I work for a large corporation that manufactures and sells power equipment. When pricing products, there are two labor rates we consider:

Straight labor - the average hourly rate of a manufacturing person. This just includes direct pay and I think the employer's portion of social security and medicare taxes. This rate is in the low $20s, I think.

Burdened labor - this cost includes benefits the employer pays, the cost of operating the facility he works at, the cost of support staff, etc. This number is in the $120 / hr range.

There are different burdened labor rates for different functions. Engineer and manufacturing have different burdened and straight labor rates.

So you're only considering straight labor, the business has to consider burdened labor costs, otherwise his business will fail. And BTW, burdened labor rates are rising faster than the normal inflation rate due to supplier shortages, customs fees, expedite charges for shipping, etc.

Straight labor is a small part of the overall cost for a business.

I had to clean up a bunch of petty arguing that wasn't contributing at all to the discussion. Please keep things civil, folks.

As for the original question, my understanding is the shop's quote was for labor and parts to replace both tie rod ends, plus an alignment, as opposed to buying and installing one tie rod end at home without an alignment. Yes, $400 sounds expensive but it's probably the reality of what the shop has to charge to stay in business these days.

You hit the nail on the head. 'for $400. they wont get any more business'. It is good business sense to work for a profit but to also be fair and get repeat customers.
My son has an 04 GTO and frequents some forum called LS something. Are you familiar with that? There seems to be some knowledgable guys on there regarding these cars.

As far as the 04 GTO, I obviously missed that post. You'd have to pull the trouble codes from the ECM, and get at least some direction as to where to look for the cause of a SES light.

Once you pull the codes, it will decipher as to what part of the engine management system is out of spec. Without a decent scanner that is able to give you some values of the system, your pretty much going to have to play electronic parts roulette, which becomes very expensive, very quickly. This is where most backyard mechanics either give up, or start throwing parts at a problem.

Without the proper tools, and knowledge of how the system works, your shooting in the dark. There are no short cuts when it comes to electronic engine management systems, the faults need to be identified, and then you have to isolate if the fault is caused by a replaceable part, or a fault in wiring/connections. Sometimes there is a certain system that may have a common problem that shows up frequently, and can be repaired by a parts replacement, but myself I like to identify exactly what is causing the fault, before replacing any parts, once you plug a new electronic part in, you own it, the parts store look to see if the part was used to diagnose a problem, and refuse to refund any parts that have been used.

This isn't like the 60s, and 70s, where everyting under the hood was fairly cheap to replace, so people would just start bolting in new parts, until the problem was found. Electronic engine management systems quickly seperated parts changers, from mechanics, that could actually diagnose a problem, before bolting on new parts.

Please re-read my initial post as it stated ONE tie rod. IF he had offered to replace BOTH for that amount I would have gladly paid it,. I replaced the tie rod myself today and it took me longer to jack up the truck, and remove the tire than it took to r&r the tie rod.

Please understand that I had no intention to incite arguments over what shops should or shouldn't charge. As a former business owner, I, too, turned down opportunities that didn't meet my criterior for profit. I GET it.

Thing is, it is NOT the SES light, it is the SVS "Service vehicle soon" light. There are no check engine lights or any other warnings indicated. The code reader reveals NO malfunctions or fault codes. I am told that the SVS light is BCM related and not ECM related, therefore cannot be read by the diagnostic port with a scanner. I did find a blown marker light bulb and replaced it, but I don't know how to clear the warning. I've read that it takes a special scan tool to reset it.

Throughout all my googling it seems that most responses defer to the SES light rather than the service vehicle soon light. I guess this warning is pretty rare.

The BCM can be set off by recharging the battery with the voltage set too high, I always disconnect the battery from the system if I have to charge my battery. The other thing I have run into is an ignition key fault will also set the BCM off. A low battery in the keyfob can cause you grief too. Beware that this fob battery is a bear to replace, and was never intended to be replaced. They designed it so you should replace the whole fob, also don't be tempted to buy the cheap aftermarket fobs if you change it, they don't seem to program correctly. I went to the local GM dealer and bought a new one.

Those are 3 items I've experienced with my own car, so far I've been ablle to fix my own car, and get everything figured out, and working. LS1GTO.com is where I got much of my information. You're correct that it takes a expensive scanner to chase down certain problems, you're probably gonna have to bite the bullet and pay a steep diagnostic fee if you can't find a workaround to get the BCM to stop lighting up your light.

PY sells fobs for the GTOs, and they are supposed to program just fine. I needed mine so I could drive the car to Norwalk last year, so I just ordered one locally from GM dealer.

I get the O/P frustration and I too don't mind paying a dealer for service, but when your just getting hosed that's a different story. Case in point. Our 2014 Acura RDX needed timing belt changed and possibly water pump. Acura dealer where we bought the vehicle new, quoted me $1400 to do timing belt and wanted another $900 to do water pump. I was looking at $2500 to $3000 with water pump changed.
I did the job for $500 with dealer parts. The water pump was fine. It took me about 5 hours taking my time to replace timing belt and tension-er and new serpentine belt. A tech could have done this job in 2 hours max. They could have done the job for $1500 easily with profit. That would have been $1500 profit over and above there actual cost and shop rate. In fact another independent shop quoted me around $1200 with parts to do the job.
Turns out I walked away from the dealer and we just bought a new vehicle from another manufacture. I said screw them.

$400 sounds expensive.

I will say this though,buy good parts.I`ve been at the same independent garage for 33 years,and we redo alot of work from other shops that have used bargain basement parts.

We tell the customers to go back to the previous shop,since the parts are warrantied;they flat out refuse,and tell us to just do it right.