dale29

I went to my dealer today for my first oil change. (had a coupon for a freebie)
I asked the "service advisor" if they would change the fuel filter while they were in there, he says it will cost a hundred bucks!! To change a fuel filter?!?!

46 for the part and 3/4 of an hour labor.....then he had the nerve to ask if I wanted them to rotate my tires!!

I bought a Hastings Fuel filter for 8 bucks, is there any trick to putting it in? or should I give the c-note to the jolly roger???

IA_James

Make the pirate walk the plank. You'll need a crescent wrench, and something to catch the fuel as it runs out the bottom of the canister (little yellow lever on bottom). Clean lint free rag to get sediment out of bottom. Put new filter in, replace O-Ring on the top piece, and hand tighten. Make sure you don't accidentally pinch the O-ring so it leaks. Go in, wash paws. Come back out, cycle key 3 or 4 times so the lift pump fills up the canister. Check for leaks. If none, fire it up. Spend the other $92 on beer and steaks for this week end.

Total elapsed time, including trip to the store with your newly re-filtered truck for the beer and steaks: 30 min

dale29

Thanks for the info, I figured it wasn't brain surgery (even tho the dealer does).

TexasCTD

http://www.genosgarage.com/prodinfo.asp?number=FS19800E


You can have these Fleetguards shipped to your door from Geno's and even save you the trouble of going to buy one. I have never heard of the Hastings. Hopefully they make a good filter.


Ohhhh....and 3/4 of an hour of labor to install a fuel filter is just plain Robbery.

Geico266

The dealers have to make up for the free oil changes somehow.

BTW what oil did they put in? Are you sure? I'll bet you $100 it is not diesel rated.

Buffalo

I recently bought fuel filters (10 micron) for my '03 from Cummins Rocky Mtn. for $14.79 ea. ( I don't think that was such a good deal, either!)

The new 7 micron filters are in the $16-17.00 area.

Given that, the dealer is making approximately $30.00 "just" on the sale of the filter, itself. Then, they charge an enormous amount of money to install the filter.
It's really an easy job & I'm not sure which end of the wrench to grab!!!
It "really" pays to be able to do some of the easy maintainance on your vehicles. Like someone said, do you know, for sure, that the dealer put diesel rated motor oil in your vehicle. A Ford dealer put 10X30 in my neighbors Powerstroke & he burned it up. He had two oil analysis's done to insure the wrong oil was used. The dealer wouldn't fix the problem because he had an Edge Box on the truck. He had to rebuild the engine, himself.

Once you see just how easy it is to change the fuel filter, on the 3rd Gen. trucks, you too will wonder how the dealer can justify $100.00+ charges for that proceedure. The dealers, certainly, deserve to make a reasonable profit but, some of these charges are bordering on immoral, in my opinion.

I don't know anything about Hastings quality or filtering ability. However, I'd make "darned sure" that it is a quality filter & meets the requirements of your engine.

Previously, Fleetguard & Cummins thought 10 micron filtration was plenty. Recently, they have changed their way of thinking & are now providing 7 micron filtration. Bosch (the pump manufacturer) wanted 5 micron but, settled for 7 micron.

As an example, Caterpillar demands 2 micron filtration for their engines. What does that tell you?

Joe F.(Buffalo)

alMout

You can get a Wix 10 micron filter from fleetfilter.com for less than $8. I usually order a year's supply of all filters from them at a time, them buy my fluids locally.

Mopardan

I bought one from a dealer last year and they charged me like $42. Got home and inquired on here (DTR) and found out I WAY overpaid. Carried the filter back (they weren't happy) and got my money back. Went to Cummins Midsouth in LR and paid about $11.

rdc

$100 for a stinkin' filter change???
I didn't know gold plated filters were now on the market !!!

Turbobob

I learned my lesson when I bought my 2nd gen CTD. Dealer charged 40 bucks for the filter and when I got home, I found Geno's on the net and their price was 12 bucks! I opened the Mopar box, and the filter said Fleetgard! I took it back, got my money back & bought 2 filters from Geno's for the same money!

tmgxray

I get mine from the local big rig shop. It's around $6.50 for a fleetguard filter. Hope that helps.

CTDinMT

I pay about $12 for a filter and give up 5 min of my time to change it. Easy stuff. I drain the bowl, wipe it out, fill the bowl 2/3's up with diesel from a little 1 gallon gas can, put in new filter and with one "key-on" the lift pump fills it the rest of the way and fire it up. 3/4's an hr of labor, my edit ! I'd find another dealer, by the way...

rockcrawler304

Just ordered 2 oil filters and 2 fuel filters (Fleetguard) from Genos today and it was $60.00 delivered. Not too bad I think.

Mexstan

I pay US$16.50 at the local Cummins dealer for the Fleetguard LF 3972 fuel filter. If anyone has a Fleetguard number for a better filter, please let me know.

smokindog

Fellas,

Here's the deal on the ridiculous filter markup....

Fleetguard manufactures them, although Cummins owns Fleetguard they are sold to Cummins who in turn marks them up, then Cummins sells them to Mopar who yet again, marks them up. By the time they have hit the parts counter they are out of their minds!!! Nonetheless, some yahoo will still think he has to have the Mopar/Cummins filter only and until he discovers this wonderful forum will line the pockets of all the parties involved. Sad, but true.

No one should ever buy their filters from the dealer!!!