problem with repair shop

[TOHATSU GURU]

Re: problem with repair shop

Guys you are asking for the impossible. There is no such thing as a 100% diagnosis and a 100% guaranteed "that's the problem" repair. A tech can only fix what they see wrong at any given time. Using the "brake job" is a perfect example of what the "outboard job" is not and illustrates why you can't equate one with the other. You take your car in for a brake job....Any other problem will probably not relate to that. But imagine if you had a car towed into a dealer, the car was years old, hadn't been running anywhere from a week to ten years and you tell them "it runs a little rough". Let's say the first thing they have to do is replace the battery just to get it to turn over. Assume there isn't anything wrong with the ignition...Yet. They call you up and tell you the carb or injectors are the "problem" and that s going to be $300.00 for that. You will of course ask "will that fix the problem?" There answer will of course be "yep, that will fix that problem". If they can get it to start at all the CD will probably fold up when takes a steady load. Another $467.00. Then it really does start and run. But when you put it in gear. Bam!. Transmission job. It's a cheap US car so that's only $1300.00. You come into pick it up and pay your 2 G's and one of your tires blows out on the way home.

The problem is not that the shop is doing anything wrong, unless they are crooks are stupid. The problem is that what a consumer see's as a simple two step process, diagnosis and repair, is really a multi-step process of diagnosis and repair and diagnosis and repair and diagnosis and repair.

And you can sue your doctor for taking off the wrong leg...But you won't win if he takes off both legs because they were both bad!

 

[imported_boatrookie]

Re: problem with repair shop

Tohatsu, do you own a repair shop cause the same BULL your trying to feed me is the same bull the the repair guy tried giving me. when i took it there he said he would check everything before he took the carbs apart. now that means the electronics too that also means a compression check and what ever else needs to be checked to make sure that it is the carbs that are causing this. I paid for this trouble shooting and i expect to get what i paid for. now if i took it in there and said Tohatsu on the IBOATS.COM forum said it was the carbs so just check those and fix them, then that would be different. I told him what was wrong and i do not know how to fix it this is why i am taking it to a pro because they know how to check everything not just keep changing things until it runs like a new motor. now if he would of told me that after they did all the trouble shooting and came up with test results that they need to rebuild the carbs cause there junk and also we tested the stator, switch box, and the trigger assembly also cause we had poor reading on them and they might cause problems after we install the rebuilt carbs and it's all gonna run you $1,500 bucks, then i would of said thanks for trouble shooting and finding out all those problems but i can't afford that right now and i am not sure if i want to put that much money in this engine, and paid him for his trouble shooting cost. now that is how a repair shop should operate, at least in my eyes, and they will have repeat customers till the day they decide to close up shop.

 

[rodbolt]

Re: problem with repair shop

on a 4cyl merc? I will bet any amount of money you wish that I can diagnoese multiple issues at the same time.
I stayed at a holiday express

 

[imported_boatrookie]

Re: problem with repair shop

I STAYED AT A HOLIDAY INN that's a good one RODBOLT. i think i will suggest that to the mechanic the next time i talk to him8)

 

[JUSTINTIME]

Re: problem with repair shop

post a copy of your bill, i would like to see what they wrote up

did u get an estimate first

they can not replace any parts unless u say ok

 

[cobra 3.0]

Re: problem with repair shop

There isn't anything unusual about this type of repair work. In the automotive business this has been going on since cars have been made.

Back in the eighties a buddy of mine went through every sensor on his car engine and the car still intermittantly died and refused to run. The diagnostic equipement identified one part, then the next and so on. $3000.00 later it still wasn't running right, still with intermittant failure. He still had to pay because the mechanic was working in good faith and the computer told him the parts were defective even though he had gone in trying to fix one specific issue.

If they say your carbs needed rebuilding, they probably did need it. It's just that it didn't solve the main problem...yet.

I'd wait until the very end, when they may get the engine going (or may not) before negociating anything.

I hope you didn't pay the $515 yet? If you have paid, turn the page. You won't get a red cent with your complaints/negociations.


Only pay at the very end when the engine is actually working correctly. This way you can just leave the darn thing with them and walk away if it doesn't ...or negociate a reasonable cost to take the engine if it does end up running correctly.

 

[alden135]

Re: problem with repair shop

on a 4cyl merc? I will bet any amount of money you wish that I can diagnoese multiple issues at the same time.

