Friday evening, HallSon and I go to dinner and come out to find all my coolant has drained onto the parking lot. I have it towed to the place I usually go to have my car fixed–he’s a mechanic who doesn’t usually do “heavy” mechanical stuff, but does things like fixes brakes, etc. He looks at it on Saturday morning and tells me that it’s the heater core and he can’t fix it. So, I find another place who can fix a heater core, and have it towed there. Today, they’re fixing it, and call me–they’ve got the heater core replaced, however, the tensioner broke, and guess what, it’s going to cost an additional $105 for the tensioner, $58.50 for the belt (“It’s in bad shape”) and $42.70 for the labor–just to replace the tensioner. (Replacing the heater core is costing $339.13 for parts and labor, and this includes “recapturing” and “recharging” the coolant stuff from the AC.)
So, to all those mechanical Dopers out there, am I getting bamboozled, or does this seem reasonable?
4 cylendar, and no, it was running fine before the heater core went out. (A little rough, maybe, but I assumed it was because I’ve had it for almost 3 years and never replace the plugs/plug wires, etc.)
If your tensioner was broken, you would have heard squealing from the loose belt, and some ratteling from the broken tensioner. It takes 2 bolts to remove the tensioner. Now, I’m not familiar with the Corsica, but you may need to remove something to get to the tensioner. But I kinda doubt it. The belt tends to be at the front of the engine, the tensioner placed for access while changing the belt.
a few months ago, my alternator went out. I figured this out about two days after it broke when my car wouldn’t take a jump. As I was replacing the alternator (which I did with the help of a wonderful guardian angel who stopped to assist me!), I recalled that two days prior to my car ceasing to run, I’d head a brief low pitched hum from under the hood. I’ve known other people who have had their alternator go out and they all regaled me with stories of the high pitched squeal that occurs when an alternator freezes up and goes kapluey. I didn’t have that.
At this point, I’m at the mercy of the mechanic who has my car now. I’ve had it towed twice now (and AAA wouldn’t tow it the second time–I had a friend who works for a tow company help me out with that one), and my trusted mechanic couldn’t fix it. Yeah, I suppose I could refuse to pay to have the tensioner replaced, however, it’s not like I have someone waiting in the wings to fix it for me, or that my car would run without having the work done.
I also looked up the parts online (price in my area), and knowing there’s a mark up on the part of the mechanic, I figured he probably isn’t burning me for the parts.
Oh, and thanks to replacing the alternator, I now knew exactally where the tensior is located.
Well, it’s fairly common for borderline components to break during maintenance, so it’s possible that the tensioner would have been corroded or otherwise on its way out. And the belt is one of those things that you’d want to replace “while you’re there”. So the only thing I’d question is the labor – given that they’ve already got that part of the engine pretty much disassembled, they could be nice and roll that into the labor costs for the heater core replacement. Especially because, as you noted, you are paying a pretty decent markup on the parts.
Whether or not the refrigerant needed to be recovered is a design issue. Some cars/trucks can have heater cores replaced without that step, but you still have to disassemble a whole lotta stuff before gaining access to the part. I barely managed to replace the heater core in my truck last fall without tearing out the righthand dashboard. My call is the price was reasonable, and they did you a favor by noting a failure before the fact with the tensioner and belt.
Dances with cats brought up something that I didn’t even think of. The AC compressor is one of the componants on your serpentine belt. They had to remove it. In the process of removing the compressor, they broke the tensioner. It’s not something that happened to break at an opportune time. I would suggest you raise a little bit of a stink (not too much, it may have been on it’s way out, they just delivered the fatal blow) and try to get a price adjustment.
I’m still confuzzled how they managed to break the belt tensioner while changing the heater core. The heater core is not belt-driven, so there wouldn’t be a need to take the belt off. The fittings used to evacuate and later re-charge the air conditioning are also not related to the belt or tensioner. As for combining the labor to replace it with the core, that’s a nice idea, but about the only common item between the two that needs to be moved out of the way is the hood.
Despite that, $340 for a heater core is not bad. Cores are one of the most difficult parts of a car to get at, as they’re generally deep inside the dash, behind the glove box or center console, and quite often, the air conditioning system needs to be taken apart, necessitating that evacuation and re-charge.
An old car repair joke is that the first part placed on the assembly line when making a new car is the heater core and blower, and everything else is bolted to it, working outwards.
No-No. Let’s clarify. The compressor should not have to be removed to facilitate heater core replacement. In some vehicles, the evaporator may have to be removed along with the heater core. In those cases, the refrigerant in the AC system is removed using a recovery unit, and is placed in a recovery cylinder. After the repair is done, the system is purged with dry nitrogen, evacuated, and the refrigerant is reinstalled in the system.
When the refrigerant is replaced in the system, pressures are checked for proper evaporator temperature. Depending on the car, the access fittings are near or on the compressor. If I was performing a recharge, it would be hard to miss a tensioner that is ready to fail, as it’s right there where I’d be working.
Well, I have my car–at the tune of $508 and some change–and the AC works (it was recharged) and it’s not overheating and leaking coolant (the heater core was replaced) and I checked under the hood and there are clean, shiney parts (new belt and tensioner).
This is just way too much stress. I hate it when my car doesn’t run (which thankfully isn’t that frequent)–it’s a part of my independence, ya’ know? Yeah, I can ride the bus to work if I have to, however, once I’m here, if I have to do a site visit, or a meeting away for work, I’m screwed. If my kid gets sick during the day at school, I’m screwed. All the millions of times I just pick up my keys and go are put at a halt.
It goes back again on the 22 to have the front end worked on…
As gotpasswords noted the heater core is inside the dash. If the heater core was leaking, I would expect the inside of the car to be swimming in coolant. not the pavement around the car.
I am assuming that the OP got heater core mixed up with the radiator. If the radiator was leaking then the rest of the post does make sense.
On some cars it is necessary to drain the A/C system as the condensor must be removed with the radiator. On some cars it is necessary to remove the fan (auxilary) belt to remove the radiator. I have never worked on a 94 chevy so I cannot comment on what must be removed to replace the radiator.
All in all the prices don’t seem to be too out of line. $339 for a new radiator (recored) and an A/C service seems reasonable.
If in fact it was the heater core was leaking, then $339 is a deal. Heater cores are a PITA to replace.
Not all heater cores are entirely inside the dash. And often, the ones that are are in a case or pan. An inflow and outflow hose enter anywhere from the engine side of the firewall to under the dash. And often, the high side hose will burst due to pressure from a clogged core. So a puddle in the parking lot isn’t a suprise.