Am I getting screwed by car repair again?

Factual Questions
1

Because I hate how helpless having my car in the shop makes me feel. I can argue the crap out of the cable company or the phone company or the warranty of whatever and whoever, because I know enough about it to know when I’m getting an ass fucking. The car stuff, though - I know a little, but the whole system makes me feel stupid and ignorant and I just say “yes, whatever you say.”

I’ve never had a problem with coolant in this car, ever. It’s a 2004 Pontiac Grand Prix. Three days ago, at the drive through window (not an inordinately long wait) I get this message on the console to “turn off AC to protect engine”. Eeks! But I got the message just as I was driving away and that fixed it. (I noticed when I looked that the temp gauge was high then, but immediately came down when the car started moving.) Yesterday, at a long, long light, the same thing happened, except that after that I also got a “holy crap we are too hot!” message. I stopped waiting and took the right turn instead, and immediately the movement of the car brought the temp back to normal. This morning I checked all my fluids, and the coolant was gone. Bone dry.

Now, like I said, never had an issue with coolant before, ever. A month ago, it was in the shop for its oil change and stuff, so obviously it wasn’t a problem then.

This morning I think, well, maybe it’s a leak, let’s just try putting more coolant in. So I was on my way to get coolant for it, watching the temp, when I get a “Brake Fluid Low” warning. Holy shit, the car has all of a sudden decided to fall the fuck apart! So instead of going to buy coolant, I took it to the shop. (Dealer.) I’m thinking, I dunno, maybe something is chewing cables and hoses?

They called me just now and told me that the coolant was insanely contaminated and that they’ll need to do their super duper crazy coolant flush, to the tune of $200something, before they can even check for leaks. Also, I need new brakes, front and rear, unrelatedly.

So I asked them, hey, with this coolant thing, shouldn’t you have noticed that in July? And the guy says that when they do regular service like they did then they just top it off.

So my question is, I guess, should they have noticed it then? Or is it impossible to say without knowing if there are any leaks? I haven’t noticed any puddles, and I believe I would have if they were significant and did not evaporate quickly. (Okay, so I don’t check my fluids like I should. That’s why I didn’t want to tell my dad something was wrong with my car. I know sometime today my phone will start ringing insistently and I’ll get a lecture about checking my fluids twice daily, three times on Sunday. Sorry, Dad.) But shit, the coolant was gone. Vanished entirely. Also, is the price for the flush reasonable? It seems crazy high, but, you know how it is - they have my car, they asked if they should do it, they can’t fix it without, so of course I said yes. I hate feeling like a powerless consumer. :frowning:

2

My first advice to you is never ever take your car to a dealer, unless there is a warranty or something covering the work (and even then only let them do the stuff that you don’t have to pay for - they’ll try to talk you into more). Dealers, in my experience, treat you simply as an income opportunity. They have a set dollar figure in their head, and anyone who walks through the door, they are going to try and talk you up to that dollar amount. The best mechanic is the guy who builds up a reputation by fixing cars right and not just trying to squeeze as much money as possible out of every customer. The problem is, those good mechanics don’t advertise, so they are harder to find. They get their customers by word of mouth from other customers. Check around with all of your friends, and see if they have found such a guy.

I would say chances are if they fully inspected the coolant lines and everything in July that they wouldn’t have noticed a problem. It’s also odd that you have coolant and brake problems at the same time. That’s kinda like burning out your kitchen light and having your phone break at the same time. They are completely unrelated. One thing that could have happened is that something got kicked up from the road and managed to punch a hole in a coolant line and also punched a hole in one of your break lines as well.

The price for the flush is high. They’ll probably over-charge you for the brakes too. I’m sure there are reputable dealers out there who don’t gouge their customers, but I have yet to find one. My personal experience with dealers has been very poor.

ETA: And what was the coolant “insanely contaminated” with? Maybe it’s got some typical coolant crud in it. but you shouldn’t have to flush anything to find a leak. If it’s got something else in it besides coolant crud (like oil!) it could indicate that you’ve got a problem elsewhere, like a bad head gasket.

3

I do know a good mechanic, actually. But I was way over on the other side of town from him, plus my ride, and I guess I was thinking some of it might be warranty? I don’t know, I turn into a total sucker the minute I get within a hundred yards of car repair. It’s embarrassing.

4

A visually-indistinct crack in the radiator can drain the coolant really quickly. From what you’ve posted, I have great doubts that the coolant’s been slowly dripping away for the past two months – everything probably went down in the day or two before the drive-thru incident you mentioned.

5

If you’re looking for a good car repairman database, I’d recommend checking out the Car Talk: Mechanic Files.