That's the difference between a professional marine tech and a parts changer.

Too few Rodbolts out there.

 

[rodbolt]

Re: problem with repair shop

sensor failure is acually quite rare. most the time the engine ECU is just stupid. just because the puter says its bad only means I get to test it to acually verify its bad. only after manual verification will I replace a sensor.
when I get a boat with spotty or no history first thing I do is a visual observation, a sniff test for nasty gas, then on to a spark and compression then tell the customer an estimate.
on some engines just changing the fuel filters will set ya back over 300 dollars.

 

[TOHATSU GURU]

Re: problem with repair shop

Reality always hurts when you are on the receiving end. There are never any guarantees that a repair to a single item will fix an engine. It's absurd to expect it. Wish for it? Sure! But, even though testing and experience can and will often work in your favor it can just as easily work against you. The most likely thing is/was/will be carburetors. If that didn't fix it, as it obviously didn't, then they look for the next most likely thing. The more you know about engine systems the more you realize that there are often unforeseen problems that will crop up. Whether or not the shop you took it to failed in some way to test those parts that it could...I have no way of knowing. Testing for fire should have been done as part of the diagnostic procedure. If they did and it appeared okay...Then what else could they do? I've seen a lot of engines that had fire one minute and lost it the next. That's how things happen!. It works and then it doesn't. It might work at an idle and fail under a load, or after a electronic part heats up it could fail. Sometimes the failure is intermittent.

Now...Onto the bull. I don't suppose it might have occured to you that the reason the bull I'm feeding you sounds like the repair shop is because it's the TRUTH. You don't want to hear it. Fine with me, but was was the point of your first post? I thought you wanted input about your situation. If I had known you just wanted people to tell you that you were being treated unfairly I would have let you wallow in your self pity and anger. As you pointed out, you aren't an expert. Some of us are. And this expert is telling you that you have no made no case that the shop has done anything incorrectly at all.

 

[imported_boatrookie]

Re: problem with repair shop

you know tohatsu your the only one that strongly feels they did no wrong hear. i think i will reed what you have to say cause your right i do want everybody's input and so far you and maybe one other guy feel i should shut up and pay the bill and everybody else is saying stick to your guns and don't get taken.
I have nothing against you, I well come your opinion but if the shoe was on your foot i bet you would be singing a different tune.

 

[Walker]

Re: problem with repair shop

What's absurd is a $550 bill for rebuilding the carbs.
For that kind of money there should be some assurance that the problem will go away.
If it happened to me I'd be on the phone to the shop owner and if necessary my attorney.

 

[Mike722]

Re: problem with repair shop

It seems to me, that everyone here is in agreement that a good repair shop should do a visual inspection; check fuel, spark, and compression before replacing any parts on an engine that does not run right.

If that is the case, would the switch box problem show up with a simple spark test? If so and they did not do one, the shop is at fault for not doing the standard testing before replacing. I assume it would but I am not an expert on outboards.

If they did do a spark test and it was good before the carb rebuild, then it is just one of those things that happens sometimes.

We repair small engines (lawn and Garden) and if we were presented with a mechanic who did not follow standard testing first, we would eat that repair or in this case where the carbs probably needed cleaned/rebuilt any way we would suggest that we take care of the labor and the customer pays for the parts.

 

[rodbolt]

Re: problem with repair shop

not all techs have actually stayed at a holiday inn.
I have worked at more dealerships, both auto and marine, than most posters here have actually been in.
I have owned my shop since the early 90's and since the late 90's I speacilized in contract labor to various outboard dealerships.
I am fair to good at what I do.
or at least thats what they say.
kinda like Will Sonnet.
you really have not posted enough information about how the issue started for me to holler other than I have worked with to many incompetent techs to disagree 100%.
I work with some that treat each engine issue like the last and wont run basic tests.
in my unique position if I tell the dealer what the diagnosis is and what it takes to repair it I am either right or I just bought some expensive parts.
I dont own any .
the better dealerships do the basics first and always.
I dont care if compression and spark were perfect at 8 AM if it comes back at 3 PM I will most likly check it again.
if the issue is recreatable I can normally 99% of the time nail it in under an hour.
but to do so means you have to know each engine subsystem and how it interacts with the next.
thats the easy part.
I faught an 87 225 jonny a few years back for about 5 hours before I could make it fail.
went on several rides with the customer with no failures.
the last ride was a 3 hour tour but it finally failed, port power pack was heading south.
but on cases like that I dont charge the full time.
sometimes ya gotta eat some time to nail the issue.
recently I nailed a HPDI 250 issue that had been to 2 other dealers and had only 50 hours on it. one dealer replaced an injector driver and created issues.
problem was a pulser coil over voltage, however that wont show up on the laptop.
showed up on me multimeter though.
but it would not be the first time a customer brought me a motor that supposedly ran well last week that was full of mice nests or snake sheds.
but when I do my diagnostics its all written in plain english and poor handwriting on the work order.

