1. Published figures
Where a business publishes a price or a term on its own website, we quote it, name the business, link the page and give the date we read it. We do not quote figures from cost-estimate aggregators or review sites as if they were prices, and we do not add up separately published items into a total the business did not publish.
| Source | What it gives |
|---|---|
| YourMechanic per-vehicle starter estimates | One published price per year, model and engine, for a mobile mechanic doing the job at your location. |
| Firestone Complete Auto Care limited warranty | Written warranty terms for new or remanufactured starters, parts and labor separately (terms effective 13 Nov 2024). |
| CFNA Firestone credit card terms | Deferred-interest promotion threshold and private-label card APR. |
2. This site's model
Most chain, state and vehicle pages also show a range that no business publishes. Those ranges are our own model: a band for the starter itself (remanufactured to new) plus the book labor time for the engine at an independent-shop hourly rate. They are labelled as this site's model or estimate. They are not quotes from the shop named on the page.
The model and the published prices do not always agree. YourMechanic's published estimates sit above the top of our independent-shop model for 15 of the 21 models on the cost by vehicle page, which is why that page shows both side by side. Use the model as a guide to how jobs compare, and the published figure for your exact year and engine as the firmer reference.
3. What moves a starter quote
- Where the starter sits. A starter under the intake manifold (2003-2017 Honda Accord 2.4L, for example) takes far longer to reach than one bolted to the side of the transmission.
- Model year and engine. The same nameplate can differ by hundreds of dollars between generations.
- New or remanufactured part, and whose brand.
- The shop's hourly labor rate, which chains do not publish.
- Diagnosis. A no-start is often a battery, cable or relay; testing first can save the cost of a starter you did not need. See how to test a starter.
4. Dates and corrections
A "read" date beside a published figure is the day we checked it on the source page. The "Updated" date in the footer is the last day the page itself changed. If you find a figure that is wrong, email [email protected] with the page and the source, and we will check it. The site is published by Digital Signet Limited; see about.