Local mechanic

[Irish_Alley]

Well there's this mechanics' shop in town been around for a good bit. When I worked for autozone I used to deliver parts to them got to know the whole family. Seamed real nice, then the old man "owner" die about 3 or so years ago and his daughter took over. My landlord is also the old mans daughter. So my landlord and the new shop owner are sisters. Well anyway, my moms van 98e150 had to go threw inspection and had a couple codes one was p0401"Insufficient EGR flow" and cylinder 4&7 miss fire. So with the cold weather and never doing a port cleaning for the egr I decided I would let this shop do that and I will change the plugs. The port job was only $90 and the plugs and wires priced about 300 so I could save mom 300 doing that, no problem. She took it to them, they cleaned the ports thy run from the egr to the throttle body. She got the van back and the weather took a turn for the worst. But the van had to go threw inspection, so she took it back to them and told them that I was going to change the plugs and see what they could find out about the problem. They decided to test the coil for 4&7 plugs, (the ford only has two coils, and knowing what I know, but not having a tester for the coils I decided to swap the coils the miss was still 4&7 it didn't move this eliminated the coil as the problem or so I thought) the shop "tested" it and he said "once it got hot that one side would lose power and wouldn't fire." So they replaced it $50 part and $150 in labor for maybe 10 minutes of work $200 for replacing a coil that was good. When mom told me this I told her to get the van back now. She did and they cleared the cel. She took it to dmv with the miss and the light came back on a couple miles down the road. So I go the van and started to change the plugs and wires still ticked about the whole coil problem. I noticed the throttle body was never removed to chlean those ports. Now I'm hot, changed the plugs and wires number 4&7 plugs where all arced up. Plugs and wires did the trick cleared the cel. Mom took it threw inspection, passed then the cel came on after leaving I checked it p0401 same code as before. So I asked her what did the shop do, she said cleaned ports the first time, changed coil and egr gasket cause it was blown out the second time. This ticked me off even more the egr gasket was fine the first time now after the "mechanic" touched it ,it blew out and they charged her. Granted its only a couple bucks but all this is adding up. So today I surprised the shop with a visit and started talking to the shop owner and mechanic. They started blaming my mom cause she didn't want them to diagnose anything just clean the ports. So I asked him what ports he said "the ports that run from the egr to the back of the intake." I then said what about the tb, he said they run to the intake. Then I ask him so why didn't you take the tb off to clean the ports, he said he didn't have too. He has a tool that cleans all the ports with wires and since the cleaning didnt clear the code is was something else" I ased what else, his responce DPFE i said i replaced that he then said " egr pressure transducer sensor" this blew me away i had no ideal this ford had one. Then I questioned the coil he said once it got hot it would miss fire. Then I told him I swapped the coils so if it was a coil problem it would of followed, he didn't have a answers and asked the shop owner a question and left. Then the shop owner grabbed some papers and kindly blew me off. What am I to do now? I would like to get pictures and all and fight this but its only a couple hundred dollars so its not worth court. But its the ideal that moms in a wheelchair and in her 50s and I feel like they took advantage of the whole thing

[bake74]

     Never take anything there again, and when asked about shops make sure to relay your troubles.  Word of mouth can make or brake a company depending on how their work is and how they treat their customers.

[zieg85]

Report to the BBB

[VileZambonie]

Just to clarify, when you swapped the coils #4 & #7 you swapped them with other coils not each other right? lol

Finding a good shop with great techs is about as easy as finding a good doctors office with good doctors. Sounds like you could have did the troubleshooting and repairs yourself. Any decent shop will not repair based off of someone elses diagnostic. You bring your car to me, I diagnose and I fix or you go somewhere else. Sounds like they should stick to doing lube jobs.

