jporter313

Thanks Steve. I'll check into a consult with a lawyer.

Ok, well, small claims time. Any of you guys live in SF and would be willing to take a look at my car and testify in small claims court as to the shoddy work they did and how it could have caused the problems we experienced?

Ugh, well the saga continues. Finally got a call back from the franchise GM today. went over the list of stuff that had been found wrong. He picked out a few things that they were clearly responsible for, disputed everything else. He says that his shop doesn't order the T-valves that the shop in Shasta found in my engine, so there's no way they could have done that. The problem I'm running into is that there's no documentation for a few of the biggest things that they did wrong. The broken power steering happened after I had picked up the car, and when I brought it back in, they didn't put it into their computer or give me a receipt, they just worked on it right then and there, so I have no documentation to support this. The thermostat is almost the same issue, they were doing it as I was trying to pick up the car, and didn't put it on the invoice or anything, so there's no documentation of it on any of the paperwork from the original shop. I do have the thermostat itself though, I wonder if I could somehow backtrace a serial number to show that it was sold to Midas at that time, or is that just crazy?

It's been a while, so here's an update. Took the car into a shop with a good reputation and lots of Subaru experience here in SF. They took a look at it. Said they didn't see any engine damage from the overheating, Head gasket looks fine, but they found several things that the original shop had done wrong. Starter ground wire left off, O2 sensor wire run wrong in such a way that it's been damaged, cam seals are leaking despite just being replaced. Oil pan gasket is overtightened and split, etc. . A myriad of idiotic mistakes. I called the GM at the original shop and faxed him all the paperwork for the other shops last Thursday, he said give him a couple of days to look it all over and he'd call me back on Monday. No response. I called him on Tuesday afternoon and asked someone to have him call me back, still no response. About to call up and threaten small claims. What are the chances that there's engine damage from the overheat that they're not seeing on an inspection? The car has another problem that was existing previous to this fiasco that's gotten a lot worse in the last month. It sputters and feels like it's going to die when you accelerate in any manner other than gentle from a stop. The original shop did a fuel injection service and replaced the spark plugs said it could fix the problem. It didn't.

I think the shop might have flushed it. I hope I'm wrong.

The transmission's always seemed a little iffy on that car. late shifting, rough shifting, gear sticking. but it's always checked out fine. I just figure if I'm going to buy a new engine and it's affordable to add this, might as well get rid of the other massively expensive breakable thing before it goes.

Hey GeneralDisorder, I re-read your post and now see that you suggested what I was just asking about the replacement.

Thanks all. I'm not trying to lawyer up if I don't have to considering that'll have it's own costs involved with no guarantee of more return. bstone, I'm wondering if that's really an equitable settlement considering that the damage they caused to my car will likely cost more to fix than I'd be getting back in that scenario. Would it make more sense to just get a quote for a complete engine replacement and ask them for that instead of a refund of any sort? It looks like a new(er) ej25 (or 25d, is there a way to tell whether it's DOHC without taking anything apart?) would cost somewhere around $1000, what would you guess the labor to replace it at a shop would be in or around SF? On a side note, it looks like you can get a newer transmission along with the engine for a few hundred bucks. Approximately what would the added labor cost be to replace the transmission if I had the engine replaced? I'm thinking my next step is to talk to a different shop and see if they can examine my engine to diagnose any problems it might be having because of this work so I have something on paper to bring to the original shop. How much should I expect to pay for this sort of diagnostic? Thanks again for everyone's help so far. This board has been a really excellent resource.

Just wanted to give everyone an update. I called the shop a few days ago and explained the situation to them. The front desk person was really courteous, said they were very sorry and gave me the number of the manager who handles those requests. The next morning I got a voice message from him offering to take a look at the car and fix whatever's wrong with it at no charge. I feel like I'm a pretty reasonable guy, and it's tempting to let them try to fix their mistake, but I'm really afraid based on the last month or so, that we're going to do that and they're going to screw up more stuff. What do you all think? Also, what do you think is a reasonable and realistic figure to ask them for? I spent $2350 there for the initial "fixes", then it cost me another $500 at various shops to keep my car from dying while in Oregon. One of the legal people at my girlfriends work, suggested that we ask for a full refund plus the $500 plus the blue book value of the car. This sounds a little excessive to me, and I don't understand how you'd justify that legally, but I'm wondering if (based on what I've heard here) it would make sense to ask for a refund, plus the $500 plus the cost of parts and labor for a new engine? I would guess I wouldn't come out of it with that actual figure, but it would give me a high starting point for a settlement. Can anyone here suggest a reasonable figure?

Thanks to everyone for the help so far. I'm calling the shop tomorrow, I'll let you all know what the result is.

