot of stuff...

If your intake silencer removal was anything like the WRX intake silencer removals I've been seeing (ie: go at it with a hack saw) then I'd have to side with the dealer if they want to charge you. When you're sawing parts off your car, especially off the bits that let air into the engine, you're being just a little bit naughty warranty-wise. They have to draw the line somewhere.

On the subject of being charged before they even look at it, that's very normal these days for ALL sorts of warranties. I sell cellular phones, and the manufacturers often charge a customer before they do any work on the phone. If the problem turns out to be a normal warrantied repair, they credit the customer back. They're usually pretty honest about this stuff... but a lot of people will take things in for repairs when they KNOW it's their fault it's broken, just hoping that they can get away with a free repair. Then we spend shipping dollars and the company takes the phone apart, calls us and tells us the customer took it for a swim, and the customer decides THEN to dump the phone. We're all out a few bucks.

Find someone with an OBD-II scanner down there. There has to be someone that has one and can tell you.

Agreed. Find someone that can find the error without taking it into the shop. It'll save youthe trouble. Another thought is to put the silencer back on and drive for a bit. If that cures the CE light then you know what's up. If not THEN take it in.
They keep records of what you've done to the car, so if you're going to take it in, undo mods that are easy enough to undo.

Charging for a CE light diagnosis...

Well, it may make some sense. But is that all they're doing? What do they charge to check your brakes? Many places do that for free, and it takes far more labor than figuring out what the the CE light is.

I'm not in the repair industry, but I'd say $30 is far more reasonable for what must be a simple task. Unless of course they start doing additional investigation into the hesitation, which might require significant work.

The silencer removal in the RS does not require hacking anything, it's simply removing the plastic resonator from the fender, and I've NEVER heard of this causing a CE light, so I seriously doubt that is the case.

8Complex - there is no one I know of down here with a scan tool, though since you can buy them for a little over $100, that would have been a better move than risking the $89 from the dealership.

They still haven't called, so I don't know what is wrong yet, but I will let you know here when I find out.

Chad:cool:

"My bum is on the ship, the bat-tle-ship"

I'm not too far from you, and I've been wanting to buy a scanner for my Palm System. Any idea how much it costs? I guess now would be a good time to get it.

Looks like my old Palm Pilot Pro is too old. But for $13X I can get the ISO version for a laptop, and those are easy for me to get ahold of.

See my new post for the results of my visit.

I had a problem with my ABS a couple of days ago. The light was staying on and every time I hit the brakes all the lights in my car would dim. Well you can figure it was a wiring problem. I just purchased the car a month ago. I bought the SOA extended warranty about two weeks ago. It is for four years 48,000 miles and cost $1500. My car is covered untill 108,000 miles. Anyway I took it in to get them to fix it. They looked at it and said they needed to keep it overnite. One of the guys running the front desk said it looked like it had been hit in the front and if that was the cause of the problem they would not cover it. I said you took my $1500 with no problems.
Well the problem was a short in the spoiler which was covered. I had to pay the fifty dolar deductible but that was it. I did not have to pay anything up front. I would not pay them that much money to look at my car. You have a warranty and they must prove that you caused the problem before you have to pay a cent. The total bill for my car was $1211! Oh yeah they told me it was never hit in the front. I think that was an attempt to get out of the coverage.