Car Repair Ripoffs 1: Dealerships

[Dragline]

11 hours ago, lordairgtar said:

True, but it's not determined by number of cylinders. My Terrain 2.4 uses 5 qts, My AMCs (both six and eight cylinder) used 5 qts. My 73 Eldo used 6 qts which was a 500 cid V8. Both my HHRs took 5 qts. It's how much capacity the designers determined it needed, not number of cylinders.

 

It actually kind of is since I was talking about one vehicle and its only two engine options for that year. I wasn't cross pollinating brands or going Euro v US. And within that example i was operating in the "6 cylinders of oil in a 4 cylinder" is actually a good indicator of the dealers error. But you are correct in a broader sense. For the purposes of my illustration I was spot on.

[The Creative Explorer]

I loved the guy that used to be a service rep explaining to me what the timing belt is for. I never knew that if the belt wears off, the engine starts to overheat.

Silly me always thought that if the timing belt snapped, the pistons could bend the valves and cause serious internal damage. I am glad he put that urban legend down

[Erik Smith]

Is it common nowadays to have to remove the cab of a truck to replace the engine? 

We had a Ford F-550 6.4 Diesel (I think the 6.4) that toasted the valves or something. Replacing the engine involves lifting the can of the truck off the frame...? You’d need a big cherry picker to get that done in the backyard. 

[Ace-Garageguy]

47 minutes ago, Erik Smith said:

Is it common nowadays to have to remove the cab of a truck to replace the engine? 

We had a Ford F-550 6.4 Diesel (I think the 6.4) that toasted the valves or something. Replacing the engine involves lifting the can of the truck off the frame...? You’d need a big cherry picker to get that done in the backyard. 

Depends on the truck, but on some of the Fords, it's SOP.

To say I was really disappointed in the lack of forethought that made this necessary is something of an understatement.

[bugman9317]

It is really hard to find any shop that won't rip you off. I would say to try and find a small mom and pop shop, but I have even had the small ones try and rip me off. I own a pest control company and we have a fleet of 15 trucks. I have been through about 10 different places over the years. We have safety inspections every three months, and it's always the same thing when the trucks go in. They always need something...... I moved our office to a small town about two years ago and started using a little garage right down the street. Since I switched, they hardly need anything when they are in. I don't mind keeping everything safe on the vehicles, but I am also not stupid. This time around I went down to the garage in person and talked to the owner. I told him I would give him our business as long as he doesn't @%$@ me . 

[alan barton]

My wife and I had never had a new car until in our early fifties so we were rather  excited about it. That didn't last long.  We bought a new 2009 Civic because we had an amazing run out of an 82 Accord that we finally retired at 535,00kms, (over 300K miles) simply because a carby kit, battery, tyres, rego and insurance that it needed was probably double the value of the twenty seven year old car.

I seemed to be challenging the dealer at every service.  The stuff they made up was amazing.  Your power steering fluid is dirty - $25 for flushing fluid, $39 for PS fluid, which was over the twice the walk in price at any parts store.  And this at 25000km.  The price of oil at each change was chosen from a dart board.  At one stage 3.7 litres of "Honda" oil was $2 cheaper than 5 litres of fully synthetic mineral racing oil at a Shell service station, surely the most expensive place to buy oil?  You can't make this stuff up.

At fifty thousand kms we were charged for checking valve clearances.  Just how would you do anything about it on an overhead cam engine - machine the head?  And if you really inspected them, how come you didn't charge me for a rocker cover gasket? Then they reckon they had detected carbon on the back of the valves.  I challenged the service manager on this one.  Just how did you see the carbon on the back of the valves?  Did you feed a fibre optic cable down through the manifold?  We have ways, was his answer.  They would charge me $125 to "clean" the said valves.  To which I asked, how can you remove and dismantle a head, clean the valves, reassemble it, refit it and tune the engine for $125?  Yep, they were going to tip a can of magic down there.  Morons.

