The agony of defeat..3rd gen blues
 

Well I got bit by the 3rd gen curse this weekend. The cars was running great three weeks ago, before I had my motor mounts replaced. It all seemed ok till I noticed a fuel leak the following week. Its small but as you can see I have alot under the hood to worry about.

So I make a appointment drop the car off at the shop that did my mounts , since I belive they caused the leak. You see my FPR is mounted to the body so when they lifted the motor they should have freed it up so it would'nt pull and tug on the fuel lines. When I told the guy this he said "yeah the motor did lean to the drivers side" when they lifted it. I guess the common sense to look above and see why it was leaning to one side was not possible ....

Apparently after three days at the shop the didnt find the leak. But they just took the car on test drives ? Its beyond me why they did'nt pull the UIM and juts turn the key and the pumps would kick on and you would be able to see the source ?
They didnt and told me till late on Friday they pulled the UIM and it was dry now. Sounded good, I so we made a arrangement to meet early Saturday at the shop for me to pick it up. I didnt hear from the shop till 12.30 and when I picked up the car I was pretty disapointed to find the fuel leak was still visible and not "dry " like I was told. Then I get in my car and find my Momo e-brake handle has a big dent and gouge in it. I almost blew a fuse and told the tech they would have to replace it.

So it does get worse, I make it about a mile from the shop and my EGT's start rising and peg at over 2000. I panic but then notice it falls back to zero , then to 1200...no 1800....no 0. So next I see my water temps rise to 90C then 100 c , the add coolant light goes off, and I shut it down and roll to a stop. I was leaking coolant all over the back half of the motor. It took me about three hours to crawl back to the shop, topping it off letting it cool down and just goint about two blocks at a time. I pull in we open the hood and find the egt sensor was snapped off, apparnetly when they had there hands in the motor. So we pull the Greddy elbow and the coolant line behind the TB is sliced down the center. I assume it was split when they pulled the UIM and they must have juts rolled it over on the hose. I also found what looked live a razor cut in my primary coolant hose going to the rad. It was not cut through but it was sliced. No idea how that happened but I can see it wil fail if it expands at all in that area.

Well, the tech ask if I want him to fix the coolant leak and I could drive home ...WTF

I left the car and Monday alot of this story is to be determined . These guys did some good work on the past on my car , and I have spent over 10k with them during the past five years. Sad its come to this just because they were lazy and didnt pay attention to detail.

I am torn on what to do after this is resolved but I will let you guys know how it goes since I know of several 3rd gens in that shop now. I wont go into details but I will follow up on this post , and have it moved to a regional forum if I feel its necessary to warn other FD guys

It really is a shame , since so many tech complain about working on beat up 3rd gens and mine is as clean as they come and should be easy to find any type of leak... 3/4 of the stock shit is gone .

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Sorry to hear that Andy, hope everything works out!

Wow. Thats a sad story. But I still can't figure out. If you spend 2k a year there they must be a reputable shop and I can't imagine a reputable shop not taking these small things into consideration.

Hope everything ends up good,

Alex

whoooooooooooooooooa. too many sloppy shops

Damn, sorry about that dude. Care to say what shop this was?

sorry to hear about your story andy. i saw you car there when i went on thursday to drop off my car.

I just hope the core wasnt damaged when it started to overheat. I was shooting to race on Nov 5th, but thats not looking good at all right now. Looks like the "test " drives the guys at the shop did are as fast as my fd will go this year. gald they got to have some free fun at my expense. I droped off my car to be repaired not to be a amusement ride.

I wont go into details untill I give these guys a shot to make this right this week. I consider myself a loyal customer and have refered many guys to them from the forum and car shows.

You know what's ironic is they have a great rep. for endurace race cars. I wonder how those cars make it past one lap if I cant make it two miles from the shop before it fails . Perhaps they pay more attention to those customers cars ?

But I have no clue what the hell is going on right now. I also hope it all works out , I dont like doing this myself.

Im having troubles with my fd now and your story is the exact reason I just won't take my car to a shop even though Im a total noob at fixing my car. I just bug my friend to death for his help and struggle with the car myself, knowing that Im taking care of the car and not breaking shit due to lack of caring.

I just cant trust anyone to do anything they say.

I hope all works out well for you.

Sorry to hear of your troubles brother.

On a better note , I think you have the most beautiful engine bay I have ever seen on a FD , nice work man!

You should see it in person...WOW!

I've got an idea as to which shop it is......there's a reason that I am the the only person that works on my FD, and a reason why Ihor and I take on side jobs. Seems like the majority of shops out there are staffed by monkeys.

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I hope the chimp got some bannans for the hard work.

But seriously, I followed up with the owner of the shop early this morning and it sounds like they will make this right. I guess if all goes well , I can chalk this one up to experience but it was not necessary.

it's so difficult to find a reliable FD mechanic these days, or any mechanic for that matter, so many of them are just kids who don't care....the kind of stuff described in this thread is just sloppy work

if you are in the carolinas area, RX7World is the best

Sliced hoses are a bad sign... I can't image that sort of damage being a natural occurrance.

This is why I had insomnia while a shop did my clutch.

I didnt get much sleep over the weekend on this one. Nothing like spending a ton of money and have nothing to show for it.

I know they didnt do any of this intentional, but a few big oversights can be a nightmare. I hope to plaster this thread with some good news tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed for me :)

damn man, kill them

Damn man that sucks. On another note im planning on being at MIR on the 5th...are you planning to meet in crofton and make the trip with us or are you leaving earlier? Very clean car...cant wait to see it run

it sounds like the shop is gonna take care of the problem. Thats good. Im not defending them but mistakes do happen. As long as they're willing to fix their mistake then they dont sound like a shady business.

that sucks to hear....hope it all turns out for the best in the long run

Those all sounds like things that should have never happened in the first place. There is no excuse for total incompetence, especially for the price most speed shops charge......

MIR is slipping away by the hour..........

I am to disapointed to write anything, other then to be continued......

For stuff like that you should just dig in and get your hands dirty.

Many big shops dont want to be 'bothered' with little random problems, which blows considering your history with them.

How long till you name names?

I was thinking if I should even add to this post since I didn’t want to start a online war with the shop in question. Too many memories of the hell G.M. went through with Peter . So I will just keep to the facts and if anyone wants details about this you can ask me in person.

I know a few guys at the shop that know my screen name and I expect they have read some of this post. Don’t take it personally its about the quality of the work not the quality of the person. Again it’s not a leverage tool for me but I was so disappointed with the situation I find myself in I have to vent to the 3rd gen "support group".

I got the FD back, some things are resolved. The torn cooling hoses were replaced , but my EGT gauge is still broken; they didn’t get the new sensor in so it needs to go back next week. They told me they tore down the fuel system replaced o rings, however when I made it home and the car was still leaking fuel. Same spot same amount.

I still have some other outstanding issues like my e-brake but I am so disappointed at this point it’s hard to keep a positive attitude. No test and tune this weekend at Mason Dixon , so MIR on the 5th isn’t going to happen . That’s f-ed up

I was thinking about this quote, is it me that’s insane for taking my car back to them or them for not finding a way to locate the fuel leak ?

Albert Einstein: “ Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

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