My father owns a 2008 Ranger XLT with I (presume) the 2.3L since he says its the 4 cylinder. He took it into the shop today after finding a few drops of oil on the floor of his garage. The verdict given? Two small leaks from the front seal and from the oil pan.
The shop gave him a repair estimate of $1,891.

Now... I am very much out of the game because I (like most of you) are blest enough that we can do the job ourselves. But a $20 front seal and a $30 oil pan gasket leaving $1800 in labor seems like a rip off. Even if you replace the oil pan ($120) and throw in the cost of an oil change since you're dumping it all anyways. So we're looking at (max) $200 in parts, leaving almost $1,600 in labor alone for a job that even us shadetree mechanics could do in a good weekend.

Something sounds very wrong to me with this picture, or am I just that naive? Half tempted to tell my dad to drive 500 miles from Ohio to where I'm at in NC and I'll get it knocked out this weekend.

 

Following up to my own query, I do have to accept the concept that certain engines & vehicles dropping the oil pan is not really an option. I've been lucky enough that the one time I was facing that job it was doable (Dodge minivan).
Digging around, apparently the book on the 2.3L says you have to pull the engine... So I can understand $1600 labor for a job like that (if its 8 hours at $200 per).

 

It's due to how close the engine is to the crossmember. There may be barely any room to even drop the oil pan enough to slip the old gasket out, hence the need to pull the engine.

I have two Rangers with a 3.0. One is an Edge with Torsion Bars, the other an XLT on coil springs. I can remove the oil pan on the Edge as I already replaced the gasket myself. There's no way I can remove it on the XLT. The oil pan almost touches the crossmember on the coil spring trucks.