My 2004 H2 shifter cable broke when I was away from home. I had it towed towed to the newest GM dealer and had it replaced. $524.00. $420 was for labor. That seems excessive as it doesn't appear to require that much time to change it our. The shifter cable was the only part replaced.

Anybody have experience in having this done and what was the labor cost?

 

MOVED to the H2 section, where H2 questions go.

The dealership is the LAST place on Earth to take a vehicle for out of warranty repair work.

You have an old truck. Either fix it yourself, or find a reputable local mechanic to do the work for you.

 

As Doc said, don't ever take your truck to a dealership unless you want to get screwed over. I had this happen to mine and it was just the bushing that rotted and wore out. I ordered a new bushing from bushingfix.com and had it fixed myself within 5 minutes for like $15. Did you crawl underneath and look before you had it towed?

 

Thats why the term "stealership" exists....

 

if the cable is good you can replace the bush with an off the self doorman gm shift linkage bushing kit 14055 it comes with 2 bushes the clear one fits on to the range selector. if you need the shift cable you can find GM/ ACDelco for around $50. taking the center console off is not too difficult. after that then you remove the cable from the transmission then remove a retainer clip and disconnect the other end from your gear shifter. pull the cable out and replace it in reverse order of disassembly. if you know what your doing it takes less then 15 minutes. now if they have to also remove the transmission range selector because the pin will not hold the new bush or cable. then that will take some time. if the nut gets sheered off the transmission in the process then they have to go into the transmission to replace the selector shaft then that would be around the price you paid $550

 

Thank you for the input. After looking at the invoice it says "found shift cable separated at transmission linkage" which leads me to believe it was just a bushing. I checked with a couple of GM dealers and $400.00 or so seems to be the going rate to change the cable. Must be a "flat rate". They probably don't stock bushings and just replace the cable. No profit in bushings.

To my defense it happened at night in the desert away from home and I had no viable option other than get it to a GM dealer unless I wanted to spend a couple of days away from home finding someone to work on it, otherwise I would not have had it taken to a dealer.

However I feel lucky. I bought this new 15 years ago and this is the first issue I have had with it other than routine maintenance and replacing one rear suspension airbag. The most dependable and economical vehicle I have ever owned when total cost of ownership over 15 years is taken into consideration.

 

great to hear that wish the previous owner of mine was as astute as you when it came to maintenance. mine looks like it was used on Baywatch and they never hosed the chassis down. definitely must have seen some seawater action. does not help they use road salt up here in the north either.
for me my detent lever pin was rotted and the bush literaly crumbled apart. plus I sheered off the 15mm nut that held it onto the transmission trying to remove it to grind off the pin drill it and put a bolt and lock nut in its place. luckily it was rusted so bad it was welded to the transmission shifter shaft. and I was able to tie it back on with the replacement bush and some copper wire to get to the nearest transmission shop. I do not have a lift so I did not want to tackle the job. I would have been all in for about 100$ that would have been the transmission oil filter, transmission oil, the new shaft the new detent lever and the shifter cable. but I had to order all the parts. the shop had it for a week and charged $550. so in retrospect I could have just ordered the parts and had the truck back on the road saving over 450$. seems they just liked my truck and wanted too keep it around a while for aesthetic reasons as the top should not have take more than 2 hours without a lift laying on your back on cardboard and scraping your knuckles with hand tools LOL. but I'm not as young as I used to be and I figured I would have had it the next day. but that did not happen. I had to tell them on Friday that I was picking the truck up wether they where finished or not to finally get it back. was I happy no neither where they but hey you drop something simple off to a "specialist" when they open on a Monday you eventually expect it back. sooner more then when I get around to it cause I'm picking all my costumers for time because I want to start every job and leave the quick thing for when the customer complains.... very bad business model but very common in shops. hopefully they did not use my transmission parts to finish another job LOL seen it happen a few times in my time.