6

You could have a cracked head or bad head gasket, which could result in coolant being burned by the engine and/or the coolant becoming contaminated with engine oil. No puddles would be found anywhere on the ground.

Your story seems a bit disconnected. You said the coolant was bone dry, yet the dealer said the coolant was contaminated.

7

The coolant reservoir had less than, say, a centimeter of fluid in it. I assume he was talking about the gunk that was left in the rest of the coolant system, but I dunno.

8

Another vote for head gasket assuming you didn’t see a puddle anywhere. A pinhole leak can allow coolant to enter the cylinders where it gets burned off. In tiny amounts you wouldn’t even notice a performance change. head gasket is very cheap, and VERY expensive to install.

9

Oh, crap.

10

Also, a small hairline crack near the top of the radiator can drain your coolant quite fast as well without any puddles. Also, it’s rather hard to find. When it happened to me, I told the guy exactly where the crack was, he pressure tested it twice and said “no leak” it wasn’t until I came a third time when he took the radiator off, put it under water and then pressure tested it did he finally believe me.
I don’t blame him, the crack was REALLY small and didn’t always leak. I could drive around for days with no problem and then one day get out of the car and hear the hissing.

11

Would any of this make the car shuddery? I completely forgot about it, but yesterday when I started my car up after work it was kind of, you know, shuddery in the parking lot, in reverse and drive, until I left the parking lot and picked up speed, and then it was fine.

12

Shuddery? As in the engine feels like it’s idling rough? Does it only do it when it’s moving?

Ram it into a pole and collect the insurance money from the total loss claim.

I’m kidding. Don’t do that.

13

It only did it the one time. Yeah, I guess you’d say “idling rough” - almost… like it was slipping? It’s the sort of thing that made me look down to make sure it was in drive. And it only did it until, I’d guess, I went up a gear (it’s automatic) when I turned out of the parking lot. And then it was fine and it never happened again.

The car is paid for. PLEASE don’t let’s make this too expensive - I mean, I’ve been jonesing for a car with an input for my iPhone for ages, but this isn’t how I wanted to go about it.

ETA - By the way, if it IS the head gasket… how expensive is expensive?

14

Shuddery, coolant loss & coolant contamination plus the overheating points in the direction of a blown head gasket :frowning:

15

You people never heard of a gentle lie? I wish to hell they’d call me back and just let me know.

16

Um…we are being gentle.

Brutal is, “Well you bought a Pontiac, what’d you expect?”

:smiley:

17

It’s my second Pontiac and I’ve been nothing but happy with them. (Until today, I suppose.) I’d buy another one, except the fuckers went out of business.

The thing is, I’m looking idly at Consumer Reports’ auto issue, and I am not allowed to buy a foreign car. Seriously, it would shuffle my father into his grave. I’ve been hiding my tattoo from him for close to ten years now and I assure you, I would rather tell him I polluted my body with ink than buy a foreign car. So why don’t the nice people at the Consumers’ Union publish a Guide for the Jingoistic that tells me what I should buy among what I’m allowed to buy?

18

A leaking head gasket can cause your car to be “shuddery”. The head gasket is the seal between the engine block and the cylinder head. If it leaks, coolant and oil can get into the cylinders, and oil can get into the coolant and coolant can get into the oil. If you check the oil and it looks like there’s something that isn’t oil mixed in with it, then this is likely your problem. Likewise, if there’s oil in your radiator, this is your problem.

Here’s a diagram that shows where the head gasket is:
http://www.al-jazirah.com.sa/cars/topics/head_gasket.gif

If your car is blowing black smoke out the tailpipe, that’s oil. If it’s blowing white smoke, that’s coolant. Did you get a big puff of white smoke when the car started up? The car will run rough (shuddery) until you burn the coolant out of the cylinders, which won’t take long.

As was previously mentioned, the gasket itself is fairly cheap. Unfortunately, to put it in, you have to take the cylinder head off of the engine. That means everything on top of the engine has to come off. If you are working on a 1960’s era V8, this isn’t such a bad thing, but on a modern car, there’s about a bizillion hoses and wires and gadgets that have to get moved out of the way. This is why replacing it isn’t cheap.

There’s also the issue of why it is leaking. Head gaskets do just fail on occasion, but sometimes they start leaking because of some more serious problem, like the head itself warped. Replacing the cylinder head is a much bigger deal.

Let’s hope it is something simpler (and cheaper) than a head gasket leak.

19

If it’s just the gasket, then I found an online price estimator that put it at between $1200 and $1600 (most of that is labor), which seems about right to me. If you’ve got something like a warped head then it’s going to be a lot more.

20

I didn’t notice any smoke at all, but I could very well have missed it.