Anyone have a shop destroy your vehicle?

OK, destroy is kind of harsh.

My wife is frugal and cars are just A to B to her. She has an 07 Honda Pilot with 164K miles, and in the last year we've probably spent about $2500 in general maintenance and the most recent item, a new radiator. This Pilot was ready for another 100K miles. The same shop has done all the work, and the radiator was replaced in June. Early July we started to notice drips from under it, mainly because we have a relatively new driveway. Took it back to the shop, ends up a transmission line that was in the way of the radiator repair wasn't tightened all the way. They fixed it free, no more drips.

Friday night she's coming home from tennis in a huge rainstorm and calls me to report smoke bellowing from her hood. I asked if the oil light was on...nope. She was less than a mile from the house so I told her try to make it back. I'm standing at the garage when she pulls up and sure enough smoke is pouring out. Open the hood an there's what appears to be oil everywhere. Keep in mind it's pitch black and pouring rain. I close the hood and wait for daylight.

Come out the next morning to the puddle of fluid under her car, dip a finger in and it's red...transmission fluid. Start the car, have her put it in gear and transmission fluid pours out of the hose that they were supposed to have fixed. I go to the shop today to explain what happened and the guy seemed genuinely concerned and said he'd look into it. We had her car towed over a couple hours ago. One concerning thing...it wasn't facing correctly for them to load it up so I told her to go ahead and back it up about 6'. She said when she put it in gear to go forward about two feet nothing happened.

Alright, sorry for the drawn out ordeal. Of course there can be many ways this plays out. Could simply need a new transmission line and fill of fluids. Or the transmission could be ruined. Bottom line, we didn't cause this to happen. Anybody have a similar story where a shop messed your car up? How did it work out for you? My wife says I always tend to look at worse case. Yeah, I do...that way I'm prepared.

 

One word for the shop...inept.

 

Well..I look at it this way. If they actually made the effort to correct it when you brought it back then they likely aren't being nefarious. However if they have "fixed" it twice and it's still a problem then I don't think I would be going back to them. I'd fix the line myself, Pour fluid in it and see what happens. If it drives fine then you are good to go. If the trans is dead you are out the line a little fluid. If it's dead it's getting towed to a trans shop anyway.

 

They've actually only fixed it once...when it had the very slow drip. It went from that to total hose failure in less than 30 days (of which she barely drove). The way I see it, if it simply needs the line replaced and filled again to be good, I still want some reassurance that my tranny won't go out in 6 months due to this. Worse case, if they killed the transmission I expect them to replace it. I don't want to do shit to it personally. I didn't cause this.

 

Back in ‘94 we donated a car to the monster truck event at the old Cap Centre. Not really relevant or helpful here.........but it was awesome seeing that awful POS get smashed by Bigfoot. Ohhhhhh wrong kind of destroy In all seriousness though, Best of luck RD400! I hate car troubles

 

If I am a shop owner and you tell me the story as it happened. I'm going to tell you that I'm not replacing shit because you told her to keep driving it home. Damage the could have been prevented by stopping and not driving it further won't be their problem.

 

And believe me, that thought crossed my mind. They just called as I was typing this and said they found a hole in one of the lines and they're replacing it and we'll see what happens. All seems OK now and hopefully it will end up being a quick and easy fix.

And like Sean just said, thankfully I went in there nice and cool this morning and didn't throw a fit. The shop is being really good and glad I contained my temper for a change.

 

Yes, we had a shop work on our VW Passat. They didn't bleed that silly "higher than everything in the system" elbow between the heater core and the cylinder head and smoked the engine (not to mention a bunch of other questionable work). We ended up getting shafted by the shop, but we learned two things:
1. Don't trust that shop for anything
2. Don't own a VW or other Euro car out of warranty

After talking to the shop owner, they bought the car from us, replaced the engine, then had it sit on their lot for nine months waiting for a sucker to buy it. Expensive lesson, but worth it to get rid of the car.

 

Tighten until yields.

 

My older brother, a master auto body guy, restored my uncle's '72 Porsche 911T.
Post resto-, I don't know the details of the story, but the rollback guy comes to pick it up and proceeds to bed the car. Distracted by a squirrel or whatever, he pulls the car all the way into the headache rack and rips out the front suspension.

 

I'm gonna guess the trans is ok and a new line and refill will do the trick. She didn't drive it far enough damage anything and there was apparently still enough fluid circulating to create enough pressure for it to operate. A cool head always gets better results. If you are and have been a good customer in the past there is no reason for the shop to actively try to sabotage themselves out of a customer. Plus it's also almost old enough to get it's own drivers license. Stuff is going to just break at this point in it's existence. Good on you and them for not letting it become an unproductive situation.

There's a lot of sincha disease in repairing older vehicles. You know the story. That car was perfect when it was here to be repaired but sincha touched it everything else is breaking and you need to fix it for free.

 

Mental note. It might be a good time to look hard at all the hoses and belts. That things probably not too far from some brittle line vacuum leaks and such in the near future. When it comes to the wife's rides I am overly cautious in my diligence to try an avoid the it's dark and I am far from home break down situation. If my shit breaks I'll deal with it. The little woman needs to make it home every time.

 

Old cars, old lines...corrosion is the debil.
Yzass uses our '02 JGC frequently. One day a couple years ago, shortly after she had used it, I went to move it for some reason...brake foot goes to the floor. I ask her if she had any braking issues. Nope.
Many years previously, a trans cooling line went...poor thing has lived its entire life outdoors in PA.

 

Good point. Ironically I just bought a trailer hitch for her car because I'm going to start using it and my Kendon to tow my bikes instead of my truck. Was going to install it this past weekend until this crap happened. We did just spend somewhere in the neighborhood of $1900 for the full timing/serpentine belt/water pump etc maintenance in hopes of another 100K out of it.

 

I'd bet a good amount of money they reused the original clamp on th hose and that's why it bled off.
Same thing happened to my gf's car

 

If I were you, I’d hide the keys to all the vehicles, the ladies in your family are nothing but trouble

 

I had a 70 Monte Carlo with a built 350 .
Deep oil pan. Took it to have it dynoed.
Told them it had a deep pan.
Watched as they pulled the car in and proceed to smash the pan.
Had to buy a case of oil just to get it home.
Needed to hoist the engine to get the pan off.

 

Never be kind to an old car. They sense weakness. At the first hint of softness on your part, it's all over.

 

no, because the only person wrenching on our vehicles am i.

so, it's me who wrenches, thereby destroys, and then fixes it.