Are shiesty Motherfuckers!

Two month's ago, Got new engine put in car. Gave me a three month warranty, If the shit breaks, I could have it fixed, FREE OF CHARGE.

Last week, Check engine light comes on, Wonderful. Not to mention. My car smokes like a fiend when it gets hot. No, It is not overheating. The cam Seal is broken and is dripping on to The catalytic Converter.

Brang it in today, Guy says it's going to be $300 to fix the Cam seal "Because it was good when they put the new one in." Which is shit, Considering it was leaking and smoking with the original Motor.

AND! About a month ago, I asked one of the mechanics about why the car was smoking and smelling. I got back "It's the catalytic Converter, I'll take a look at it" And he never did. They fixed the "Check Engine Light" Situation everytime it came on for free, But no, We can't honor our warranty.

I fucking hate people.

I sent a link to junkyard, he is a mechanic. I am interested to hear what he has to say.

Looks like you need to start some mental warfare against that guy. You need to somehow make him think it will be easier and more beneficial for him to honor that warranty than to deal with your shitstorm after the fact.

You're down on the island, right? You gotta know someone down there that's a lawyer that can fire off a quick letter for you or something, right? That place is crawling with them.

Maybe you shouldn't buy shitty cars to begin with.

Posted by strangelove Maybe you shouldn't buy shitty cars to begin with.

great advice for a young guy like him. he'll just buy a brand new BMW instead.

problem solved.

Dude, I told you what you gotta do.
Take it up with managers and whoever you can in the company. Tell them you want it fixed for free. If not there WILL be problems. If you have receipts and everything it makes you look better.
Next time you get any work done on your car, make sure if they tell you anything is fine/broken get it in writing!

Oh and them turning off your check engine light isn't going to fix anything. It will just keep coming back on until the problem is fixed.

Boyfriend is a mechanic and I have worked in shops. Even if the company was at fault or not they still usually just do the work anyway if you make a big enough deal of it.

Do you have a copy of the warranty? If not just PM names, phone number, ya know all the stuff I need to make the call on behalf of my client Caligula.

Posted by _liss_ Even if the company was at fault or not they still usually just do the work anyway if you make a big enough deal of it.

QFT. the bigger the company, the easier they buckle. scream loud enough and to the right people and you'll get what you want.

Posted by Caligula Are shiesty Motherfuckers! Two month's ago, Got new engine put in car. Gave me a three month warranty, If the shit breaks, I could have it fixed, FREE OF CHARGE. Last week, Check engine light comes on, Wonderful. Not to mention. My car smokes like a fiend when it gets hot. No, It is not overheating. The cam Seal is broken and is dripping on to The catalytic Converter. Brang it in today, Guy says it's going to be $300 to fix the Cam seal "Because it was good when they put the new one in." Which is shit, Considering it was leaking and smoking with the original Motor. AND! About a month ago, I asked one of the mechanics about why the car was smoking and smelling. I got back "It's the catalytic Converter, I'll take a look at it" And he never did. They fixed the "Check Engine Light" Situation everytime it came on for free, But no, We can't honor our warranty. I fucking hate people.

What did I tell you when you bought the fucking motor?
Cam seals don't just go... that is a symptom of either a beat engine or a high mileage engine.
And, sorry, but $300 to fix a cam seal on your vintage Subie is just fucking rape. Mechanics like this take advantage of people who know nothing about cars. That's why I INSIST that people learn as much as they can about cars and their own make/model. It will save you a first class assfucking, as Caligula is finding out.

Catalytic converters don't smoke. Engines smoke. When an engine smokes, that's its way of telling you which part of it is fucked.

Blue= oil smoke
White/gray= coolant
black= too much fuel

First mistake non-gearheads make is by going from garage to garage, always looking for the cheapest mechanic. If you don't know what makes your car tick, you gotta make damn sure the person you are dealing with is going to be straight with you. I understand what Sam is saying but at the same time there are those of us who don't care about the nuts-and-bolts. We just want it to start in the morning. For that reason, I deal with one (1) garage. He knows my car, he knows my face, and he plays it straight with me. If I need a repair done, I don't lowball him. I just get 'er done and pay the bill. In return, if it's something that can be deferred or done cheaper, he'll let me know. Pick your mechanic carefully... and build a relationship with your mechanic and you won't ever have to worry about being "assfucked".

Oh, I completely agree.

That's why the only person that touches my car other than Sam is a family friend that can fix just about anything. The best mechanics are the ones that didn't have shit but a car as a kid, so they usually know how to fix whatever's broken in the easiest, cheapest and simplest ways possible. In my case, it's usually stupid shit that breaks, like right now.

I have a wheel bearing that needs to be replaced because one of the sensors for the antilock braking system is bad in it and GM, in their infinite wisdom, built the bearing so that you can't take the sensor out and just buy a new one. Instead, you have to buy a whole bearing. So, I wait until before I need it inspected again and get both the front ones replaced, because soon as you replace one, the other shortly follows. Even if there's nothing wrong with it. It's just one of those stupid things. Every car my family has ever had, when one bearing goes, the other follows in short order, doesn't matter what kind of car, it just happens.

