I went to autozone today and bought a serpentine belt for my vehicle for roughly 20 bucks. I went to a mechanic, that I guess I've been starting to trust, to install them. Normally he would charge 89 bucks for parts and labor. OMG! Are you ufking kidding me! This seems to be a fairly simple DIY job! So he asked me what a "fair" price is...........................................I said 10 bucks in labor only. Just flat out 10 bucks. He told me it wasn't worth 10 bucks. Since it was at the end of the day, closes at 6pm and we got there at around 6pm to pick up my gf's grand piece, he charged us 20 bucks cash. Which he pocketed because A) he demanded cash and he never entered it into his computer. I have a hayne's manual and it seemed easy so I just asked him for some pointers. I guess it took 2 ppl to do it. One person to pull on the tensioner and the other to put the belt on. The dude working on my car (of course in so. cal. none of them speak any english), forgot how the belt is placed on the pullies. So i had to get the manual out of my car to show them. After 5-10min, they installed it, not even a tear of sweat.
SO YES IMO IT WAS WORTH 10 UFKING DOLLARS!!!!! .........retards.
The reason I didn't do it myself was because in my 98, at the rear set of pullies, they appeared to be hard to get to. Firstly, that damn AC line was in the way. Secondly, along the top set of pullies, the damn engine mount got in the way. Thirdly, I only had like roughly 3" in space between the pullies and the barriers. The bottom set of pullies were a pain (ie, they are so deep that its nearly impossible to get your arm down there (due to restrictions of clearance) and put the belt on right. The guy had to use both hands to create a circle with the belt and "lasso" the belt onto the ac compressor pulley area. This easy 5-10min diy would have taken me at least 40min to try and figure it out. Every time I engage in a new DIY I get scared that I might screw up or break something in the process; that in the end, I have more problems to deal with. So I paid the mechanic 20 bucks to do it and I watched him do it in the parking lot with my hood open.
Moral of the story?: IMO IT WAS WORTH 10 UFKING DOLLARS!!!!!!!