Last week I was shutting my driver side door and when it shut I heard a super loud bang from within the center of door. It sounded like someone threw a baseball at the car. After that my window whined a bit going up and down and finally 3 days after the window simply dropped to the bottom of the door and I heard what sounded like plastic/parts dropping as well. I called Bentley and they said it needed a regulator and they quoted $1400. My local indy is doing it for $1k. Sound about right?

 

The regulator alone is $1400, I know, i've done both my rears. The install should easily be another hour or two (at min). So $1000 sounds a little questionably low.

 

Regulators are far below $1000, though it could depend on which regulator it is of course. www.flyingspares.com/shop/catalogsearch/result/?q=bentley+window+regulator . There are USA dealers who will give a nice 25% discount on parts too. Am curious where you got the $1400 price? It might be a normal VW/Audio part... then priced for Bentley if you know what I mean. As I recall, Honda got caught doing the same thing with Acura parts and am sure we expect more honesty from Bentley than their Japanese counterpart.

 

enjoythe music can you advise dealers that offer discounts on parts

 

I am looking at invoice now from my local indy who did the job and they charged me $701.42 for "New window regulator assembly (Bentley CGT Driver side door) and than my last 6 of vin it appears on invoice. Then they charged me 2 hours for the install at 110$ an hour. These guys handle only exotics and the owner owns a CGT and a Spur so I trusted them and they are 25 minutes away. When I called Bentley of Tysons I got a rough quote of around 1400 he said but in the past the rough quotes were usually exceeded and that dealer is a good 2 hours away and I had a bit of trouble with them lately.

On that subject I will rant for a sec... I had a trunk issue where my trunk would not soft close anymore and was stuck closed. Through this forum I found the emergency trunk lever and got it to pop but then it got stuck open and would not soft close anymore and a red light on my dash came on showing the open trunk.

I had Bentley Tysons pickup via flat bed and they called me the next day and said they had spent 3 hours going in through the tail light to get into the trunk despite me telling them I was able to pop open taking off the rear seat 3 times using that lever. I had blown through near 550$ in labor just for them to tell me I needed a new motor in the trunk and that's what was broken and causing the red dash light to appear and soft close not to catch.

I called my Indy and he said he would take a look while he looked at the window issue and paid dealer and had them ship back up to me as I would have been near 1900$ for labor and part. To make a long story short he was able to get in through the emergency hatch in the seat and he fixed it within 30 minutes. He said something about the little pushers in the lower/bottom trunk were locked shut and something about the top hook piece. He said he noticed that Bentley lately in particular 'throws parts' at customers and had I not gone to him that motor was near 1k. He didnt charge me for the half hour of labor either!

As an owner I felt that going to the dealer was always right and looked great on records and for resell but this issue is exactly what may change my mind. Ok, rant over!

*Edit - Window regulator also has 1 year warranty.

 

www.bentleynorthbrook.com and I believe the gentleman at parts is named Dominic. There is also our normal UK resource as well Flying Spares. Feel free to call around to dealers as if you're DIY'ing or having another shop do the work, some good-guy dealers give other repair facilities a discount on parts. Always glad to help.


BTW: Smart and experienced independent Bentley service shops know that some parts on the Bentley are really just off-the-shelf Phaeton Audi/VW bits. Good quality California independent guys really know their stuff, so perhaps form a good relationship with them. Florida may have some, too, yet not familiar with SoFl indies. Wish I knew more because it seems Bentley is getting a bit costly for parts that are not that specialized.


Also, try your local VW dealer, as you may be amazed at what they can do with providing certain services and parts as the cars before 2012 or so have a lot of Phaeton bits. I find this thread is also a good resource http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthread.php?1652232

 

Its important to realize that the window regulator is not sold on its own, nor is the track. Bentley changed the part number a few years ago when they revised the entire design in order to stop the constant breaking of the track and regulator to begin with. I got my $1400 number from Bentley themselves. I bought my first regulator from FlyingSpares (just the regulator w/o the new revised track) and it was just under $1k, but this new one (different part number) had a much better design and was $1400 and could only be bought as a package, the old p/n is retired from Bentley.

 

Talk about the "Bentley Tax" I just replaced a window regulator with the track and motor on our Jeep Liberty and it cost $54.00 shipped. I was able to replace it my self in about 1/2 hour.

 

The thing that bothers me about the Bentley tax isn't so much that the parts are expensive, I get it.. limited production,etc.. but that they bundle EVERYTHING.. I just need a 15 cent plastic guide.. nope.. gotta buy the entire assembly including a COMPLETELY unnecessary regulator.

Can't complain to much though, BMW does the same thing to me on my other cars.

 

So does MB and Porsche. Even Chevrolet has a Corvette tax.

 

My body shop replaced the regulator in my 2005 GT for $700 including the $400 regulator that they got from the Bentley dealer in Chicago. They broke some of the door panel clips taking it off and were able to get those from the local Audi dealer.

 

I had my driver's side regulator replaced in July by the local Bentley dealer. The regulator cost me $550 and labor was $400 so thats $950 in total.