Shael

I'm with Myelin. Couldn't say it better myself or sober. But I call bullshit. Either you got a USED engine with a 3 month warranty or you got fucked. The guy sounds like a crook at first glance, but there is ALWAYS two sides to every story. I refuse to work on certain people's cars for various reasons. The biggest is that I will not do a half assed job. You either pay to fix it right, or somewhat close, or find some cobbler. I will not let my name be associated with a horseshit repair. People like to take the cheap way out (after they have neglected their car for years) and hope it will work as good as the right way. They are usually let down, and forget the part where I said if they want to try that, I will not stand behind the work. Example you want me to install a used engine, $1000, the junkyard gives a 3 month warranty. I suggest a reman for $2000, with a 3 year 100,000mi warranty. You decline to save $1000. The labor is $1000 either way. You get a $2000 bill instead of $3000. If it works, great, you save $1000. If not, another junkyard special is $2000. That's $4000 total. What if you have really bad luck and that one goes a year later? But the customer blames me anyway, they forget the explination part. I don't need it. Also if it goes out in the 3 months they want the labor covered, of course. Junkyards don't usually pay that. You get another free junkyard motor. My position as a shop owner is that if the motor didn't fall out of the car, I did my job right. I bolted that junker in tight, just like they asked. So I wouldn't warranty the labor since my part of the job didn't fail. Now before anyone gets upset, let me ask you this. Would you show up for work tomorrow if you knew you weren't going to get paid? Neither would I, or any other evil mechanic. It's my job, and how I feed my family. And some of us even have feelings, you know, like human fuckin beings. Now let's bitch about lawers and how they're all cock suckers.

In reply to junkyards post:

Agree with most of what you said. If mechanics didn't do shotty work in the first place they wouldn't have to worry about people coming back continuously with problems.
But if they neglected to do something right in the first place, damn right they should fix it. My boyfriend is a mechanic, and when cars come back with problems he doesn't get paid to fix them. Yes he gets paid an hourly rate, but it takes away from work that he could be making more money off of. And yes he is usually fixing other mechanics work because they don't care. It's a part of do you really want customers or not, when business is a slow as it is?

I can see why a lot of people don't trust mechanics. When I worked at a shop I wouldn't let those clowns near my car. Sure they did everything right "most" of the time, but when you put 10 quarts of oil in someone's car when only about 4.5 is meant to go in, you ARE responsible.

i think the reason that i get so snappy about shitty mechanics is that I was a mechanic, my brother is a mechanic, my father was/is a Ford tuner... we've always been around cars.

Here's another funny story from my life...
Back in 1998, the clutch went on my 91 Cavalier RS 2.2L
Easy to change, but it was late winter, didn't have the time or the place to work on it. My brother was out straight where he was working so I took it to another garage of a guy we both went to school with. He said he could have it done in a couple of hours for $250. No problem. So I drop the car off and headed off to work. Picked the car up later that day, got in it, and I knew right off he had fucked something up.

I says, "Walt, the shifter is stiff and the clutch is making a whining noise when in neutral."
His reply, with a straight face no less, "Your transmission was probably on its way out, then."
He basically told me too fucking bad, pal. You want me to tear it apart again, that's another $250.
So I drove the car about a month and the transmission locks in gear. I had to get in the back seat and kick it out of 2nd gear. I wheel it down to the garage where my brother works and they tore it apart. Apparently, the fuckstick I had work on it put the clutch disc in backwards. Now, you're thinking, 'well, gee Sam, that's an honest mistake, right?'
Wrong. There are decals on the clutch saying "FLYWHEEL SIDE" or "TRANSMISSION SIDE". Some even have it cast into the center of the disc! So, not only did the clutch self-destruct but it took my transmission with it. After a week of calling around, I found a transmission out of an 89 Cavalier in Bomoseen Vermont, about an hour from my house. So me and my boy head down, pay $225 for the transmission, bought another clutch kit ($140) and had my brother put it all back together. Well, that lasted about a month and THAT transmission self-destructed blowing shrapnel and Synchromesh fluid all over the clutch. The salvage yard warrantied the transmission, but not the labor or clutch. So, now we're on clutch #3, transmission #3, put it all back together One. More. Time. And that was fine for about 3 more years until i got rid of the car.
The fuckhead that started this bullshit? To this day, I still won't talk to him. He ended up fucking my father over on a 460 V8 for my Dad's Thunderbird. It was the only time I had ever seen my dad drag someone across a counter before. I always thought my father incapable of that level of violence.

So... moral of the story? Choose. Your. Mechanic. CAREFULLY! Ask around, see some of their work... sometimes you gotta pay the $$$ to get good work done.

