- An Infiniti owner says that he took his car in for an oil change and got a shocking quote.
- That came in the form of a $5,000 bill to repair his Q50 sedan that’s worth roughly $8,000.
- In fact, a $1,400 battery terminal quote raises questions about the repair shop’s pricing.
A repair shop seemingly thought they could get away with a $1,479.58 estimate for replacing a battery terminal. Sure, that seems like a reasonable price for what’s essentially a piece of metal. Or maybe they were hoping the customer would just leave them alone. Either way, the fact that they presented this mind-boggling quote to an Infiniti owner driving a car worth around $8,000 is, well, a little rich.
The Infiniti in question is a 2015 Q50a. That might sound strange as the ‘a’ designation is one that Infiniti didn’t stick with and refers to the base Q50 of the day. What that means in the light of this story is that we’re not talking about a car with a ton of bells and whistles. Despite that, the estimate here appears real.
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On its face, several of these charges seem questionable. For instance, the receipts shared by the owner on a Reddit thread show that the shop is asking for $459.99 to check the differential for leaks. It estimates $902.21 to replace the heater core hose and another $125.98 to place a new cabin air filter. None compare to the $1,479.58 battery terminal, though. Sure, that might just be an error, but it would be a very, very strange one.
Just for the sake of arguing that somehow the shop genuinely intended to charge this for nothing more than a new terminal, let’s consider its cost. For some cars, a battery terminal can be very expensive because it includes computer chips that measure voltage and other data going to and from the battery. The Q50, however, is not one of those cars.
As such, it seems that pricing for a battery terminal is no different than a typical everyday vehicle. Based on several online retailers, a comparable replacement to the standard terminal will run less than $10. Perhaps the issue is one of access. That could explain a huge charge. Maybe.
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Except that even at a shop rate of $200 an hour, it would mean that accessing and replacing the terminal would require around seven hours. Moreover, it does not take anywhere near that much time. In fact, it’s right under the hood on the passenger side under a nice little cover.
Thankfully, the Infiniti owner didn’t fall for the shop’s seemingly absurd charges. “I’m likely going to find a mechanic to repairs [sic] these elsewhere for a cheaper price,” they say in their post. Smart move.