I have a 92 Civic Si. I'm in the process of selling my car. The buyer wanted to have the car inspected which is understandable.

They told him that the powersteering line is leaking and that the clutch master cylinder is leaking.

Powersteering line = $800
Clutch Cylinder = $320

This is insane.

Are'nt these very easy DIY???

 

hahahaha to those prices.....someones trying to get rich.. which cylinder?

 

Master cylinder

 

WTF!? Pretty much everything on a Honda is an easy DIY... I wouldnt even pay $100 for both........

 

Bump for some more backup from fellow Honda enthusiast.

 

...

I believe the parts might be expensive.. I remember i went to auto body shop and i ask the guy, how much you charge to change the whole rear panel on the rust and he said, " it would be $3000 for one side and other side $3000.. Total would be $6000 ...Good lord... Probably would be able to feed myself after that.. = /

 

Are you sure it isnt your PS rack that is leaking? I could see R&R steering rack costing around $800

 

Prices from HondaPartsDeals.com:

HOSE, POWER STEERING FEED
53713-SR0-A53
$140.58

MASTER CYLINDER ASSY., CLUTCH
46920-SR3-A01
$94.50

 

^That's an expensive feed line, though $660 in labor for installation seems high, assuming the rack does not need to be removed.

 

I had an issue with an Accord i had a couple years ago and the power steering line. I put a dohc engine in my car, and the the original p/s line was no longer long enough. Check with Honda for a Prelude line, it was $500ish.

I took my existing line to a high pressure hose specialist locally. I waited 15 mins, they had cut the line open and lengthened it to my requested spec, and it was done. Total cost $26

This could be done with any line, repairing, or changing length. You should look into it

 

you can always scout out your local junkyard for parts

 

Most of us here would never spend $800 in a fix like that. Like deetz stated, check other places that specialize in those type of parts and not just a mechanic shop that does it all.

If the buyer is telling you that his "mechanic" told him that, then you can tell him to shove his mechanics finger up his butt and go somewhere else.

 

I would just remove ps before I ever paid that much.

 

Greetings,
I am the prospective buyer of the '92 Civic Si Fighterinsnatch is talking about. I have limited mechanical experience, although I did own an '86 Civic Si for awhile.
To be specific, and I'm NOT sure how much difference it makes,
the service ticket states, "P/S pressure line and rack leaking"

The guy at the front desk of this repair shop that specializes in imports said he thought it would run around $800ish, parts and labor.

I totally agree that a lot of shops/mechanics are too expensive. They rely on the blue book (?) for their prices, even if the mechanic does the job in half the time the book allows. And if this was just a power steering line I would look into trying to do it myself. But the fact that it's a"pressure" line AND rack...
Honestly, I don't even know what a rack is; and I'm wondering if any specialized tools would be required for it or a pressure line.

As far as the clutch thing - again, the service ticket states; "clutch master cylinder leaking" For that the service guy said around $320ish

And that stuff isn't everything, just the two major things. He also said there is a possible leak in the rear main seal; and a bad relay in the computer which, when and if I wanted to repair that, would run $500 for a new computer. (Had to replace the computer in the '86 too)

I DO like the car, but I'm apprehensive about either the expense of the two major repairs, OR having a bunch of work to do on it a few months down the road.

So given this more specific information; do you guys still think $800 is crazy;
and/or, how reasonable a repair job would this be for a "weekend warrior?"

 

^^ interesting.. looks like the OP didn't give out the full details eh?

 

Not purposely. I'm not trying to hide anything.

I've never EVER had any problems with any of these findings that the mechanic speaks of. The power steering has ALWAYS performed without issues and I've never had to refill the power steering reservoir and never had any clutch problems.

The bottom line is anything that has ever gone wrong with my car I've been able to fix myself without the help of a mechanic and I've saved THOUSANDS of dollars by avoiding mechanics.

John I'm glad to hear you contribute to the thread. I did'nt know the details of what the mechanic said was wrong with the car. All I know is that these cars are VERY easy to work on, so easy a caveman could do it.

This car has been taken care of since day one. All major problems have been fixed. I've taken my car in for oil changes/maintenance and the mechanics never mentioned powersteering or clutch cylinder problems.

 

someone post info on DIY jobs on this stuff. i think ive seen this around but im so bad with the search that i end up pullin out some dead threads.. lol

 

That makes a huge difference. The line is pretty easy to replace and doesn't cost all that much, the rack though is pretty pricey and very labour intensive. $800 actually seems completely reasonable. That said you can definately replace the rack yourself, and depending on how bad its leaking it may work fine for years.

