Ripped Off!

[jimbob92c]

Here's one for ya......

The saga of my son's car ( which I'll make short) and the impending scene I'm going to make Monday afternoon at a repair shop on Central Ave.

My son is poised to finally "leave the nest", finished up grad school and was planning to drive to L.A. where he's seeking his fortune within the movie business ( couldn't have picked a harder market to break into....) Anyway...
the only thing holding him back is his car...and more to the point...the constant appearance of the dreaded Check Engine light.

We had it checked out by this shop ( a national chain ) and they produced a list of faults a mile long. I should add that as well as having the faults diagnosed, we also wanted an inspection of the drivetrain and running gear. The car is a '96 Probe SE that we purchased off the showroom floor and gave to our son when we got the Mini Cooper in '03.

I ended up changing the front struts, rotors and pads, plugs, plug wires, air filter, gas filter, cap and rotor. The shop added two new tires, front end alignment, rear sway bar kit ( the little connectors with rubber grommets that go between the sway bar and suspension...the old ones fell off), replaced the trailing arm/link on the drivers side rear ( which was bent), rear struts, replaced the EGR, cleaned the MAFS, did a cooling system, tranny, fuel system flush, and replaced the resonator and catalytic convertor.

NOW....This weekend as my son was headed north, the $$ light came back on and he is now spooked by it all. So I took it out for a spin this morning and detected a vibration in it and took it to the local gas station in my home town and had the tires rebalanced....... When it was on the lift I looked under the car and my jaw dropped. I had a new resonator and pipe but the catalytic converter was the same old one that came from the factory. They charged me over $800 for the converter....that never was installed!!!! :burningMa I now went to the EGR location....hmmmm!! no evidence that anything was every disturbed, moved, or dismantled. That was a $200 item. Did they really do a front end alignment? I saw no shiney spots on the nuts on the ends of the tie rods. No recently exposed threads on the tie rod arms.

So tomorrow I'm going to confront the manager of the shop. The guy who worked on our car was a young fellow (20's) who first told us that the engine in the Probe was not original. I told him that seeing as we bought the car new and nothing has been changed during all this time, that he was wrong......."well, the distributor's not right"..."It's not like my buddy's Probe that he's building up"................AH HA!! Is that where my converter went??
These guys knew that the car was shortly heading out of the state.....

I just can't believe it! If I hadn't had that thing up in the air this morning ( the car...! :eek: )I wouldn't have known that I'd been ripped off.

How could you forget to install a converter that's on the repair list? Is the whole place a rip off shop? Is the kid an air head or did he filch the part for his buddy?

I sure as hell am going to find out tomorrow. :faceoff:

Unbelievable....

P-0'd bob

[Sparky_Bill]

All I can say is WOW and Don't take your guns to town son, don't take your guns to town. :git:

[JohnnyIron]

Alright, give us the name of this joint so we can avoid them like the plague!

You should tell everyone you know the name of this place and what they tried to pull!

[RickJ]

Find out what happened, give them the chance to make it right, and then file a report with the Better business Bureau and the Attorney General. This sounds like a major rip-off. Also, if it is a corporate store, (or a national franchise) I would call their corporate headquarters and complain.

[jimbob92c]

Well...after a couple of sleepless nights and practicing my speech all day at work...I drove into the place and nicely told them that the engine light was still on and the discovery of the converter still being in place.
That's when I was handed the dumba$$ award of the week.

This car has two converters....one underneath in front of the resonator ( the one I observed) and the other that is not shown in the manual that is right off of the manifold hidden by the heat shield. I felt like one of those cartoon characters from the 50's where their face slowly changes to a picture of a shoe heel and then back again.

Crap!
And my son is still worried that the car won't make it to California. So upon a suggestion from the repair shop I was steered to a transmission place on 39th and Central. It's the only thing that I think could still be wrong with the car. We're bringing it in this Wednesday for another diagnosis. I noticed that after putting on about 240 miles that the car starting shifting very abruptly ( as in stall converter slam). The transmission OD light was flashing most of the way back down to the cities. I'm about ready to pull my hair out by the roots. :Horror:

We'll find out Wednesday what these folks come up with. The engine light is the only thing that stands between my son packing his gear and setting out on his life ( he just finished up grad school) and finally Mom and Dad have the place to themselves..... :eek

over-wrought Bob.

[Chris 2]

:goofy: Jim if its the tranny place I am thinking of starts with an H- K they have been pretty up front and honest with my wife and step kids for years so good luck!