[Irish_Alley]

Just to clarify, when you swapped the coils #4 & #7 you swapped them with other coils not each other right? lol

Finding a good shop with great techs is about as easy as finding a good doctors office with good doctors. Sounds like you could have did the troubleshooting and repairs yourself. Any decent shop will not repair based off of someone elses diagnostic. You bring your car to me, I diagnose and I fix or you go somewhere else. Sounds like they should stick to doing lube jobs.

lol yes swapped left coil with right coil and 4&7 are both on the left side. yeah the more and more i look at cleaning the ports you have to take the tb off just cause the main egr port does a 90 degree turn two diffrent times. yeah i remember when i worked at autozone i would recemend this shop to everyone. now they will be on one of those list that i wont tell someone to go to. yeah when i did the plugs and wires my buddy and me help clear out his father in-laws barn/shop so it kept the chill off us. next time i wont think twice about doing it myself. maybe in the next couple days i will remove the tb and take it to the shop just to see what they say then.
this is a quote from thier web page "All of our labor is guaranteed. We provide the best service and offer one of the lowest rates in the state of Delaware!" i call bs on this lol

[Irish_Alley]

just a small update and FYI about this whole problem with the mechanic. once mom got her van back before i worked on it. it wouldnt start in the driveway, so she called them the same guy who replaced the coils came out to work on it. before she could get down the wheel chair ramp he was working on it and the van fired right up. his response was "it was flooded" i didnt know Fuel injections could flood since the injectors have to receive a signal to open from the ecm, but thats just my novice thinking. last week i went on vacation only to have my mom call me saying it wasnt starting up again. so i got my buddy to go work on it with no results and learning her lesson from before she didnt call the local mechanic. so the van sat till i came home on monday. did a fuel pressure test on the injector lines was 40psi (good) did a injector noid test (no pulse) then i did a spark test (no spark). the only sensor that i know of that could cause both test to fail was the crankcase position sensor. so being me i unplugged it, cleaned the sensor plugs and plugged it back in, and she fired right up. the fyi was about the ckps causing a no fire and no pulse just encase anyone runs into this problem on their vehicle

[VileZambonie]

You mean crankshaft not crankcase. So what engine is it with #4 & #7 on the left bank?

[greasemonkey54]

Its a 4.6 or 5.4 mod motor. They have 2 coil packs, one mounted in front of each valve cover. They each fire 2 plugs for each bank. Fords are numbered 1234 front to back on pass side and 5678 on the driver side.

[Irish_Alley]

yes thanks vile crankshaft not case. and what monkey said about the 4.6 and 5.4
and it is a 4.6

[Displaced_Txn]

You could file a case with the BBB, and word of mouth goes a long way. Sucks that they did that to your mom  and anyone else who has gone to them.  Thats the main reason I quit being a mechanic as 99 percent of the shops I went to or applied at wanted to over charge for work done and take the easy way out of repairs instead of doing them correctly.  Thats why I wrench on all of my own stuff now and families cars for them.

[Irish_Alley]

My uncle wanted me to work out his garage. I turned him down just cause I can't mentality rip someone off and sleep at night. Had a problem with Kent county motors went to bbb. Problem was they weren't a member so all they could do was put a bad review in for I think 3 years

[Displaced_Txn]

I'm the exact same way, Why when i was wrenching on someone's car i treated it like my own. Was really happy with a shop i used to deal with in WA state. was unable to crawl under my mustang for exhaust work, oil changes and suspension work. guy always let me sit in the shop and watch him no questions asked, plus he said that way you could verify the work was done. Then had him do some work on one of my diesels and never had a problem with any of the repairs even, he even threw in a free set of warn manual hubs when my autos decided to self destruct.

[ehjorten]

I usually take it as a lesson learned and never darken the door of a place again; tell everyone I know not to go there!  You want to be careful about slander (spoken) and libel (written).  Stick to the facts of your situation.  It is unfortunate to have lost some money.  If you want to be hard about it go after them.  I'm usually not that vindictive and let word of mouth ruin them.

[Irish_Alley]

yeah thats kind of why i never mentioned who they where on here. i remember when i worked at autozone the manager told us, if a customer has a bad experience they will tell 10 different people. if they had a good experience they will tell only 3. and this for the most part is true, but yeah lessened learned and have spread the word around town just to hear someone say "i wish i would of know you planed on taking it there. i would of told you not to cause they will rip you off" lol