Yup. And at only 4 years old and 80,000 the car is not ‘old’ at all. The shop screwed up.
He was lying.
Of my cars, the 86 park avenue, 89 acclaim and 96 civic, and 02 tundra did not have crush washers. Both my newest cars, an 06 CR-V and a 09 Sedona do have crush washers, so it isn’t just honda that has them.
From Joey P
You didn’t read thru the whole thread. I said in my first post that this would be a no-brainer - our shop would make it good (implying “without hassle”), and probably furnish a rental car without charge.
The shop is always responsible (or should be) for whatever parts they install. We sometimes have some serious losses here. Parts suppliers will usually reimburse us for replacement of bad parts, but rarely for the labor that is lost in removing the bad part and then reinstalling a replacement. Where this gets financially nasty is if the part is something like an engine, where the labor cost of all that nonsense can be in the thousands.
The first duty of a good auto repair shop is not (although some Dopers may not believe this) to extract every dime possible from a customer, but to instead send away a happy customer that will return the next time - hopefully, at the same time, making enough profit to stay in business.
Why would you take your car to a shop that does not stock a full 33.3% of the parts necessary to do a proper oil change? (The other 66.6% being the filter and oil).
If I took my car to a shop and they did not change the washer it would be the only two visits I ever made there (my first and last)
“We don’t have parts for you car or we don’t know the proper way to do the simplest service, but come on down.” and you go there.
::: scratches head, and wanders muttering:::
Sure I did.
So tell me, who would you suggest the customer blames?
I guess I don’t understand what you are missing. Of course he blames the shop who sold him the part. It was ever thus, and is just a fact of life. And if the shop is run properly, they won’t try to get out of it. If I intimated in any way that the customer should try to get reimbursement from anyone but the shop it was careless writing on my part for which I apologize.
In my experience, cheap shops use air powered wrenches, and they probably use 3-4X the recomme3nded torque.
Which is why so many oil pan threads get stripped-it happened to my dad once, on his Ford.
You are supposed to turn the plud to hand tight, then 1/8 of a turn. Common sense, really.
I just didn’t know better, and I’d bet it’s the same for 3/4 of people. There are quick-lube places all over and most folks wouldn’t know to query them about whether they replace the oil drain plug washer…you’d think they’d be competent and responsible enough to do it on their own without being told, but no. Dealership service departments, maybe. We learn the hard way sometimes.
We LOVE quick lube places. Get a whole lot of major repair (up to new engine installation) from them. You’d be amzed at the number of minimum wage techs. out there that don’t really understand the concept of replacing an oil drain plug.
Update:
The dealership apparently has oil pans in stock (perhaps indicating this has happened before?) - that’s why they were able to do the replacement reasonably quickly.
My friend has decided to seek reimbursement. First step was to have a lawyer friend draft a stern letter.