Stranded in Alabama

that's awesome. :up:

 

What's the name of his shop? Its always good to know where a good shop is.

 

absolutely true!

 

My wife took her Mini Cooper into the BMW dealer for a transmission issue. The 21 year old "Mini Service Guru" aka paperwork monkey proceeded to call my wife clueless since she obviously did not understand how her CVT transmission operated. He then handed her a list of needed maintenance items they found that needed attention which totaled about $2000. She was smart enough to tell them she thought that was outrageous and gave him my cell number. Twenty minutes later when I had explained to this "expert" that my wife's car did not actually contain a CVT transmission that was actually discontinued in the previous model year I had a free oil change and car wash out of him. I made it clear that I was not pleased with him calling my wife an idiot and I am sure the dealership management would not be pleased either.

I took the car to an independent shop with the dealers list of needed repairs. He said he could do the work for just over half their listed costs but the car really only needed about half the items on the list. $500 and a day later I had the car back from them and running like a top.

 

Rich is a great guy, just don't let him borrow your bike eh PJ?

Seems like some non ASE tech posted to check for fuses on post 30

 

he advertises on our local forum

 

Good to know. :up:

 

haha, you got that right Fencer..she still has "Barber bites" on her tank.

 

:crackhead:

 

Not just B'Ham. Several years ago I had a problem with my wife's Golf on a trip to Chicago. Towed to the nearest VW dealer - Libertyville VW/Audi - they told me the timing belt broke and repairs were going to be $1475. Told them to hold as I wasn't sure I wanted to put that kind of money in a car with almost 200k on the clock, I'd call them the next day.

Bright and early the next morning I showed up at the dealer with a trailer, but first I popped the hood to see that nothing had been opened up, no inspection covers, nothing. Having just done a tune-up I had suspected that the kid at NAPA had given me the wrong rotor for the distributor. When I popped the cap, there it was - melted rotor.

I pulled the rotor, closed the hood, and in I went to speak to the service manager. After I showed him the rotor, they didn't even charge me the $35 'diagnosis' fee.

Would've been a damned expensive rotor/cap.

 

Many a car has been diagnosed as having a rod knocking or blown engine, when it only had a broken harmonic balancer.

 

Agreed. He couldve been out of here a day earlier if they hadnt "misplaced" a fuse or some bs. Hotels aint cheap.

 

Glad everything worked out for ya. Saved alot by having that alternator repaired vs replaced. Ya'lls shop horror stories are great. Let me share one with ya'll that happened just yesterday. PJ laughed so hard that I thought her gut was gonna split open.

Rewind back several months ago. Weather was still chilly outside. Office furnature store across the street from me has a 97 3500 express van with a 5.7 vortec V-8. One day I noticed that someone was cranking the hell out of something. For several hours all I heard was a starter grinding away at an engine that obviously was'nt going to start. After a few days of all day long starting attempts I start to really take notice, wondering how long it was going to take for these guys to realize that the engine in this van was just not going to run and they where going to HAVE to find out why. One day I looked out & there was no less than 4 guys all standing around looking under the hood of the van with dumb-founded looks on their faces.

Thats when I came up with the analogy "How many red-necks does it take to diagnose a no start on a chevy 350!"

Thats when another shop got involved. The "shade tree" mechanic had already performed a complete tune up, and that didnt do anything. So then the real parts changing began. The list is quite impressive.

Complete tune up, plugs, wires, cap, rotor, & fuel filter.
Another new cap & rotor. (thought the new one was bad)
New ignition coil.
New computer(PCM)
6 starters!!!!! 2 new and 4 rebuilt by local rebuilder. All ruined by cranking the engine!!!!
2 batteries!!!!!
Numerous sensors & wiring repairs/overlays.

And the damned van still would not run. After several months of mechanic after mechanic looking at this crazy thing they pulled what parts off they could & told the guy that the engine had jumped time & would require major surgery. So now here's this guy standing in my shop wanting an estimate for a new engine. So I priced an engine, and told him what the required deposit would be. He wanted to write me a check right there. I said whoa there buddy, lets get this van into the shop, run a few tests & see exactly what happened to your old engine before we go off on a several thousand dollar adventure.

The van was in pieces, I re-assembled. The problem turned out to be a bad fuel pressure regulator that filled the engine with gas & fouled the spark plugs. So I repaired the CFI injector unit, replaced the ruined starter AGAIN! 1 more new set of plugs and the van fired up & ran like a new one. Changed the oil, that was more gas than oil, & the fellow had his van back by lunch. Several months of screwing with this thing and he finally brings it to me and it's ready by lunch! I'll never forget the look on his face. And his bill was very much less than a new engine.

The really really bad part of this whole ordeal is that fuel pressure regulators on vortec series engines are common failures! I've replaced hundreds if not thousands!

 

That's got to be a VW dealer thing. I had the local deal try to pull almost the exact same thing to me. I show up to retrieve my wife's car after an $800 estimate, nothing's been done to diagnose it. The engine cover hasn't even been removed.

Turned out to be a $45 part, took me thirty minutes, and that's including walking out to the car and washing my hands afterward. And I could've just re-used the old part.

