Pissed, what do you suggest I do?

So some of you saw that I dropped a ton of cash on my Durango to get a new set of heads put on, because the shop said the machine shop said they were cracked.

When my FIL originally dropped it off, I explained to the shop manager that my inlaws told me that there was coolant leaking through the front of the condenser, which means there was a leak on the front of the radiator. They went ahead and did a pressure test on the system and said that it failed but there were no leaks that they could find, which lead them into tearing the engine down to find an internal leak.

That is now water under the bridge, its been paid for and the Durango is in the driveway.

HOWEVER, On my ride home, I kept smelling coolant. The couple places I parked on the way home I checked and didn't see anything on the ground. Open the hood and didn't see anything visible. I figured it was coolant that spilled when they filled the system.

I just went outside to get some stuff out of the truck and I see drips on the ground off the front of the truck. I get on the ground to see what where it was coming from and there is coolant all over the bottom of the bumper cover. I peel back the bumper cover and see that the bottom of the radiator is falling apart. I get up to look at the condenser and see where fresh coolant had leaked through the condenser.

I need to call the shop back tomorrow and deal with this. I don't want to be a huge dick, because that's not my nature, but I did drop a ton of money on this repair. I don't know if I was lied to (my FIL insists that they do good work there) or if they just did really E36 M3ty troubleshooting.

So now how do I approach this?

I wish I could help. These things make me lose sleep the night before head to the mechanics.

SyntheticBlinkerFluid wrote: I don't know if I was lied to (my FIL insists that they do good work there) or if they just did really E36 M3ty troubleshooting.

I am willing to bet it is a little bit of both. E36 M3ty troubleshooting that led to tearing apart the engine and just replacing parts hoping that would fix it. The lying to you was telling you that the fixed it. Id bring it back and tell them to just make it right, fix the radiator.

"You berkeleying suck. The radiator is broke. Fix it FOR FREE, shiny happy person."

Ranger50 wrote: "You berkeleying suck. The radiator is broke. Fix it FOR FREE, shiny happy person."

I'm along this line of thinking. It won't work, though.

I would be pissed to the point of threatening small claims court. I would want my $$$ back as it was not needed and the original problem that they said that they checked was obviously not checked. If it is as good a shop and the FIL said they will make it rite with out you having to pull the small claims court card.

In reply to dean1484:

FIL is a Lawyer, so it probably won't even get that far.

I think I have every right to ask them to fix it for free. A radiator for my truck will cost less than $120. It's probably less than an hour of labor. I can't see them having too much of a problem for making it right.

Oh and to one of your previous statements SBF, of course you won't find a leak without any damn coolant in it!!! They screwed the pooch on this one.

Diagnosing from a distance, yeah I agree with Ranger50. It's also possible to test the radiator separately; pinch the hoses off with those hose pinch pliers then pressure test it. If they jumped straight into head R&R and bypassed the basics, yeah they are in a bit of a pickle of their own creation.

On this subject: we in the bidness are held to a higher standard than doctors. The doc can poke and prod you, make a guess and spend a wad, then if it's wrong they try something else, again spending a wad. But if a tech says he's gotta do this first and retest, oh HELL no. We are supposed to be able to walk by and know EXACTLY what is wrong.

Unfortunately they probably already sent the old heads off as cores, but I'd be REALLY curious to see them.

Source material for "Throwing Parts at Car" Memes is hard to come by.

Who cares, I'm LMAO over here at those two!

The shop probably used these to fix your Durango SBF.....

Curmudgeon wrote: On this subject: we in the bidness are held to a higher standard than doctors. The doc can poke and prod you, make a guess and spend a wad, then if it's wrong they try something else, again spending a wad. But if a tech says he's gotta do this first and retest, oh HELL no. We are supposed to be able to walk by and know EXACTLY what is wrong.

In defense of doctors - and to re-use an old trope - mechanics aren't asked to rebuild the engine while it's running.

Ranger50 wrote: The shop probably used these to fix your Durango SBF.....

Hey, don't give away my secrets!

alex wrote: In defense of doctors - and to re-use an old trope - mechanics aren't asked to rebuild the engine while it's running.

I have yet to see an open heart bypass graft be sewn in while a heart is still pumping either.

Doctors bury their mistakes.

http://www.tradekey.com/product_view/id/49443.htm

Well in defense of the original repair, if the radiator was that bad and it had been run low on coolant it is still very possible it overheated and warped or cracked the heads so the repairs they did were probably very necessary.

They still did a lousy root cause analysis by not finding the obviously dead radiator and should make it right by you, but they didn't necessarily do the heads for no reason at all.

Is it possible, that when they were poking around in there during the rebuild, they dislodged some load bearing rust?

What was the end result?

The end result is that my FIL forked out another $350 for their berkeley up and took it out on my wife and I.

THIS is why I do all my own work unless it comes down to something I can't do like a transmission or recharging the AC system.

I tried to explain this morning to my FIL that I could replace the radiator myself and we could save the trouble of having to have to pay for the shop to do the work. He was insistent that it needed to go back to the shop to right their wrong.

We can see how well that worked out.

There are some folk you cannot help. If he's going to take it out on you as you say, wash your hand and let him go his own way.

Boy, he really showed them a thing or two.....