What no one ever seems to mention is that if the mechanic fails to complete the job in the time given in the book they still only get paid for the book time. In other words if a mechanic completes a 3.3 hour job in 2.9 hours he just gained .4 hours. However if takes 4 hours to complete the same job he worked the last .7 hours for free, its called flat rate, when its busy, and you get jobs you can do in less than the book time you can make good money, when its slow, or you get stuck doing jobs that take longer than they pay you can just about starve.

The fact that its a pressure line makes no difference at all. None of the things mentioned are particularly "hard" to do in the sense of having knowledge of vehicles, they're just labour intensive.

Really the only hard thing about replacing a clutch master cylinder is laying on your back under the dash.

i'm curious about this computer issue, what exactly are the symptoms, honda ECUs generally work or they don't. Also, ECUs can be found far cheaper than that, even though its a P28 which are highly sought after they can still generally be found in the $80 - $200 range, and can easily be replaced by anyone, of all the things on the list this is the easiest one to do.

 

This is just awesome that the buyer found his post. Is this ownage of the OP?

 

i heart my manual rack

 

x2
power steering aint that cool....especially in a little civic, you don't need it.

 

Hey Guys,

I just want to be perfectly clear -
Fighterinsnatch only spoke to the shop guy briefly on the phone.
He did not get to see the service ticket (yet), nor speak with
the guy as long as I did. So, yeah, he didn't have all the details
at the time he originally posted.

And thanks for all the responses! I'm new to the forum, and the
site and it appears to be a really great resource for DIY's like
myself.

 

94EG8 said;
"i'm curious about this computer issue, what exactly are the symptoms, honda ECUs generally work or they don't..."

As I understand it, after the car is warmed up, if one shuts it off and tries to restart, it won't. The trick is to turn the key until the dash lights come on, wait for the check engine light to go off ( a few seconds...) then it will start.

The service ticket states, "relay in computer get(s) hot, will not let the fuel pump come on."

Also 94EG8; point taken regarding mechanic's pay being based on the book.
Have to say though, that would explain the mechanics who basically go in and replace entire parts/assemblies without taking the time to properly diagnose the problem. You know the drill, take it in with a problem, get it back with a bill and a new part, and you still have the problem. Then they want you to bring it back and have them replace another part...

I have great admiration for the mechanics who are skilled at figuring out the actual issue.

SpecialBrownie;
Yes, credit goes to the OP, Fighterinsnatch, who told me about the site, and his post.

 

honda-tech is great for that. There's a lot of good-natured ribbing, but a ton of good info too. If you read around here, you'll find that working on Civics is generally like playing with Legos.

I agree that $800 sounds more like swapping a whole rack, which is a pretty big pain with the engine in. Regardless, I probably wouldn't worry about it a ton... lots of people completely pull the power steering and just drive it manual, which is horrible for the rack, but they keep on working. Personally, I'd just keep the fluid up if it's not leaking bad.

The ECU's the least of your worries, as others said. Check out the hondamarketplace. People sell P28 ECUs for under $200 shipped any day of the week.

On the possible main seal: How many miles on the engine? How bad is it leaking? I haven't seen a lot of main seals leak on D and B series engines... at least, from what I've seen, it's a lot more likely to be oil pan gasket. My CRV leaks quite a bit from there... If I ever decided to fix it, it would take me $20 and 30 minutes. I've also seen shops call a loose oil filter a 'rear main seal leak'. My point's just that it's sometimes hard to tell where oil low is coming from, 'rear main seal' is oftentimes mechanic speak for 'it's leaking a bit from somewhere, and we don't want to deal with it.' Trust me, you haven't seen a main seal puke oil until you've owned a 4.0 Cherokee for awhile lol.

I'm not saying to buy this car. I'm saying that I didn't know anything about cars 8 years ago when I bought my Civic. I still don't feel super comfortable working on other cars. But I've torn my Civic down to the nuts and bolts with nothing other that about 5 sockets and wrenches, and never really felt over my head. These things are easy.

 

Oh, crap, he's talking about the main relay.

Costs like $40 from Autozone (or $5 from a junkyard). Takes less than 5 minutes to change. Literally. Very common problem in 92-95 Civics, somewhat less common in 96-00 cars.

Actually takes about 15 minutes to change in a 96-00, because you have to unscrew the glovebox. Still very easy. It's a little rectangular box with a wire harness coming out of it, and it controls the signal between the ECU and the fuel pump, among other things.