Whether he did everything by the book or not, that is a lot to charge for that job. Especially when the customer has no say in the job.
Not really, when you consider the amount of work that may have been required to make the parts proper spec. He also may have been burned in the past by customer supplied motors (i know i have). I'd like to see a line item list of charges for this job before I make judgements on the interwebz about a mechanic I don't have any experience with.... maybe this tech could get on here and represent himself, instead of having no voice in this debate some folks here are creating...
You get what you pay for when it comes to auto work. There are the occasional good techs working independently that will charge next to nothing to do large jobs, but they have almost no overhead like a large shop with tons of equip and employees would. It's also unlikely that they have insurance or any type of financially backed warranty on the work itself. Anyone can slam in a junkyard motor for cheap. Running a full-blown shop, and assembling from a shortblock is not cheap, and never will be as more complex tech is baked into cars. However, I will say there are some small-medium size shops that do a great job of balancing having advanced toolsn, and good techs, AND provide good value to the customer.
By constantly devaluing the work of others, you devalue your own work in the long run. It's easy to armchair quarterback these kinds of things, but consider that no one on this forum knows what had to be done to get this job done "right." Maybe this job was a "ripoff," maybe it wasn't. Until we have FACTS, the Internet mob should simmer down.
I will say that this guy sounds like he did a bad job of assessing the initial situation and parts needed. That large of an increase over the estimate suggests some big finding that wasn't know when the initial work assessment was done.