Then there was the A/C pollen filter.  Fair enough, it needed to be serviced but $75 labour to change it?  The owner's manual says open the glove box door, remove the filter, replace with a new filter, shut the glovebox.  How could you spent 30-40 minutes doing that?  But it gets better.  When I finally finished the warranty period, I never returned to these professional rip off merchants but went to a friend's one man mechanical repair shop.  On a recent service he said, hey, went to replace your pollen filter BUT THERE WASNT ONE IN IT'S TRAY! So I was majorly overcharged for nothing.

While under warranty, the cigarette lighter fritzed out.  Hopeless if you want to connect GPS, battery chargers etc.  We asked them to check it at a service and they did and said it was fixed. About six weeks later I noticed our taillights were out.  Seems like old cars always had the taillights on the dash lights fuse so that you knew when they went out - not anymore it seems (probably saves .25) So I get home, remove the cover on the cover on the cover of the fuse box, do Olympic level gymnastics under the dash and identify the fuse for the taillights, only to find it hasn't got one anymore.  For $1,000,000 bucks and a trip for two to Disneyland, can you guess which fuse was alongside the taillight? 

 

Yep, the cigarette lighter.......

My phone call was so, lets say animated, they sent a "mechanic" out to my workplace to replace the fuse.  Yep, could have replaced it in five minutes myself but I felt better screwing them over for once  - it was a 60 minute round trip from the dealer's shop.

Then the cig lighter failed again.

 

Waited three months for one to come from Japan.

 

Just after warranty period ended, it fritzed, again.

 

And keep in mind, I am only touching on the highlights here.  Never mind, I will never buy another new car as long as I live and here in Perth, I make a point of telling EVERYONE I know the name of the dealer. Especially if they have a Honda!

Not all the criminals are in prison or Parliament!

Cheers

Alan

[Classicgas]

I am lucky. I have 2 reputable shops owned by Christians within 8 Miles of me. I use both of them and have NEVER been told I need repairs I didn't  need, charged for senseless repairs or ripped off by either.

[Ace-Garageguy]

5 hours ago, alan barton said:

...At fifty thousand kms we were charged for checking valve clearances.  Just how would you do anything about it on an overhead cam engine - machine the head? 

  Many OHC engines of recent manufacture have automatic lash-adjusters, which are nothing but very small hydraulic lifters, and the clearances never need to be checked. The Chrysler 2.4 in the PT Cruiser is an example of this design type.

BUT...some overhead cam engines DO require periodic checking and adjustment, however, and failure to keep up with the maintenance can cause grief...like rough running, hard starting, and eventually, burned valves.

Some rocker-arm equipped OHC engines (usually single overhead cam layouts) may use adjusting screws and nuts similar to pushrod-type engines (examples being Honda Fit, 1996-2000 Honda Civic...and many other Honda engines). Other SOHC engines like the old Datsun 240 /260 / 280Z and 2-liter Pinto have a different type adjuster screw / lock under the rocker arms, and some may use an eccentric on the end of the rocker (BMW 2002 for example).

Many double overhead cam engine designs employ replaceable lash-pads or shims either under the follower bucket (early Jag inline 6 engines, Alfa Romeo, Aston Martin, Lamborghini, and many others), which require camshaft removal to service, or they may use lash pads that ARE the tops of the cam followers and can be serviced with a special tool NOT requiring cam removal (the Fiat 128 SOHC and the 124 DOHC engines are examples of these).

And SOME old OHC engine designs MAY in fact require cylinder head removal, and VERY CAREFUL replacement and machining of the valve seats to achieve the correct valve lash (Aston Martin DB2-DBS6, for example).

NOTE: I do NOT know what system of valve lash adjustment YOUR Civic employs.

NOTE 2: Just for reference, here's the valve lash adjustment procedure for a 2008 Civic with the 1.8 R18A2

 

Edited February 11, 2018 by Ace-Garageguy

[Classicgas]

Bill what do you know about 2002 Ford Escort engines?

[Ace-Garageguy]

6 minutes ago, Classicgas said:

Bill what do you know about 2002 Ford Escort engines?

Honestly? Almost nothing. Never worked on one.

[Joe Handley]

On 2/9/2018 at 6:04 PM, lordairgtar said:

True, but it's not determined by number of cylinders. My Terrain 2.4 uses 5 qts, My AMCs (both six and eight cylinder) used 5 qts. My 73 Eldo used 6 qts which was a 500 cid V8. Both my HHRs took 5 qts. It's how much capacity the designers determined it needed, not number of cylinders.

