Shady Mechanic Advice

[hairfarmer]

Greetings,

88 325iS e30 w/ 160,000k

5 months ago I recently replaced my T-belt, tensioner, cap & rotor, T-stat, drive belts, muffler, cam-shaft seal, crank sensor, spark plugs, AFM, water pump and radiator fluid. The car has been rock solid with plenty of power until four days ago. I really do mean that it was running excellent. Nice idle and power.

But then I took it on a trip to the store recently, parked it, and when I got back to my car with my groceries, I started it up, and noticed that it felt like it was suddenly running on 5 cylinders. So, with the car running, I pulled of each spark plug cap, one at a time to see if I could find a dead cylinder. No luck, all cylinders were firing, even if badly.

At present, the car is idling badly and shakes the car slightly from the vibration. it also stutters/hesitates badly when revving off idle too, but it does not die.

A stomp test (pressing the accelerator pedal 5 times) revealed nothing. The "check light" blinked a 1444 - No Faults

Basically, I just didn't feel like attempting to diagnose it any more myself after trying for a couple of hours. So, I hesitantly took it to an independent shop down the street from me.

I brought a list of all the parts I had recently replaced, (see above) and gave it to the mechanic, then I suggested that he might want to check out the O2 sensor, TPS, cat, and motor mounts. He basically just cut me off mid-sentence, blathering over me telling me that I needed new park plug wires. So, stupidly, I authorized him to do it, even though I expressed doubt to him that new spark plug wires would not fix the problem.

The next day I get a call from the customer service girl that my car was ready. I went to pick it up, and asked him to start it for me. The car still ran like shit! Just as bad as when I brought it to him. He tried to tell me that it was running a little better, but did concede that it still needed work, duh! I asked him why he said it ready to pick up when it obviously wasn't. He said that he couldn't read the future and know exactly what was wrong with my car, and that his close friend had died. I expressed my condolences.

I also asked him if he had performed any of the tests that I had suggested when I dropped the car off. He said he didn't need to do the tests, because none of those things were the problem, as if he had some sort of psychic ability.

Here's the bad part, the shop charged me $460 to install new spark plug wires. I know the wires are expensive, roughly $200, but I need to know if the labor sounds too high or if this is a major rip-off. Even if their labor rate was $100 an hour, it seems to me that I'm still paying double that. I doesn't take two hours to put spark plug wires on a car. It takes about 15 minutes.

Ideally I want them to put my old spark plug wires back on my car and just charge me for the labor. Is this realistic?

Lastly, my final question concerns the fact that now they say my car needs a valve adjustment. Is this another waste of time? Does my car even need a valve adjustment? If I have to get huffy with them, can anybody recommend some good tactics for dealing with shady mechanics? I don't like confrontation, but I'll stand up for myself when I need to. This upcoming, inevitable confrontation has been stressing me out all weekend. And my car still runs like shit.

I haven't picked up my car from the shop yet. Any advice is welcome from the knowledgeable members of this board.

thanks,

Hairfarm

 

[echothreezero]

I sympathise with your situation.

There are two sides to every story, and so although it does sound like you have received bad service, I will not attempt to criticise the mechanic. I hope everyone else does the same - its hardly polite to rubbish someone who doesn't even have the opportunity to defend themselves.

That said, it seems as though you are not receiving the service you expect. Maybe you should consider taking the car elsewhere for a second opinion. Refuse to pay the bill until they are able to explain why it cost so much - maybe they spent ages trying to diagnose the problem, but can't. In which case you may have to chalk it up to bad experience.

You should try to find a mechanic with a long experience of working on these cars as it is my experience that a good bmw mechanic can save you $100's in wasted time even though they sometimes charge a little more per hour.

As far as your problem goes its a case of checking all the possibilities and eliminating them one by one.

I see your list of suggested things to check - the cat on e30's is unlikely to cause the problems you experience. Neither are the motor mounts.

The symptoms you describe could be caused by any number of things:

Poor spark: Check plugs, and the coil. Cables and distributor cap and rotor are new, so shouldn't be the problem, but wouldn't hurt to check cap and rotor incase they have failed prematurely.

