Alright, so first things first, I do not believe this should be a "you get what you pay for" situation. Kia, at TD Garage in Walnut Creek is very knowledgeable about Subaru's and has been working on them since 1998.

That said, I can begin this story. I took my 2002 Forester in about 5 weeks ago to get the head gaskets replaced and both front wheel bearings replaced. I was quoted $1100 to do all of that, parts/head work included. I assumed this meant head gaskets, cam seals, machining the heads, all that. Kia found a broken ball joint so I went ahead and opted to have him order a Whiteline RCA kit and install it. In addition I gave him a brand new Bosch direct OEM replacement front o2 sensor to install, Whiteline front endlinks, and SS braided brake lines. I also provided oil and a filter. He did the work in about a week and a half (mostly waiting on the RCA kit) and I went to pick it up a day before a road trip to Colorado.

When I picked up the car, it had a very bad idle. It was dropping to near stall RPMs and then rising, dropping, rising, etc. It threw a CEL but Kia had "loaned his scan tool to someone" or something rather. Therefore we couldn't read the code. I took the car on a spin around the block and found that at idle, it wasn't holding rpm's but it was seemingly okay under load. The CEL turned off by the time I made it back to the shop. I went ahead and paid and left (a nick under $1500).

I took the trip to Colorado and back and put about 4k miles on my car in about two weeks. The car did alright overall. It made good power and never stalled, and didn't show nearly as bad of signs of the erratic idle. No CEL either. Once, however, when I returned, I started the car when it was fairly cold (sitting about 3 hours) and it sounded like I had it cammed. Absolutely horrific idle, probably 100 rpms up to 800, everywhere in between. Spitting fluid out of the exhaust (it was chilly), CEL flashing. I shut it down and waited a few more hours before trying it again. It was considerably better, the CEL had gone away (the CEL was for P0303- cyl 3 misfire), but not perfect.

Since then, the idle has been pretty poor when cold, conditions as described, and noticeably lumpy when hot and I'm sitting in the car. I notice the RPMs drop drastically and then catch when I clutch in for a stop.

I did minor diagnostics at my college- the first time it pulled two misfire codes on cylinders 3 and 4, and it had a -23% long term fuel trim. This told me it was running rich and had to pull fuel in order to run within ideal specs. The MAP sensor is reading correctly (checked vacuum with a gauge), and the FPR is also seemingly alright. I cleared the codes and waited about 4 days before checking it again. Meanwhile, the CEL came right back and has been on since. Upon checking my live feed scan gauge again, I had all 4 cylinder misfire codes. The next day I took the car back to TD Garage (Tues the 24).

In addition, the car is leaking oil, and a lot. I put in over 1.5 qts to get it back to the full mark a couple days before returning the car to TD Garage. Car has gone about 5k miles since the work was done.

Today I spent a fair bit of time on the phone with Kia and he is clueless as to what the idle could be caused by. He told me he spent about 1 hr 45 min checking it out so far, and I concluded that he had pulled the passenger side spark plugs and found their gap fairly large (plugs had been replaced about 30k miles ago). I asked him if he did any tests such as compression, fuel pressure, etc, and he said no. He said he can feel the slight lump in the idle when it is warm but it hasn't shown any symptoms other than that, and the CEL has yet to reappear.

In terms of the oil leak, he said it might be some silicon seal on the rockers or something, because it didn't look like the head gaskets or valve cover.

I waited for him to tell me his next angle of attack on the problems, but he basically left it at "I can do more diagnostics but I would have to charge you". This stuck me as extremely odd. I held my tongue, I wanted to say something to the tune of, "don't you stand behind your work" but I decided against it.

I don't know what to do at this point. I told him I would pick the car up next Monday and continue my own diagnostics. I work as a bike mechanic. If, for some reason, our shop does work incorrectly or the customer is not satisfied, we will fix the problem(s) at absolutely no charge to the customer. I'm blown away that Kia isn't treating this as such. I gave the car to him running perfectly with a very minor external head gasket leak (about .5 qts every 5k miles). I got it back with it misfiring on all 4 cylinders and a larger oil leak, and he is asking me to pay him to move forward on it.