This is my first time posting here. I have a '99 Subaru Legacy Outback wagon with roughly 160k-170k miles on it. I say roughly because the speedometer started dropping out intermittently about a year ago and we haven't wanted to put the $600 into getting the speed sensor replaced to find out whether or not that's the issue. Anyway, on to my main concern. The car has had a small oil leak from the valve cover gaskets for a while now. We knew about this, but I just checked the oil occasionally to make sure it hadn't gotten too low and went on about my business. A couple months ago, I checked the oil and the dipstick came out dry, this scared me, but I added a quart of oil and it was fine again. checked it again a month or so later, and same thing. The weird thing about this is that there was no oil on the pavement in our parking spot and it seems to take very little oil to get it back to the right level. I finally got a chance to take it in to get this checked out and get an oil change a couple weeks ago before we left to go on our yearly Christmas trip up to Oregon. Upon looking at the car, the shop we've been taking it to for the last few years said that there was a large amount of oil leaking from the Valve cover gasket as well as the timing belt assembly and camshaft seal. They said they needed to lift the engine out of the car to fix this which requires a large amount of labor. We also had a torn boot on our left front axle which was a part of the original quote (but inexplicably wasn't in the final quote and didn't end up getting done). The total estimate for parts and labor was around $1800. I asked them if this was something I could put off until after our trip and they said no. I told them I needed to think about it and that I'd get back to them as soon as possible. Unfortunately we were really pressed for time as we were scheduled to leave for Oregon in 3 days. We discussed whether we wanted to buy a new car or try to fix this one and hold onto it for another year or two. It was tough, but we decided that it was better to try to keep driving this car for a while than to invest a much larger amount of money in a new one, and we didn't want to have to search for a new car under such a tight deadline. We told them to do the work, and they came back with a quote for $2355 that also included a lot of things they said were important to do while the engine was out to save labor (water pump, transmission seal, etc.). I reluctantly told them to go ahead and do the work. Fast forward to 3 days later. I go in to pick up the car and they're not quite done with it yet. after several conversations, some other minor unsettling realizations, and them checking out the car for several hours, they tell me they need to put in a new thermostat, but they'll do it for free. They do this and I take the car. I get the car home and start packing up to leave for our drive to Oregon. a couple hours later, I come down to the car and see a stream of thick red fluid coming out from under the car. I call the shop and they say it's probably transmission fluid. I take it in and they realize that it's actually power steering fluid. At some point during or immediately after the work, one of the power steering hoses had broken causing the fluid to drain out. They can't get the part before I need to leave, so they devise a temporary fix, however as I drive off , the power steering stops working again. They try a bunch of things to fix it, but nothing works. Eventually they say it's probably just air in the system and that it should work itself out after 50 or so miles of driving. I take the car again and leave for Oregon with no power steering (The power steering problem never works itself out and is still broken today). Otherwise everything's fine until I get to around Mt Shasta and realize that my car is overheated. In the 7 years that I've been driving this car, I have never seen The temperature gauge budge from just below the center while the car is heated up. I pull off to the side of the road and turn off the car. Add some water to the radiator and try to make it the rest of the way. Pretty quickly the car overheats again and I have to pull over and have it towed to a nearby shop. They take a look at it and tell me that someone has installed a bleed valve on one of the radiator hoses that doesn't have a gasket and coolant is leaking out of it. They fix this, do a chemical block test to make sure I haven't blown a head gasket, top off the coolant and send me on my way after charging me $130. Second leg of the trip is Medford to Portland, I get about 2 thirds of the way there and realize that when I'm off the freeway, the car keeps running very hot, but not all the way to the line. once I arrive in Portland, I pop the hood and see that there's coolant all over the engine around the radiator overflow tank and the hose that goes from just below the radiator cap to the overflow tank has popped off the radiator. Upon closer inspection I see that there is a cap on the nipple where that hose should go. It appears that at some point during the repairs, someone put a cap on this and then stuck the hose back on over it. I have a family friend who is an ASE certified Subaru tech. He takes a quick look at the car, removes the cap and tells me that I need to take it in to a subaru dealership to have them figure out the rest of the problem. I follow his advice and they realize that the fan temperature sensor is not working correctly, causing the radiator fan to turn on prematurely which they said can cause the engine to overheat. I pay $230 for them to fix this and do another chemical block test. Upon completion, they also point out that THERES OIL LEAKING FROM THE VALVE COVER GASKETS! Let me point out that a week earlier I had paid the local shop several hundred dollars to fix this. They also point out several other things that haven't been reassembled properly (the timing belt cover is missing a seal, several bolts are in the wrong place, etc.), but nothing that they say isn't going to allow me to get back to San Francisco. I take off to travel back to San Francisco, during the drive the temperature sensor is acting erratically and finally it overheats again around Mt. Shasta. Upon popping the hood, I can see that coolant has sprayed over the engine from around the overflow tank cap. I take it in to the same shop in Shasta and ask them if it might be a problem with the Thermostat. They say it could either be this or the water pump, or the head gaskets might be blown despite the 2 passed chemical block tests. Being the cheapest option, I ask them to replace the thermostat for another $100. I also ask what the normal range for the temperature to be in on that gauge is and they say anything between a half and three quarters is ok. They also point out that there is a small amount of what looks like it could be exhaust residue on the week old thermostat, which they say could indicate a head gasket problem. After this I continue on my way back to San Francisco, the temperature gauge goes up and down, but never gets quite above the three quarter mark he specified. I figure this could be because the car is fixed, or it could be because most of the trip was downhill from that point. My questions are: Should I worry about the fact that that gauge was more or less static while driving before and now fluctuates quite a bit even though it's within safe limits? Is it safe to assume that the local shop broke something that's causing this overheating problem while they were working on my car. If so, what could it be? Assuming this is the fault of the local shop, what recourse do I have considering they caused a problem that cost me almost an extra $500 after I had already paid them a couple thousand to work on my car and might have caused a blown a head gasket? What is the likelihood that the head gasket is blown despite the passed chemical block tests? I'm really afraid that they broke more stuff than is immediately apparent, Should I let them work on my car again, to fix the shoddy work they did in the first place? Considering I just put $3000 into it and more stuff seems to be broken now than was before, should I keep the car or ditch it, get a new one, and eat the loss? What's the likelihood of getting any money back from the shop? I really don't want this thing to become a big money pit. I know this is quite a saga. I'd really appreciate any advice or ideas. It was really a financial stretch to do that much work on the car in the first place, especially around the holidays. I feel pretty ripped off by this whole thing. Thanks in advance.