F20C Engine Rebuild by Local Shop - Legality
05-06-2022, 07:10 PM
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F20C Engine Rebuild by Local Shop - Legality
Hi s2ki followers- I had a local shop do a cylinder head rebuild on my F20c. My story is about the legality and odds of winning in court when it comes to automotive repair to my Ap1.
In 2021, the shop diagnosed that my engine had low compression and that it will need a full head rebuild. It was also misfiring and idling poorly. Took the car home for several weeks and did my own compression and found #2 at 120 psi vs others around 200+ psi. With little to no mechanical knowledge in engine rebuild, I agreed with the shop and had the rebuild done.
The following parts were bought OEM Honda and supplied to the shop of the repair:
1) Intake and Exhaust valves
2) Stoppers
3) Valve seats
4) Ap2 valve retainers
5) Springs
6) Water pump
7) Valve guides
8) Intake and exhaust manifold gaskets
9) Head Gasket
The mechanic shop did the repair but outsource to a machine shop to do the surfacing.
2months later (during covid) around June 2021 I got my car back and paid the shop.
I noticed the following symptoms:
1) Smoke out exhaust upon cold startup
2) Coolant leak trail and drips starting from between the head and block
I texted the mechanic shop about the two issues and conveniently his only technician quit. Shop said he will get back to me once he backfill the technician position. 1 month later, reached out again and he said that he has no room. 1 month later he said that he is moving cars out and will let me know. He later puts the blame on the machine shop for not surfacing and storing the head well so that's why my car is leaking coolant. I told the shop that is between him and the machine shop. I asked for a refund and he denied. He said that the machine shop should refund me instead.
I got frustrated and got BAR involved and BAR said to him that the arrangement the mechanical shop and machine shop has nothing to do with me. After getting BAR involved, he agrees with not doing a refund but only warranty work.
At this point, I do not trust this shop whatsoever to do more work on my car. And also, I wanted to take my case to small claims court, but seeing now after a year later that he allow warranty work but no refund, I dont know how my case will turn out in court.
Please weigh in your opinion. Should I take it to court or not?
In 2021, the shop diagnosed that my engine had low compression and that it will need a full head rebuild. It was also misfiring and idling poorly. Took the car home for several weeks and did my own compression and found #2 at 120 psi vs others around 200+ psi. With little to no mechanical knowledge in engine rebuild, I agreed with the shop and had the rebuild done.
The following parts were bought OEM Honda and supplied to the shop of the repair:
1) Intake and Exhaust valves
2) Stoppers
3) Valve seats
4) Ap2 valve retainers
5) Springs
6) Water pump
7) Valve guides
8) Intake and exhaust manifold gaskets
9) Head Gasket
The mechanic shop did the repair but outsource to a machine shop to do the surfacing.
2months later (during covid) around June 2021 I got my car back and paid the shop.
I noticed the following symptoms:
1) Smoke out exhaust upon cold startup
2) Coolant leak trail and drips starting from between the head and block
I texted the mechanic shop about the two issues and conveniently his only technician quit. Shop said he will get back to me once he backfill the technician position. 1 month later, reached out again and he said that he has no room. 1 month later he said that he is moving cars out and will let me know. He later puts the blame on the machine shop for not surfacing and storing the head well so that's why my car is leaking coolant. I told the shop that is between him and the machine shop. I asked for a refund and he denied. He said that the machine shop should refund me instead.
I got frustrated and got BAR involved and BAR said to him that the arrangement the mechanical shop and machine shop has nothing to do with me. After getting BAR involved, he agrees with not doing a refund but only warranty work.
At this point, I do not trust this shop whatsoever to do more work on my car. And also, I wanted to take my case to small claims court, but seeing now after a year later that he allow warranty work but no refund, I dont know how my case will turn out in court.
Please weigh in your opinion. Should I take it to court or not?
05-07-2022, 06:44 AM
#2
My vote, small claims court.
My scc record is 3-0. Once was an auto repair story a lot like yours (but not the S).
Most important thing in scc is receipts/documentation. No receipt, no award.
Go get an estimate for someone eose to do the work, or better yet, get a couple, pick one, have it done.
Bring the estimates to court to show actual receipt is reasonable representation of work required to make it right.
In court, right and wrong don't matter, only legal and illegal matter.
You only need to explain:
- You didn't have anything to do with machine shop, it was mechanic whi contracted that part, you didn't even know about it
- You didn't feel comfortable having shop do the work because of how you were treated.
The whole he said it was between you and machine shop, how he delayed getting you in, tried to brush you off, tried to hope you'd go away, how he may have misled about not having a tech, none of that matters. Don't focus on that.
Only reason to bring any of it up is to explain why you lost confidence in him to do any further work.
So just bring up enough of it to show you had reason and are being reasonable (while not a question of legal, showing you are reasonable helps you).
Also, when explaining it, keep it simple. He did work, it wasn't right, he eventually agreed to fix it, but by then you lost confidence, so had someone else fix it.
Unless he tries to say the problems weren't related to work he or machine shop did should you get into details. Also, try and head this excuse off. Do you have anything that documents or would help show he agreed the issues that occurred after the work were related to the work?
Like anything that shows he blamed it on machine shop? That would show even je agrees it wasn't unrelated issues.
If not, let him first try and blame machine shop in court, shoot that down with doesn't matter as his contractor, not yours, then if he later tries to say unrelated issues, then refer back to him saying issue was machine shop, showing he agreed issues were related to the job.
Imo, better to sue for cost to fix, not refund for work.
He did the work, he got paid for work. There were issues, he should pay to correct. You gave him ample opportunities to do just that on his own, but he denied, delayed, deflected, you gave up on him.
My scc record is 3-0. Once was an auto repair story a lot like yours (but not the S).
Most important thing in scc is receipts/documentation. No receipt, no award.
Go get an estimate for someone eose to do the work, or better yet, get a couple, pick one, have it done.
Bring the estimates to court to show actual receipt is reasonable representation of work required to make it right.
In court, right and wrong don't matter, only legal and illegal matter.
You only need to explain:
- You didn't have anything to do with machine shop, it was mechanic whi contracted that part, you didn't even know about it
- You didn't feel comfortable having shop do the work because of how you were treated.
The whole he said it was between you and machine shop, how he delayed getting you in, tried to brush you off, tried to hope you'd go away, how he may have misled about not having a tech, none of that matters. Don't focus on that.
Only reason to bring any of it up is to explain why you lost confidence in him to do any further work.
So just bring up enough of it to show you had reason and are being reasonable (while not a question of legal, showing you are reasonable helps you).
Also, when explaining it, keep it simple. He did work, it wasn't right, he eventually agreed to fix it, but by then you lost confidence, so had someone else fix it.
Unless he tries to say the problems weren't related to work he or machine shop did should you get into details. Also, try and head this excuse off. Do you have anything that documents or would help show he agreed the issues that occurred after the work were related to the work?
Like anything that shows he blamed it on machine shop? That would show even je agrees it wasn't unrelated issues.
If not, let him first try and blame machine shop in court, shoot that down with doesn't matter as his contractor, not yours, then if he later tries to say unrelated issues, then refer back to him saying issue was machine shop, showing he agreed issues were related to the job.
Imo, better to sue for cost to fix, not refund for work.
He did the work, he got paid for work. There were issues, he should pay to correct. You gave him ample opportunities to do just that on his own, but he denied, delayed, deflected, you gave up on him.
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