i feel for you but damn, i work at a goodyear in vallejo, the goodyear i work at is privatelt owned therefore none of this bullshit happens, any of us techs **** a car we pay for it end of story. i see most of you have had a bad expirience at a goodyear and all of a sudden every single goodyear is bad? we are not networked together ya know haha. my advice would be to find out if its privately owned or if its a corporate owned, then contact the bar(bureau of automotive repair) even the the shops pay these guys they tend to be on the consumers side.

one last thing to everyone even though a shop may have the same name doesnt mean the people are the same!!!!!!!

 

Well unfortunately for me now ALL goodyears are the same and I will never do business with any of them. An if the one that I delt with and the cusomer service rep were worth anything they would have fixed it no problem and I would be forced to use my insurance wich is fixing everthing no questions asked.

 

No offense but I don't see you as likely to win this one.

You showed up with non-normal equipment that the techs didn't know how to use. You then failed to validate for yourself that they correctly re-installed things. That makes the resulting accident at least partly your fault despite anything you were told about "good to go". This seems to be Goodyear's logic as well.

The only thing to do now is to simmer down and start using the cold logical side of your head. Fighting them further is going to take legal recourse... Proper legal advice is also the first step at knowing whether this is worth fighting. If you're screwed you're screwed and it's better to not throw good money after bad. You need to figure out from someone in the know whether your case has a chance of winning. Then you do the math. Cost to fight vs. percent change of winning times expected return.

Sorry for your loss. It's a sucky situation all around...

 

The more I think about the more I think you need to stop being angry and start being thankful you didn't wreck out on the freeway and wipe out some minivan full of kids next to you. If that'd gone down we'd be having a much more interesting conversation about who was responsible...

PS Just saw your note on insurance covering this. If insurance is paying for everything and no one got hurt, I'd say you got off just about scot free. The cost of your deductible is cheap for a life lesson (IE check your own stuff) that could have been much much worse.

 

^I know thank god you didn't run into a semi full of nukes and blow the whole world up!^

 

^ Didn't expect that but it still got a good laugh out of me...

Laughter: the best medicine when life sucks?

 

Well the problem with checking is if nothing appeared to be wrong and someone tells you your safe to drive down the road, and since this is suppose to be a reputable company that then everything should be fine. Further if you have to check that they completed the job right such as say having your tires changed or your oil changed then you might as well spend the money and buy all the different tools that you would possibly need because at the end of the day your now doing the job you paid them to do in having to check every little thing. Needless to say that will now be my approach moving forward. O and one last note is that I am fortunate that it wasnt a worse accedent considering I was in a construction zone when this took place. Thankfully traffic was light at that moment in time.

 

I am not an attorney nor do I play one on tv, but talking to one really seems the way to go, I am sorry but in my book "good to go is good to go" even if there was a non-stock item on the vehicle if they didn't understand it they should have asked. I mean if we now have to check our wheels are on tight when we buy tires and check our oil drain plugs when we have our oil changed what are we paying these professionals for? And what are they paying insurance for? We had the oil changed in a company vehicle that we recently had an oil change done on .... surprise! the drain plug was not tightened and within a day the engine was blown due to no oil ... their insurance company paid to have the engine replaced good thing was not our responsibility to check the plug or oil level when the vehicle was picked up

What happened to doing the right thing?

 

+1 to you.
Very true I think doing the right thing and showing a little pride in your work has slipped away.

 

Oil drain plugs and tire lugs are well understood items. Now if you're dealing with a dry sumped race motor or some exotic rebuildable filter then yes, I'd expect the owner to validate the work.

I just find it curious that you adamantly refuse to accept ANY personal responsibly while simultaneously lamenting the loss of corporate resposibility and doing the right thing.

 

no dude you are way off on this one. Unless a wrtten understanding of certains expectations and liabilities are done beforehand, It is NEVER the responsibility of the owner to validate the work of a shop.

 

Ok how about this anology, you or a loved one needs to undergo surgury, now is it the patients responsibility to make sure no guaze is left inside or to monitor their vitals during the procedure? No of course not because the Doctors are there they are the "professionals", so when you bring your vehicle in to be serviced by the "professionals" why would you need to secodn guess them?

 

You're assuming that the professionals know more about the work being done than the owner. Do you honestly believe that's true the majority of the time when an enthusiast drops their car off for something basic like an alignment/oil change?

FWIW you guys are getting closer at swaying me on the liability part of the argument (IE always shop's financial responsibility period). However, I'm yet to be convinced on the overall responsibility for the incident being zero fault of the owner. He had an opportunity to double check and didn't. If he had the accident would have been prevented. Furthermore he had been given reason to distrust the work of the place when he had to show them how the hood latches worked in the first place.

Anyone want to take odds on whether Justin double checks or not next time (regardless of whether he has liability at stake or not)?

 

Sadly I beleive there is a high percentage of the time where the enthusiasts knowledge does shadow that of the 'professional" particularly when it comes to our engines.

But with that being said what if it were a wife, we are slammed busy at work or something and ask her to take the car to have an alignment/oil chaange done prior to a trip. Would we expect her to know better the the profesional? Just because the enthusiasts knows more the then average Joe this doesn't not take away the repsonsibility of the bussiness the vehicle was taken to be serviced.

 

I think liability rests with the company. It would have been a different story if "ready to go," was followed by a "please secure your hood."

 

Well if they can perform the job fully and right the first time then they have no business performing that service a all. Its that simple. Theres just a clear lack of pride in the work being performed and no inforcement of quality of work by the management there by preventing such issues.

 

this is why i don't bring my car to chain/corporate shops. Especially if you have a modified vehicle that those techs most likely have never worked on before. I would of brought it to a performance oriented shop that has experience working on modified vehicles for such a car.

Even at the shop I work at when people bring in modified vehicles for work like alignments or working on modified systems, my boss will not want to work on them. I then refer them to a more performance oriented shop where they have more experience working on them. Its a liability thing.

 

gah damn! sorry to hear, hope you can settle with things on your side..

this one one of the reasons i do every single thing on my car myself (my honda), from rebuilding the motor to even painting it.

like others have said in here too, if someone else touches my car because it's something i cant do. i.e. smog/alignment on my BMW/etc.. im on them like a hawk..

good luck man

 

Just an update my insureance is covering the repairs cant remember if I stated that already. I was unable to get another Panspeed hood as they stoped making them but I do have on order a Garage Kagotani hood which looks really close to the Panspeed one and I should have it soon as its coming from Japan.