“Having trouble with a bolt that broke“ should be done tomorrow morning. Does this sound reasonable? 2003 timing belt and water pump replacement.

Yes. I am doing my timing belt right now - consider myself to be very competent and careful and even I rounded one nut and two bolts and almost a third. As usual, the way to get it those busted nuts and bolts off was a torch.

Sounds about par for the course...my first time took me about 9 hours, the second time just under 6. Don't forget to put the plastic triangle piece back on the bottom part of the timing cover.

I have an '03 V8 too, I let the dealer do the timing belt last time, but to answer your question, yes, 6 hrs. doesn't sound bad and a broken bolt on an '03 sounds par! I just broke four last week, three of four on the rear sway bar bushing brackets and one of two on the fuel tank straps!

It took my brother and I almost two whole days to change mine... we took our time and stopped intermittently to watch YouTube videos on the next steps. We also ran into a problem with tightening the crank pulley as I didn't realize you need a special tool to hold it. Lucky for me, my engineer dad quickly fabricated one out of a steel bar. It was such a relief to finish that job.

Fair enough. My only concern was I dropped it off Friday after making the appointment 3 weeks earlier. Told him I’ll be gone for the weekend so I don’t need it for the weekend. When we came back Sunday afternoon it hadn’t moved from where I parked it. Called Monday morning and he said they just started it. Ok.... He called about 2pm and said they were putting it back together and the fan bearing was squeaky and they were already in there and could get one for $175. I said pass. About 5pm I called and asked if he was saying it pretty much done and ok to pick up. He said no. They leave at 4:30 and they had trouble with a bolt that broke and it should be done in the morning. The skeptic in me thinks he’s getting the $175 either way... I just don’t understand quoting 4 hours and more than likely getting a bill for 8 hours. Mechanic told me he’s done plenty of 4.7’s, did one on a Sequoia couple days earlier.

He should only be billing you for the book time. One tough bolt shouldn’t be enough to warrant charging more on the labor end.


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Guy just called and said they were done. I asked for the total and he said $377.24 which is extremely reasonable. A bargain really. I did ask when I dropped it off I wanted to see the pump and belt as I wasn’t sure when it was last changed. We’ll see if they saved it.

377 for the labor? I'd say that's pretty fair. All in I will probably have about 6-7 hours into changing it myself. Only 76000 miles on mine right now and the water pump gasket was leaking in two spots.