As a fully YouTube-qualified car mechanic, I was tempted to do the job myself when the starter motor in the Ford Focus packed it in. I mean, you can buy a new starter motor on ebay for a couple of hundred dollars and installing it doesn't look exactly like rocket science, does it now?
Still, in the end I let a local repair shop do the job. Not the one I used to go to, after I had caught them out charging me brand-new retail price for replacement parts they had scrounged off the wreckers, nor the unafFORDable FORD dealers I had bought the car from in May 2010 who sell their "genuine" FORD parts at several times the price of identical parts which do not bear the "FORD" sticker - read more here.
Instead, Rod McQueen of Bluewater Auto Electrics did the job for $545 which I didn't think was all that cheap either. That was until I walked into the FORD dealership this morning to ask what they would have charged for the same job: $857 for a "genuine" FORD starter motor plus $125 for labour!
So I drove straight back to Rod McQueen to thank him for having saved me over $400. How did he do it? As he explained to me, he buys after-market parts which are as good but not as expensive as "genuine" parts. You learn something every day!
