Misdiagnosis - Should I expect a refund?

by Alex
(Seattle, wa)

I took my '96 Chevy Beretta (V-6) into an auto repair shop because it had been losing coolants. I paid them ~$1,300 to replace the intake manifold gasket, which they said was the cause. After six weeks, my coolant was empty again. I took the car back. Now they are saying they think it is the head gasket--which they didn't check the first time, because it is harder to take apart and they did not check. After a discount, they will now charge me $1,200 to to fix the head gasket. They are unwilling to refund the charges for the intake gasket. I was under the representation that the $1,300 was fixing the problem. If I knew the cost would be closer to $2,500, well that is more than I paid for my car and I would have sunk the money in a new car. Too me, at the minimum it seems like they misrepresented their "fix," at the worst, it seems like fraud--or am I in the wrong? I am thinking of pursuing this in small claims court. Do you think I am in the right?

Steve Says,

The first thing to consider is that they charged you $1300 to replace the intake manifold gaskets. This is a 6 hour job and assuming that their shop rate is $75 per hour it comes out to $450. If we add $200 for diagnosis and parts (which is more than enough) it comes to $650.

This establishes that they are ripping you off in the first place (unless they did a whole bunch of other work that accounts for the other $650). The estimate for the head gasket that they gave you is fairly close to what it should be (although it is a little on the high side).

With all of that being said, I think it would be very hard to ever get any money out of them. The reason being that it would be virtually impossible to prove that the head gasket was the original problem and they didn't need to replace the intake manifold gasket. It is possible and maybe even likely that they were both leaking in the first place.

It is quite common for the intake manifold gaskets to leak on this engine and if they saw that they were leaking then they did the right thing to advise you to replace them. It seems that they should have also warned you that there could be other leaks as well, but they know for sure that the intake manifold is leaking.

There are times when fixing one leak causes another leak to get worse. I don't know if that happened in this case but it is possible.

Another thing to keep in mind is that it is possible that there is not a leak at all. Many times repair shops will fill the coolant reservoir up and let you take your car. This is not the correct way to fill the cooling system. The way they should have done it was to fill the system, start it and let it run for a few minutes then turn it off an fill it again. Then start it and let it run until it heats up to the normal operating temperature, then let it cool all the way down, then fill the system again.

If they did not do this then the system could just simply be low because they didn't fill it correctly. I would fill it and drive it for a few days and keep an eye on the coolant level. If you are lucky you will find that the fluid level will stop dropping.

If there is a leak, I think the best thing you can do is find another mechanic. The shop that did the work on your car does seem to be ripping you off, but I don't know that there is much you can do. You might try talking to the manager and letting him know that you have found out the they overcharged you for the original work and you plan to tell everyone you know unless he refunds your money. I don't know if it will work, but it might be worth a try. I do think you should talk with your state attorney generals office. If they get enough complaints they will usually prosecute bad businesses.

I hope this has helped and I hope you get some money back and your car fixed. Thanks for asking me this question. You would be surprised how many times this happens every day in this industry. This is why I've set up this website!