No fuel: check pressures - could be a pump or faulty regulator. May be injectors, but unlikely.

Poor timing - I doubt that the cambelt has slipped a tooth at this late stage, and I wouldn't have thought anything else (eg poorly adjusted valves) would happen as suddenly.

Vacuum leak: check all hoses to/from the inlet manifold.

Poor compression: Check for obvious signs of blown head gasket - white wispy smoke out the tail pipe, overheating, water in the oil, oil in the water, white sludge under the oil filler cap. have a compression test done.

Other electronic - faulty AFM (sticking), faulty TPS, etc etc.

An experienced BMW mechanic should have it diagnosed quite quickly.

 

[Doughnut]

This all very good advice to the OP, good work Graham! Also just to add, his close friend dieing - has nothing to do with your car and as such isn't an excuse to drop on a paying customer IMO.

+1 with finding out why labour was so expensive.

 

[hairfarmer]

Problem Solved...$600 in the hole.

Greetings

My unstable idle and engine shuddering problem turned out to be a bad cap and rotor assembly and cracked spark plug wires. My saga has been detailed in my original post starting this thread.

Apparently, the substandard Duralast cap and rotor that I bought from Autozone began to misfire after only 7 months. The mechanic scolded me for not buying Bosch parts. My bad.

The total: $620 for new Bosch spark plug wires, and cap and rotor assembly and labor. My dismay at the bill was only outweighed by my shame They must have been laughing at me as I drove away after paying.

How can weekend mechanics test these kinds of issues if we don't have access to spare parts? How do I save myself from these sick repair bills.

I was going through all my repair bills from 2000 until now, and they total about $9000, not including the original price of my 888 325iS which was $3000. My car has cost me roughly 12k over 8 years. This even included the occasional work I've dome myself, like t-belt, water pump etc.

At what point do I weigh the benefits of owning a cool older e30 vs. frequent repair costs?

Looks like my Fender Strat purchase will have to wait.

Thanks for everyone's suggestions.

 

[PeterPiper]

Greetings

How can weekend mechanics test these kinds of issues if we don't have access to spare parts? How do I save myself from these sick repair bills.

I was going through all my repair bills from 2000 until now, and they total about $9000, not including the original price of my 888 325iS which was $3000. My car has cost me roughly 12k over 8 years. This even included the occasional work I've dome myself, like t-belt, water pump etc.

At what point do I weigh the benefits of owning a cool older e30 vs. frequent repair costs?

Thanks for everyone's suggestions.

I think your question is so important you really ought to consider posting it in a separate thread.

I bought a 1990 325i about four years ago and, although I love the car, my repair bills have so far been about $4000, which is about twice as much as I paid for the car, and that's even with me doing as much of the work myself as I can. (compare that with about $700 in repair bills over three years for a 1988 Honda Civic I owned previously) It's a great car to dive but these days the cost of automobile repair has gone so high that I don't see how anyone can own one unless you can do almost all the work yourself or unless you have a fairly sizable budget set aside for repairs.

 

[echothreezero]

Yes its a well known fact that only the truly wealthy can afford e30's.

 

[Doughnut]

Yes its a well known fact that only the truly wealthy can afford e30's.

here - here.

 

[E30m42cab]

I used to be rich, now I have a bunch of old BMW's that get to have new antenna's and badges, nice winter tires, etc.

I must admit, for what I preach, I don't necesessarily practice. Haven't changed my fuel filter in the 4 years I've owned my cab:O $50 in my pocket!!

 

[echothreezero]

Ha! I bought one yesterday - was fiddling around in the engine bay (yes they do have fuel filters in the engine bay lol) and saw the scummy old one and realised I hadn't changed it for around 30,000kms. (BTW it was $42 for both the e30 one and one for my mr2)

 

[Doughnut]

Ha! I bought one yesterday - was fiddling around in the engine bay (yes they do have fuel filters in the engine bay lol) and saw the scummy old one and realised I hadn't changed it for around 30,000kms. (BTW it was $42 for both the e30 one and one for my mr2)

Dude, I change my fuel filter/s at 50 000km.





Maybe I should change it more often with the m30 in their now...