 

[Scaaty]

Re: problem with repair shop

What's absurd is a $550 bill for rebuilding the carbs.[/i

Just about everything

 

[GlasV162]

Re: problem with repair shop

Boatrookie, I feel your pain. I'm in the process of trying to get back nearly $500.00 that I was charged due to unethical sales practice by a service manager. I've filed a complaint with the BBB, to which there was no response, and am now forwarding the matter to my state's Attorney General's office. Keep your cool when dealing with this shop, even if you feel you've been taken. Then, very quietly, walk away and file a complaint with the BBB. The shop does not have to respond to your complaint. However, if they don't respond, the shop will end up with an UNSATISFACTORY RECORD with the BBB. I'm convinced that owning an outboard repair shop is a license to steal and abuse. However, you and I signed up for the trip, if you know what I mean. Regardless, a business should operate fairly and ethically, and if you feel you weren't treated fairly, don't hesitate to file a complaint.

 

[TOHATSU GURU]

Re: problem with repair shop

The key here is boatrookie's statement " I don't even know if it needed it to begin with". Unless there is a certainty that the carbs were in perfect condition, then there is no reason to presume the shop did anything other than to fix a problem that they found that oftens causes the sympton that he was having. They should have done a basic spark check...Why assume they didn't? It's very disturbing to see how many people want a perfect result in such an inperfect circumstance. There are way to many variables to be ever be 100% sure that A is the single cause of B.

So, did the shop do anything wrong? There is no way of ever knowing unless they admit that they didn't test for spark before the carb repair. Is boatrookie worked up over nothing? No, $515.00 is a lot of money to lay out when you remain with the same symptom. However, the automatic presumtion that the shop did anything wrong is riduculous.

 

[imported_boatrookie]

Re: problem with repair shop

well today we had a meeting with the repair shop and with your guy's advise and info and from what we had in paper work, the problem was solved real easy and we came out the winners.
thanks again for all the info and help.
chock one up for the consumer

 

[JUSTINTIME]

Re: problem with repair shop

see, that easy

 

[JasonJ]

Re: problem with repair shop

Tohatsu, what did the shop do wrong? It sounds to me like they tried to play slick, and got caught. I'm sorry, but it is not okay for a shop to keep fumbling through a repair process and charging the customer. It is on the shop to have techs who are knowledgeable enough to diagnos and repair in a timely manner with a reasonable cost for the service provided. Sometimes a headscratcher comes up, but we all know shops charge a significant amount of money for easy services. They can afford to absorb a headscratcher on occasion, especially if they want to stay in business. Word of mouth is a killer.

A good example is my wifes Jeep Grand Cherokee. One day the thing just died on the road and would not start again. I towed it to the dealership after I spent a day troubleshooting my brains out. They spent hours eliminating every possible problem on that thing. The ECM kept showing faults on everything else. In the end it turned out to be the ECM itself that was bad. They took an ECM from another Jeep and installed it just to see if the ECM itself was an issue. They charged us the cost of the ECM and one hours labor, despite the fact that they spent countless hours testing everything. They did this because it is fair and the right thing to do.

They could have easily just replaced everything and charged us out the wazoo, but that is predatory business practice, and shops that do that are unethical and should be closed down.

Glad it worked out for you Boatrookie, some people forget that in customer service, the customer does have rights, and if a customer service provider wants to stay in business, they have to remember that the customer is always right....

 

[roscoe]

Re: problem with repair shop

OK, now that the repair shop made good on the repair/bill for you, make sure that you go back to him next time you need service, and mention you are coming back because he treated you right this time.