Scammed
01-23-2009, 11:40 PM
Our 1995 Chevy Camaro (120,000 miles) failed its smog test last week. This was a running, working automobile, so the smog test failure came as a complete surprise. At the recommendation of the smog check station, we drove the car to a smog repair station for them to fix the problem and get the car to pass the smog test. At the end of the day, the shop owner told us that he was unable to figure out what was going on with the car and that it would cost us a 'lot of money' to diagnose the problem IN DETAIL. Since we do not have a 'lot of money' to spend just on diagnostics, we told him that we would pick up the vehicle later that day and retire it using the State's Vehicle Retirement Program. The owner didn't seem too happy with this decision and asked me TWO TIMES if this decision was final. When I replied in the affirmative, he seemed angry.
When we went to pick up our car that evening, the owner told us that the car wouldn't even start! The car was running just fine when we dropped it off - we had driven it to the repair station! He even admitted that he had driven it around the block earlier that day. He told us to leave it there for another day so that he could 'check it out' and get it running again. The next day, he called to tell us that the car's fuel pump needed to be replaced at a total cost of $800!!
We scammed. This was a perfectly running car and now we have to pay $800 to just get it to start? One of the mechanics at his shop told me that the reason the car was failing the smog test was because of the fan settings and that he would bet money on it! I am not sure, why therefore, that the owner would tell us that they hadn't been able to diagnose the problem? I didn't trust these guys anymore, so had it towed back to our home where it is now sitting idle. I cannot even retire the car anymore because the State only buys vehicles in RUNNING conditions, so we have to pay to get the car running BEFORE we can do anything else.
Can anyone tell me if the shop owner's claim that fuel pumps can and do miraculously get damaged at random is even remotely true? I believe that the owner damaged the transmission on purpose, to force us to buy expensive diagnostics and repairs but would like to verify his claims about random fuel pump failures from the knowledgeable people here.
Please help. Thank you
When we went to pick up our car that evening, the owner told us that the car wouldn't even start! The car was running just fine when we dropped it off - we had driven it to the repair station! He even admitted that he had driven it around the block earlier that day. He told us to leave it there for another day so that he could 'check it out' and get it running again. The next day, he called to tell us that the car's fuel pump needed to be replaced at a total cost of $800!!
We scammed. This was a perfectly running car and now we have to pay $800 to just get it to start? One of the mechanics at his shop told me that the reason the car was failing the smog test was because of the fan settings and that he would bet money on it! I am not sure, why therefore, that the owner would tell us that they hadn't been able to diagnose the problem? I didn't trust these guys anymore, so had it towed back to our home where it is now sitting idle. I cannot even retire the car anymore because the State only buys vehicles in RUNNING conditions, so we have to pay to get the car running BEFORE we can do anything else.
Can anyone tell me if the shop owner's claim that fuel pumps can and do miraculously get damaged at random is even remotely true? I believe that the owner damaged the transmission on purpose, to force us to buy expensive diagnostics and repairs but would like to verify his claims about random fuel pump failures from the knowledgeable people here.
Please help. Thank you