The closest Ford dealer to me, Rye Ford, wants to charge me $150 just to get the codes read for my airbag light. Is this normal? Seems like highway robbery to me.

 

I've never heard of dealers charging just to get your codes for you. I'd call around to any other ford dealers in your area and ask if they charge

 

if its just the obdII reading take it to advanced auto or pepboys.

 

a good dealer wont charge.

btw, at least the dealer will tell you what your actual problem is. unlike the pepboys/autozone "free" scans that they will just try to tell you its the o2 sensor lol.

 

Cadillac dealer I use for another vehicle charges 80 which is applied towards
the repair if and when it's done. What was happening was people brought their
cars in, tech guy would find the problem, then the person would leave, or go
and buy the repair part and fix, or have somebody else fix the problem.

 

It is not just a OBD-II code. The RCM can not be read by an plain old OBD-II scanner. It is a a module that I believe only ford ids, or other advanced CAN bus scanner can read.

I called 2 different dealerships - one in stamford, CT wanted to charge $109 for "diagnostic" which they would roll into the repair costs if I got the work done there.

I would rather do the work myself, and I am rather annoyed that it costs so much to plug in to a computer just so I can get the fault code.

 

A scantool that reads the body module and airbags can be had for around three hundred. Only problem is, once pals and family know you have one, then they seem to visit more often (and ask if they can get the CEL checked while there). LOL

 

Think of it like this. Service folks get paid by the job. If he's taking time to
read your car for free he ain't making no money for groceries, and a paying
job he might have got then passes to somebody else.

 

That is messed up if they did charge. I always took my past vehicles to Autozone since it's free.

 

I have worked in a BMW service department - so I know how the whole game works for mechanics and flat rate billing.

I just think that billing for an hours worth of time to pull codes is outrageous.

$25 for a code read would sound decent since it will take 10 minutes or less of mechanic time. Plug it in to Ford IDS, do autoscan and show all DTC boom done.

$100+ is silly, and has me eyeballing Chinese clone VCM units ... which looks like they could be pretty risky gamble.