Help me please, I chose TD Garage because of the reviews I found on this site, and I don't know where to go at this point. I'll have a very urgent need for my car in about 2 weeks. Until then I have another I can get by with.

 

TD needs to pay for it. The road trip in it probably wasn't a good idea.

Also for those not procrastinating English papers, cliff notes would be a good idea.

 

WRONG! The f*** up should be on their dime. He "loaned" out his code puller and couldn't get the issue labeled when the problem first occurred. This should be on them. Don't pay a dime.

 

I agree with Burn. I could see if you went in for an oil change and that be his response but you didn't. I hope it turns out to be something simple and your drive to Colorado did no harm the motor. Curious about the oil leak and if its tied to the erratic idle.

 

first of all i think, you shouldn't have taken the car on such a long trip, knowing it had a problem.

Should have addressed it when you picked up the car and tested it.
Many service places for subaru headgasket replacement won't machine it unless


A. it was overheating

Even then it should have been checked if it was within spec.

If this was done early for preventive measure.
B. requested it to be done

I believe both of you guys were probably at fault for not clear communication, and the fact he released the car in such condition.

 

Either way even if it wasn't serviced properly, with that bad of an idle why would you take the car all the way to colorado which involves going up miles of grades putting stress on your motor, that's what really struck me. If I were in your position once picked up, if something is wrong you let the mechanic work on it till it is fixed, now that you've driven a couple thousand miles, who knows what else could be wrong not only that you may have made whatever it was worse by driving on it.

Yes, it should've been taken care of at the time by TD but still, negligence on your side too for taking it away.

Sorry this happened to you but talk to him and see what he says.

 

If you brought your car in with a minor oil leak and it was running fine, a good shop/mechanic shouldn't/wont let you leave with your car if its not running correctly esp if its idle is up and down and its throwing CEL's!! They will usually tell you its not done yet or let you know whats going on and that they will let you know once it is fixed/ready. Did the mechanic after he was done and the car was warmed up to operating temp even take it for a test drive? it seems like he should have caught this before you came in to pick up the car..

 

Thanks for the input so far. How do I approach him on this? My plan is to be there in person on Monday because that's the soonest I have time to get out there. I want him to fix it or pay to get it fixed, but I don't know how.

And yes, I did not want to drive it all the way out to Colorado but I didn't have much of a choice. I had a very important Air Force event that would have been really bad to miss and changing all the plans I had set up already would have cost me much more money than I had (with flying short notice and renting a car for 10 days). I made the decision based on the car's seemingly good standing under load.

 

Unfortunately you have to put yourself in a state of mind of only professionalism and leave any friendship/friendliness out of it. State you want it to be made right and for the errors to be fixed.

Any good shop on here has warranties with their work. TD should be no different.

 

If there's an obvious issue that the mechanic does not want to deal with, it's up to the customer to keep telling them there is an issue till a full inspection is done to make sure all the jobs completed were done correctly. Agreeing to take it and pay for it relieve the mechanic of all liability almost.
Well that's a choice you ended up making in the long run there is no going back on that. If that trip did make the difference on the car, maybe taking the plane etc would have been cheaper in the long run and have TD Garage take care of the car in the time. Come on be honest doing a multi state drive on a car that you knew was malfunctioning doesn't sound right. I totally understand it was that or spend extra for flights etc, you're also involved in the forces totally the right choice to not miss it and I thank you for your time serving, but that cannot be used as an excuse that the car still is not running right. Just because it drives fine under load doesn't mean that the car as a whole is running well, it has obvious issues. I bet there are huge issues that are prevalent at idle that aren't at load aka my lower control arms, driving on the freeway nothing but on local roads clank clank clank... Not detrimental ion the long run but motor... on the other hand is something to be cautious about. Talk to him personally via phone or visiting the shop, he will do the right thing esp if he sees things posted on forums where a lot of people look at to see where to take the car to.

Hope things go well and it gets fixed soon.

 

+1 to this just saw it after I posted.