I won't be using the VW dealer for much of anything after that.

 

I had a local Nissan dealership try to tell me they had to replace ALL the fuel injectors on a Spec v SE-R at the same time because they came as a "set" or something. After some gentle disagreeing, they changed their tune and could suddenly replace only the bad one thus reducing my estimate by at least 75% if I remember correctly.

Dealerships are a last resort for pretty much anything mechanical.

Some of your stories are horrible. Maybe next time I'll take my vehicle to AutoZone and let the mechanics that hang out in the parking lot fix my problems

 

Good luck with that....

Some of you need to remember when you take your car in for service its still YOUR CAR that needs repaired, the shops didn't pick up your car off the street and force you to pay them you took it to them wanting thier assistance in repairing it. Always remeber the mechanic has a ride home.

 

I've got one but my buddy would probably kill me for posting this but what the heck.

My buddy was having a bad day, his WRX is up in the air in his garage with a bad clutch and asks to borrow my trans jack. No problem, come on over. Well, he comes over to get it and then proceeds to tell me he seized the motor in my old XR4ti that I sold him for his son to drive.

I'm like WHAT? Are you sure? He said the battery had smoke pouring off it when he tried starting it to come over to get the jack. Said it was running kinda bad earlier and now it's dead.

I point him towards the trans jack, grab a breaker bar & socket and follow him to his house. Put the break bar on the end of the crank and it spins over just fine. Told him to hand me a multimeter. Battery voltage is good, the solenoid is good, but the starter is shorted to ground.

I told him to toss a new starter in it.

He was much happier after that.

 

Maybe car owners should learn something about cars before they get one? Just sayin...

 

My daughters Mazda had an engine meltdown that was covered by an extended warranty. After she had picked up the car, she called me while i was at Road Atlanta for an AMA Superbike race and told me the car seemed to be running fine, but it would puff smoke when she started it in the morning. I told her what i thought it was and told her to take it back and leave it. I get a call from the service writer while im watching a race and he proceeds to tell me that there will be 85.00 diagnostic fee. I told him no, there will not be an additional diagnostic fee, you have been payed to fix the engine and its not fixed, end of conversation. A few minutes later, i get a call from his manager and im sure he had told his writer, watch and learn son, this is how you do it.He firmly tells me that there will be an additional diagnostic fee and i tell him the same thing i told the writer, no, there will not. He then tells me, we will push it out of the shop and you can come pick it up. That lit my fuse. Over the sound of Superbikes, im sure half the crowd on the back straight heard the rest of our conversation. I told him to push the fucking piece of shit out in the parking lot and someone will be there to get it. I told him i will be back in town on Monday and we can go see the General Manager and explain to him how you just ran off a customer who had purchased 5 vehicles from them. You were payed to fix the fucking car and its not fixed,then i hung up.I looked up and people were standing around staring at me with little grins on their face. I looked at one of my buddies and said just wait, they will be calling back in a couple of minutes after he goes and talks to the sales manager who will confirm that i have in fact bought 5 cars from them. Ring Ring, this is _____ ____, we are going to go ahead and take care of this for you, it should be around Wed of next week when its ready. Thanks, give my daughter something to drive. UH UH Uh, OK. When we pick the car up, the service manger tells me a valve stem seal had been put in upside down, FROM THE FACTORY. I just rolled my eyes and said whatever dude.

 

L-O-N-G read

Chronology:

September 11, 1998 – As my wife prepared to drive to work she had trouble starting her Accord. When it did finally start, the engine surged to 1600~1800 RPM then slowly dropped to 250~300 RPM before stalling. She repeated this several times before coming to get me to ask what was wrong. I attempted to start the Accord and experienced the same problems. Additionally, if I attempted to give the car any gas as the engine dropped below 750 RPM, it would die immediately. Only by gently “pumping” the accelerator was I able to keep the engine running until it was warmed up. Once warm, the car ran fine.

I sent my wife to work in our truck and set out to diagnose the problem. Because it happened suddenly, in other words, it wasn’t a problem that developed and slowly got worse, I suspected one of the electronic engine control devices. Using my Accord 1991 Service Manual (second edition 11/90) and a multimeter, I followed the diagnostic tree for “rough idle” (pg. 11-66) after determining that the ECU was not displaying an error code. I was unable to determine the exact cause of the problem since I kept running into “substitute known good part” as a branch of the tree. Since I do not stock spare Fast Idle Valves, Electronic Air Control Valves or Engine Control Units, etc. I performed the limited mechanical checks and checked resistance on a variety of sensors where specifications were available.

As my efforts were unproductive, I contacted Huggins Honda Service Department on Monday, September 14, and arranged to bring the car in for service that afternoon. I explained to the service writer (I do not have her name) that the problem was erratic idle at cold start. I further detailed the diagnostics I had performed and their results. I asked that they let the car sit overnight so that they could duplicate the cold start problem.

When I returned home Monday evening, I had a message on our answering service from “Ben” stating that he had found the problem, a “mis-adjusted throttle cable,” and that the car was fixed. I found it very difficult to believe that a “mis-adjusted throttle cable” could cause the problems the car was experiencing, but decided to call Ben in the morning to double check.

