Today I get my car back
03-20-03, 12:04 PM
#1
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Today I get my car back
That's right, after over 100 days at the shop, I will finally get my car back today. I won't be able to drive it until Saturday (it's at home and I am at school), but it won't be in the hands of the dealers anymore. Here is the entire story:
11-14- 02 – Car dies on side of road. I had it towed to Executive Auto to have it looked at.
11-19-02 – I had to have the car towed to Thelen in Bay City for closer inspection after Executive Auto can do nothing more due to lack of equipment – they diagnose as an engine failure
A week and a half later the engine arrives – no work had been done as of yet
11-29-02 – First of many promised dates (documented)
Many informal “It will be done by __________ “ dates go by – about three weeks worth
While my car was in the shop, they had someone come in and sand the metal grates on the floors. They neglected to cover the cars, and metal dust got all over the cars inside, including mine. They did detail the car afterwards, but missed a lot on the inside. It took me over an hour to clean.
Car officially delivered back to me January 10, 2003 – the coolant light was on, but they said it was normal and was probably just an air bubble in the system. While driving home, I noticed that the car was pulling to the right. When I got home, I looked at the front passenger’s side tire and it was flat. I then had to take the wheel off and wait until the next morning to have it checked out. I took it to Sears auto center, and they looked it over. The only think that was wrong with it was there was not enough air in the tire when the car was released to me, and during a turn the seal broke and the rest of the air leaked out. Thelen did not check the air pressure before releasing the car, and when I went to check the pressure in the other three tires, they were all down almost 10-20 psi.
Drove car for one week – found major coolant leak (I put in over 1.5 gallons of coolant in this period)
After one week, came home from MSU. I knew that there was a leak in the coolant system, so I tied to see if I could locate it myself to save Thelen time later (I had realized by this point that it took them a very long time to do everything). After taking some of the intake hoses off I found the leak. Coolant was shooting out of a small fitting at the top of the waterpump housing. I then rented a car-carrier and towed the car to Thelen to have them look at it, and confirm my findings. They confirmed the leak and diagnosed it as a faulty water pump housing. They ordered the part the next day.
The housing took 4 days to get there, and it took them a two and a half longer to put it on.
During this time, my car was left out in the back part of the lot where there are no cameras or fences and was broken into. $1000 worth of stereo equipment was stolen.
When the water pump housing was on again, on February 4th, they tried to start the engine and it wouldn’t fire. Asked my dad if I had let it overheat (tried to place blame on me). Dad told them no way, and they ordered a new engine. The previous engine only had 300 miles on it.
On the 25th of February I called the Mazda USA Customer Service center and filed a formal complaint.
They took forever again to get the new engine installed. From the email above, you can see that the car was supposed to be done by March 1st at the very latest, but was not put together until March 9th.
Ken test drove it on the 9th and found that there was a turbo boost leak that created a loss of power during acceleration.
On March 10th 2003 they tore the turbo off to find the leak. They located a failed gasket and tried to repair it by making their own replacement. This failed, and on the 12th of March they ordered new gaskets. They also found that a sensor was throwing a code (had a malfunction in it somewhere) and they ordered that, too. They said the parts would be there by the 14th of March.
March 14th – new gaskets were supposed to arrive, but they did not.
March 15th-16th – weekend, no work was done
March 17th – parts arrive at Thelen, they begin to put everything back together again, but failed to finish.
March 18th – My dad got a page that they had put everything back together and that they had been driving it a little. Everything seemed to be put back together and working, but they wanted to keep it another day so they could drive it around some more and make sure everything was still OK. This is 126 days after the car originally died.
March 19 - car tested some more, found to still be running OK.
11-14- 02 – Car dies on side of road. I had it towed to Executive Auto to have it looked at.