 

While I'm not sure how much the 2.5l OHV Jeep engine useed, the 4.0l I-6 requires 6 quarts, both of which are derived from AMC's I-6 engine family. Now the Chrysler 2.2/2.5 SOHC engines used 4 quarts for the naturally aspirated  engines while the turbocharged versions needed 5 quarts to help lube and cool the turbos.  Not positive, but I wouldn't be surprised if the ones that had the Cosworth/Maserati or Lotus DOHC heads also used 5 quarts, since they too, were turbo motors.

[Aaronw]

My Land Cruiser's 3.9 liter I-6 takes 9 quarts of oil. First time I changed the oil, I double checked the book, and checked the dip stick multiple times as I added oil to make sure that wasn't a misprint.

 

The first car I bought, the CV joint pulled out of the transaxle within hours of buying the car. I ended up with the front wheel coming through the floor on the passenger side. Luckily no passenger. As I wasn't seriously injured no attorneys were interested, and due to the damage the police report was inconclusive, although did suggest it was mechanical, not driver error. Insurance paid off the car.

Bought a second car from the same dealer as they said they would count my down payment from the first car towards a new car (while suggesting it was driver error that caused the wreck and they were just being nice guys). That was an almost new Toyota, after two days of ownership it developed a sag on the drivers rear wheel. Turns out the prior owner lowered the car by cutting the tapered coil springs. The base of the cut spring was larger than the spring perch, but was set on it just so to make it ride at the right height. Go over a big bump and it would slip off. Well the dealer agreed to replace the springs for me. It happened again so I took it to a mechanic my family had used for years, he puts it up on the lift and yep, same cut springs on the car. I went back to the dealer who now denied saying they had replaced the springs, just "fixed" them. After a number of threats they finally relented and agreed to pay to have another shop put new springs on the car.

Heck of an inspection process their used cars went through before sale...  I was quite happy when that dealer went out of business a couple years later.

  

[alan barton]

19 hours ago, Ace-Garageguy said:

  Many OHC engines of recent manufacture have automatic lash-adjusters, which are nothing but very small hydraulic lifters, and the clearances never need to be checked. The Chrysler 2.4 in the PT Cruiser is an example of this design type.

BUT...some overhead cam engines DO require periodic checking and adjustment, however, and failure to keep up with the maintenance can cause grief...like rough running, hard starting, and eventually, burned valves.

Some rocker-arm equipped OHC engines (usually single overhead cam layouts) may use adjusting screws and nuts similar to pushrod-type engines (examples being Honda Fit, 1996-2000 Honda Civic...and many other Honda engines). Other SOHC engines like the old Datsun 240 /260 / 280Z and 2-liter Pinto have a different type adjuster screw / lock under the rocker arms, and some may use an eccentric on the end of the rocker (BMW 2002 for example).

Many double overhead cam engine designs employ replaceable lash-pads or shims either under the follower bucket (early Jag inline 6 engines, Alfa Romeo, Aston Martin, Lamborghini, and many others), which require camshaft removal to service, or they may use lash pads that ARE the tops of the cam followers and can be serviced with a special tool NOT requiring cam removal (the Fiat 128 SOHC and the 124 DOHC engines are examples of these).

And SOME old OHC engine designs MAY in fact require cylinder head removal, and VERY CAREFUL replacement and machining of the valve seats to achieve the correct valve lash (Aston Martin DB2-DBS6, for example).

NOTE: I do NOT know what system of valve lash adjustment YOUR Civic employs.

NOTE 2: Just for reference, here's the valve lash adjustment procedure for a 2008 Civic with the 1.8 R18A2

 

That's why I come here Bill, I learn so much!  Thanks for taking the time to explain that (haven't got to watch the video yet as I have a glacially slow internet connection, company probably owned by the brother of the Honda dealer!).  I didn't realise just how many ways there are to adjust OHC valve clearances. 

Mind you, it's academic really - I don't think they had any intention of inspecting them or adjusting them - and still cant believe they missed the opportunity to stiff me for an imaginary valve cover gasket while they were at it.

Cheers

Alan