You're absolutely right liss. Mechanics often do a shoddy job. But a technician is someone entirely different. Most people don't know the difference between the two. I won't hire a mechanic. They do not have much in the way of technical experience........or give-a-shit it seems these days. They like to use phrases like 'good enough' 'this part is shot' or take your pick. I have been an ASE Master Tech for 11 years with L1 and X1 certs. Last time I recertified I never got more than 3 wrong and on 3 tests I aced them. You try taking A1-A8 all at the same time. It makes for two long nights. For my X1 I was in the first batch so we had 80 questions and only 40 counted, they didn't tell you which ones. We were the lab rats. I had a shit day at work slammed 3 beers and took my test. I passed. I rarely fuck up a job, and not because I'm so good at it. I am human. But because my philosophy is that it isn't a fuck up until you return it to the customer that way. A simple test drive cures that. If it doesn't pass, it goes back until it does. But right, not everyone cares that much. Most people forget some small yet very important parts in the diagnostic process. Verify customer concern, duplicate problem, analyze it, repair it, and most important VERIFY THE REPAIR. There are far too many goof balls that make me sometimes ashamed of my profession. They give the rest of us a bad name. But in most states you do not need a license to turn wrench. That is the big problem. We need to be paid more, but never will as an industry when so many cobblers bring prices down and along with that public perception of the trade. We lose quite a few excellent and experienced techs every year to move on to something that pays a man wage so they can support their families. You don't so often hear about crooked electricians or plumbers. And I challenge anyone to walk into a bar and find 2 guys that DON'T claim to be some sort of wizzard mechanic. Hell every guy in there is, knows everything too. Yet he installs windows, or works at Burger King. If cars were so simple I wouldn't need $80K in equipment above and beyond what's in my toolboxes, yes boxes. And that $200 OBDII code reader doesn't quite compare to my $4000 one. Try and get to the datastream or Mode $6. And I just love the sensor chuckers. I've NEVER personally seen a bad wire or pin fit.

PS Thanks Sam. Some of us are the good guys. I have customers that have moved across the country that still call me for advice or just to BS. I've made a few friends in business......and took their money. And some were even happy to spend some here. I give people that know what they want, what they want.

Exactly Junkyard... well said.
I see so many assholes that claim to be mechanics but are idiots. I mean, blithering idiots. I love to diagnose problems, but hate the wrench-twisting. I'm too old and too impatient for it.

I just hate the customers. The job would be perfect if it wasn't for their cheap, uneducated, ungrateful asses. Problem is cars are like assholes, every MFer has one. And a good 60% want something for nothing. 20% always buy new, and that leaves the last 20% for my clientèle. I have to share them with the 3 other decent shops in my po-dunk town. Well not the town I live in, the one the shop is in.....I need to get a job drinkin beer. apparently it's the only thing I'm good at. Just ask the dregs in our town. You know, the ones who get mad at you that their old car needs more repairs than it's worth. The ones that say it's been such a good car, had it 4 years and never stuck a dime in it. Then I say yeah, I can tell. The only reason I'm still in it is for the hot chicks that can't afford to pay their bills. That's how I met this one

Know what sucks more? Saving up 3,500 to buy your first car, buying it (stupidly taking it to an area mechanic to check before buying), then finding out a week later it needs 3,500 more worth of repairs because it stalls out, stranding you an hour away from home one morning, with an hour and a half left to open up your business.

THEN trying to return it to the dealer, being told to take it to the courts and laughed out of the dealership by numerous, burly cigar smoking men, and filing the papers with the courts who "never receive" the paperwork but don't tell you until the statute of limitations is up.

I was about half a nerve away from filling the car with gasoline cans and ghost riding it in flames back into the fucking lot. At least now I'm a total nitpick when dealing with anything car related.

NJ mafia run and owned businesses FTL.....

What color is the smoke?

What model Subaru do you have?

The cat will not cause smoke, unless there is no cat at all/a major hole in the cat. Any real shop should only use a new cat and that cat should have an 8 yr/80k mile warranty.

The Subaru boxster engine has 2 cam seals. Both are FAR away from the cat, so that's total BS that one of them is leaking and dropping on the cat.

The turbo'd Subarus and non turbo'd Subarus have a similar exhaust setup, the cat is WAY behind the engine, there is simply no way it can smoke, and if it did it would be coming up from the engine bay and not the exhaust.

Is the car burning a lot of oil?

Press them to fix this under warranty since that's part of the contract they agreed to when they replaced the engine. Contact the AG of NY (their office has always been VERY proconsumer, more so then most other states, and most AG offices are very proconsumer), the BBB, etc.

Then once they fix it, kick the mechanic in the nuts.

I have a 1996 Subaru Impreza L wagon edition. The smoke comes up out from under the hood and by the tires. It's usually a light color, Greyish.

I got it back today, Guy said that the Cat or an o2 sensor might be going bad. The guy gave us a discount. The cam seal was fixed.

The engine we got was a used motor, Not a new one.