77'911

I don't where your living but around here(WA) shop/dealer rates are around, or at least 100 per hr. With quotes for TB/WP job and their ancillaries between 6-8hrs at the above mentioned rate, one can purchase alot of tools. Now , I'm not looking at that $175 in inflationary dollars or amortizing an interest rate on that sum over the years your talking about, but it still is reasonable at what their(ECS) asking. Now it really depends on how one values ones time. If you can be more productive then $100 per hour, minus the imput costs, then I agree. There are other benefits to working on your own car that can be harder to quantify but are no more less important:
-scheduling repairs or servicing to when its convenient.
-quality control
-time savings, to name a few
By your parameters of keeping a car say 9 years at 12k per(national avg.), coming to 108k, V6 Audi owners should have used it at least once, and are on the boarder of their second use. The tool can always be resold thus lowering imput costs. Having gone through this before, someone else could do the work on our car, but I'll have to fix his/her mistakes. If one does not have the facilities or desire, then so be it.

B5Davem

<img src="http://pictureposter.audiworld.com/64191/30valvetiming.jpg">

B5Davem

that includes car ,house ,yard ,etc . I've got lots of all type tools because of this , neighbors love me. I try to keep air tool and torch usage to a minimum , they start to freak a little over the noise and flames.

Audiboy

when you mentioned "when you can by the same factory versions for less"

I didn't realized you meant "buy". So I checked and wow, they are a lot cheaper for a factory unit.

So I take my statements back

77'911

No apologies needed here, all views are welcome. I probably should have stated things with a tade more clairity. Since I tend to look at AW in the early am on the west coast, it might be before caffeine intake and this can have caustic effects on clarity or sanity of posts.