11-19-02 – I had to have the car towed to Thelen in Bay City for closer inspection after Executive Auto can do nothing more due to lack of equipment – they diagnose as an engine failure
A week and a half later the engine arrives – no work had been done as of yet
11-29-02 – First of many promised dates (documented)
Many informal “It will be done by __________ “ dates go by – about three weeks worth
While my car was in the shop, they had someone come in and sand the metal grates on the floors. They neglected to cover the cars, and metal dust got all over the cars inside, including mine. They did detail the car afterwards, but missed a lot on the inside. It took me over an hour to clean.
Car officially delivered back to me January 10, 2003 – the coolant light was on, but they said it was normal and was probably just an air bubble in the system. While driving home, I noticed that the car was pulling to the right. When I got home, I looked at the front passenger’s side tire and it was flat. I then had to take the wheel off and wait until the next morning to have it checked out. I took it to Sears auto center, and they looked it over. The only think that was wrong with it was there was not enough air in the tire when the car was released to me, and during a turn the seal broke and the rest of the air leaked out. Thelen did not check the air pressure before releasing the car, and when I went to check the pressure in the other three tires, they were all down almost 10-20 psi.
Drove car for one week – found major coolant leak (I put in over 1.5 gallons of coolant in this period)
After one week, came home from MSU. I knew that there was a leak in the coolant system, so I tied to see if I could locate it myself to save Thelen time later (I had realized by this point that it took them a very long time to do everything). After taking some of the intake hoses off I found the leak. Coolant was shooting out of a small fitting at the top of the waterpump housing. I then rented a car-carrier and towed the car to Thelen to have them look at it, and confirm my findings. They confirmed the leak and diagnosed it as a faulty water pump housing. They ordered the part the next day.
The housing took 4 days to get there, and it took them a two and a half longer to put it on.
During this time, my car was left out in the back part of the lot where there are no cameras or fences and was broken into. $1000 worth of stereo equipment was stolen.
When the water pump housing was on again, on February 4th, they tried to start the engine and it wouldn’t fire. Asked my dad if I had let it overheat (tried to place blame on me). Dad told them no way, and they ordered a new engine. The previous engine only had 300 miles on it.
On the 25th of February I called the Mazda USA Customer Service center and filed a formal complaint.
They took forever again to get the new engine installed. From the email above, you can see that the car was supposed to be done by March 1st at the very latest, but was not put together until March 9th.
Ken test drove it on the 9th and found that there was a turbo boost leak that created a loss of power during acceleration.
On March 10th 2003 they tore the turbo off to find the leak. They located a failed gasket and tried to repair it by making their own replacement. This failed, and on the 12th of March they ordered new gaskets. They also found that a sensor was throwing a code (had a malfunction in it somewhere) and they ordered that, too. They said the parts would be there by the 14th of March.
March 14th – new gaskets were supposed to arrive, but they did not.
March 15th-16th – weekend, no work was done
March 17th – parts arrive at Thelen, they begin to put everything back together again, but failed to finish.
March 18th – My dad got a page that they had put everything back together and that they had been driving it a little. Everything seemed to be put back together and working, but they wanted to keep it another day so they could drive it around some more and make sure everything was still OK. This is 126 days after the car originally died.
March 19 - car tested some more, found to still be running OK.
03-20-03, 12:29 PM
#4
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Not really. Originally they were going to charge me $4000 to do the engine replacement. I ended up paying $4200 because they had to repalce the boost sensor
03-20-03, 02:09 PM
#6
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Ill put my money that someone at the dealership had something to do with your stolen stereo.
It wasnt prett when the same thing happened to me a while back, I found out my old car had been broken into while in their position and the bitch at the nerve to point at the sign saying "we are not responsible for lost of stolen items" How convient someone knew your car had stereo stuff in it. Fukn Dealerships.
It wasnt prett when the same thing happened to me a while back, I found out my old car had been broken into while in their position and the bitch at the nerve to point at the sign saying "we are not responsible for lost of stolen items" How convient someone knew your car had stereo stuff in it. Fukn Dealerships.
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