On Tuesday, September 15, I called Ben to double check that the car was fixed and to ask that they check it again this morning while it was cold. Ben assured me that it was fixed and that the only problem was the “mis-adjusted throttle cable.” I was unable to rearrange my work schedule to pick up the car on Tuesday, but did call Ben again in the afternoon to see if they had had any further problems starting the car while it was cold. He assured me that he had checked it several times and that it was fixed. I told him that I would be there the next day to pick up the car.

On Wednesday, September 16, I arranged with a friend for the hour-long drive to Huggins. When we arrived, Ben assured me that they had checked the car yet again that morning and it was fine. I paid the bill, collected the keys and went to the car. When I started the car, it was no different than it had been when I dropped it off on Monday! I went back to the service department, to Ben Roden, the service writer, and told him that car was not fixed! He got the mechanic who had been working on it, “Billy”, and told him to check it out.
Billy got in the car, started the cold engine and immediately revved it up to between 4~5000 RPM as I looked in through the open driver’s door! I yelled at him to stop and get out of the car. No mechanic I have met in my 35+ years of working on and with cars and motorcycles has ever started a cold engine and run it at that high an engine speed, one of the most damaging things you can do to an engine.

I took the keys and the original work order back to Ben and had him follow me to the car. I started the engine and, keeping my foot off the gas, showed him what the problem was. I also informed him of Billy’s actions and asked that Billy not work on the car any more.

For the next two hours, while my friend and I waited, I was repeatedly assured that the car would be ready in “just a few minutes.” I finally had to leave to make the hour-long return drive to my home to take care of my business. Before I left, Ben told me that he would have his “best guy” look at the car and see what the problem was.

I called Ben on Thursday, Friday and Saturday to see what progress had been made. Ben told me that they had been on the phone to Honda Tech Support and no one could figure out what the problem was. On Monday, September 21, I called Ben to inform him that we were leaving for our delayed vacation and that I would be back in touch with him at the end of the week.

When we returned from vacation, on Saturday, September 26, I called Ben to see what progress had been made. He told me that they had determined that the intake manifold was clogged with carbon and that the O2 sensor was bad. I asked how the manifold could “Suddenly” get clogged up with carbon and he said that a piece had probably come loose and plugged it up. Since my primary concern at this point was to get the car back in running condition, I authorized him to make the necessary repairs. He told me it would be ready on Monday.

On Monday, September 28, Ben called at 5:10 p.m. to say the car was ready to be picked up. I declined to drive an hour in rush hour traffic and told him I would call in the morning to double check and then come to pick it up.

On Tuesday, September 29, Ben assured me on the phone that the car was fixed, that they had checked it again that morning and that everything was fine. My wife took off from work and we drove from our home in Willow Park, to Huggins in North Richland Hills. I asked to check the car out before we paid the $800+ bill. When I tried to start the car, it took several tries before it finally caught. It then settled into a 1500 RPM idle, higher than usual, but within spec for a cold engine. Once the engine started to warm up, I took the car for a drive around the block. Every time I pressed the accelerator, I smelled raw gas. When I got back to the dealership, I left the engine running and raised the hood to see if I could tell where the gas smell was coming from. The injector for the #1 cylinder, was not seated in the manifold and raw gas would squirt out over the engine each time the throttle was opened! Now I was seriously perturbed! Ben had been watching from the service area and came out to see what I was looking at. When I pointed it out to him, he was unconcerned but said he’d get the mechanic to tighten it down.

I find it very difficult to believe that anyone could have checked out this car, as claimed, without noticing the gas pouring out around the injector body.

Ben had the mechanic “Wes” take the car back into the service area and told us it would be ready in “just a few minutes.” During the hour and ten minutes that we waited for the car to be “fixed” my wife and I decided that if the car ran and didn’t leak fuel, we would take it the hell out of there!

After paying the bill, I asked for the old parts that had been replaced and Ben said he didn’t know if they still had them. He reluctantly agreed to see if they were still in the shop. After a short wait, Wes brought out a box with an intake manifold and an O2 sensor.

On the drive home, my wife noticed a number of things:
1. The gas tank was almost empty. She had filled it up on the way home the night before all this started. Although the tank was nearly empty, there were only 27 additional miles on the odometer.
2. There was a strong “rotten egg” smell coming from somewhere (hydrogen sulfide).
3. There were wires hanging down from behind the dashboard on the driver’s side.
When she called Ben the next day to ask about the smell and the wires, he told her that “the catalytic converter was probably damaged by an overly rich mixture” and it had nothing to do with anything they did. As for the wires hanging down, he told her that she would have to bring it back for him to look and see if they were any of the wires that his mechanic might have worked with.

Needless to say, we are not going to make a two-hour round trip to have this man treat us like idiots one more time! I fixed the wires hanging down (the alarm module and antenna). Renewed testing determined that the battery was gassing and causing the “rotten egg” smell. I replaced the battery and the problem was corrected. I am determined that this car, nor any other that I have any say about, will not return to the incompetence of Huggins service department.