Auto repair bills run high in Nevada

If your car is coughing, expect to pay big, Nevadans. CarMD warns that Silver State drivers pay more than other drivers almost anywhere in America.

In its annual Vehicle Health Index, CarMD, a Fountain Valley, Calif., car repair information company, listed Nevada as the fifth-most expensive state in the United States to get cars fixed. Nevada fits in a particularly pricey West that included CarMD's five most expensive repair markets, and seven of the top 10, based on combined average costs for parts and labor.

The top five are Arizona ($421.49), New Mexico ($406.81), Colorado ($397.83), California ($394.49) and Nevada ($393.96).

Washington (No. 6, $386.62) and Hawaii (No. 7, $385.54) also placed in the top 10.

CarMD's state-by-state repair-cost rankings, released Thursday, derives from analysis of about 80,000 repairs made from Jan. 1, 2010, through Dec. 31 by the company's network of technicians. The repairs are all related to a vehicle's "check engine" system, which alerts drivers to problems affecting emissions output and drivability.

When parts and labor costs are combined, Nevadans pay 11 percent more than the national average for check-engine repairs, CarMD said. When costs aren't combined, the company said, Nevadans paid $227.08 (7 percent higher than the national average) for parts and $166.89 for labor (16 percent higher than the national average).

Western U.S. drivers paid about 13 percent more than drivers in the Midwest, 11 percent more than drivers in the Southeast and 5 percent more than those in the Northeast for repairs, CarMD said.

CarMD corporate communications director Kristin Brocoff, who is based in Las Vegas, said the valley's spread-out geography and generally dry weather make for lots of driving, and lots of wear on cars.

"We don't really have public transit, so we end up driving everywhere; I can't even go to the grocery store without taking the car," she said Monday. "We're all spread out and our driving season is all year long."

Western states mostly avoid the potential damage from salt and sand used to clear freeways in cold-winter regions like the Northeast and upper Midwest. As a result, CarMD Vice President Art Jacobsen said Monday, cars last longer, but plentiful dust gets into things like oxygen sensors and air filters and builds up.

Said Brocoff, "That's why when you go to get your oil changed, whether it's at a dealer or a local repair shop and they ask you whether you want your air filter replaced, here the answer is usually, 'Yes.' "

"It's a lot cheaper to pay $20 to have an air filter replaced," she said, "than it would be to pay several hundred dollars to have the mass air flow sensor replaced."

Dust damage figured in Nevada's No. 2 (replace oxygen sensor, 7.36 percent) and No. 5 (replace mass air flow sensor, 4.48 percent) most common check-engine light repairs. Oxygen sensors, which CarMD said cost an average of $256.74 to fix in Nevada, including parts and labor, can fail prematurely if hampered by dust and debris. Mass air flow sensors can cost up to $450 to fix with parts and labor.

"Dust is like sandpaper running through your engine," said Jacobsen, who lives in Southern California. "It can wear down your valves, cylinder sleeves and pistons."

CarMD's data suggest that Nevadans may be able to avoid garages, and the state's most common repair, just by closing, and keeping, their gasoline caps.

In 2010, gasoline-cap-related repairs accounted for 10.8 percent of "check engine" light problems. CarMD estimated that loose, damaged or missing gasoline caps cause 147 million gallons of gasoline to evaporate annually.

Given AAA's national average price of $3.562 per unleaded gallon Monday, that's $523.6 million in wasted fuel.

Jacobsen said loose-cap check-engine lightings are so common because cars must by law have the light come on whenever there's an engine system leak of 0.02 inches or greater, about the size of a pinhole. Some newer car designs avoid the problem by not having the caps, Jacobsen said.

In Nevada, replacing catalytic converters (5.63 percent, average bill $1,000) was the third-most common check-engine-light repair; replacing spark plugs and spark plug wires (average Nevada repair $348.58) was fourth (4.71 percent).

Washington, D.C., paid the least for parts and labor in CarMD's Vehicle Health Index, $265.29, followed by Missouri ($297.27), Ohio ($298.49), Wisconsin ($298.76) and Nebraska ($301.79).

Contact reporter Matthew Crowley at
mcrowley@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0304.