mind if I vent???

[1SlowFormula]

No offense to those dealership mechanics on here but why are the ones I have to deal with so f&^(*&^ stupid? OK, our truck has been having starting troubles for months and it has been getting worse...

The symptoms... really hard starting after the car sat for more than 20 minutes (except for the very first cold start of the day - always started first crank), but if I restarted within a few minutes (like when gassing up) it would start OK, but if it sat for any length of time it had to crank and crank - sometimes I would floor it to start the truck which I thought was strange because it has an electronic throttle body not cable driven.

I did all the troubleshooting myself, and narrowed it down to a possible fuel injector leak. I took the truck into them on Monday telling them everything and they had it all day, and when I called at lunch time to see what the progress was  heard that the mechanic was trying to find a used TB to swap in and see if the new TB (new because it was recently installed for a TSB for my truck for other reason, but never changed the statrting issue I was having) was the problem. I went through everything with them again on the phone and even took off of work early to actually have time with the mechanic. In talking to the mechainic after having it all day he said he tried everything (reflashing the computer, changing the TB, and the only thing left is to check for a possible feal injector leak. Trying not to show my annoyance I looked at my wife who knows that I said it was a leaky fuel injector before taking it in, and when telling the desk pearson when going over everything, and she just shook her head and wondered aloud why they just didn't listen to me in the first place.

Then I get told the dealership doesn't have the tools to check which end of the fuel system is leaking because the mechanic does see the fuel preasure drop from the shcrader valvle after about 15-20 minutes, again something they were told from the beginning. So the mechanic, who goes to school (not sure where or if he is a teacher or student) and will not be in until Thursday (tomorrow) will get the tool he needs from school and bring it in. I told him that the tool wasn't needed and he tried to argue with me that tere was no other way to see if it is leaking back through the pump or throgh the injector without this tool. I again tried to tell them all it wasn't needed and to just check the injectors and they said they have no way of doing that. Then he goes on to tell me once he get the tool and figures out if it is leaky injectors or just draining back through the pump he has no way of knowing what injectors are leaking. WTF??? How is it that these people have a job working on cars??? OK the test and way to know what one was leaking would happen all at once if they just do a test on the injectors as I asked them to do in the first place. hell even if they don't have a test machine to test then indiviually they can test them on the truck, why is it so hard or them to do something if it isn't in a manual some where??? Why can they not think outside the box???

All they (hell, I can even do this) need to do to figure this all out by popping the fuel rail up so that the injectors are clear of the manifold (use something to support the rail assembly, a small wood block or even a wrench), then put rag/paper towel (or anything really) under each injector and prime the pump (turn the key on - NOT START!). If there is a leaky injector at full pressure, that's the problem injector, why is that so hard and where are all these special tools they need??? And why the f*&)(* would they not listen to me??? That is prety damn annoying...


OK, vent over, thanks for reading... 

[BAD-289]

YOU CAN BUILD A RACECAR BUT YOU CAN'T FIX YOUR DAILY DRIVER  ...........

[badfnz]

Sounds to me like the dealership wants to make some $$$$$ by spending a few hours of your cash. But honestly, I feel your pain, I've been down the same road as you countless times.........

[REDGAR]

Ahh, an excuse for me to have a beer:)

I feel for you bud.....cheers

[LarrySantucci]

Fix it your self.  It sounds like you have found some good information and have the knowledge and ability.  Save your money, you could have sent those injectors out to be cleaned, tested and if needed, rebuilt.  Good luck. 

[McCloud Motorsport]

LOL! its not funny, but we went thru the same exact same thing with a B1500 van. Same problem to a Tee! What year is your truck?

[RRCPERF]

it  has a pentastar on it    that says it all 

 

[mj79stang]

how did you know it was an injector and not know it was draining back thru the pump? did you personally have the fuel rail out and put the system under pressure and then see which injector it was? if you did and i missed that, i apologize. i'm gonna go out on a limb here and say this is a warranty repair? the guy is obviously going to a factory training school, since he will bring back the right tool, whatever that is, and well, i see where you are coming from on the most part, but...if it is a warranty repair, the guy is going to do things in a way that isn't always the best way to do them. he needs to verify if it's the injector(s) or pump. even if it isn't a warranty repair, i'm sure as hell not going to pull a fuel rail before checking the pump. it takes a few minutes to tee into the fuel system, usually, some vehicles are a huge pain in the ass, though, and test the pump. if the pump tests okay and i verifiy it's in the rail that's the cause. only then i will pull the rail. i always listen to the customer's input, but i draw the line somewhere. this guy could have definitely been more willing to accept your input that is for sure.

[McCloud Motorsport]

My many experiences with Dodge dealership service mang. and techs weren't good ones at all. Most of the time they listen to nothing you tell them about the problem and just hook it up to a computer. If no codes come up and "Star" can't help them, they just can't duplicate the problem. Especially if its under warranty! 

[mj79stang]

My many experiences with Dodge dealership service mang. and techs weren't good ones at all. Most of the time they listen to nothing you tell them about the problem and just hook it up to a computer. If no codes come up and "Star" can't help them, they just can't duplicate the problem. Especially if its under warranty! 

ha, that sounds oh so true. being a dodge tech, i know what you are saying. but i'm already not getting paid shit to look at the warranty problem, and if nthe above circumstances occur, what should the tech do, just order something that ends up not being bad and then getting charged back for it?sadly the dealership life is retarded and unfair, especially for the customers because of what the techs have to do, which is wrong, not must be done. here's an example of a warranty problem and repair. cars comes in. check engine light on, run diagnostic tests, needs a cam sensor. tech spends 45 minutes diagnosing problem. spends 20 minutes replacing sensor. gets paid 15 minutes, since chrysler only pays r and r time on part that is found defective and the time isn't mitchel flat rate time, it's chrysler's own made up bull shit labor times. so guys spends 65 minutes of time and gets paid 20 minutes. how would that sit with you guys?

[McCloud Motorsport]

I'll tell you two quick problems I had. One being my van. while driving under 20mph it would shift from 1st to 2nd then back to 1st and 2nd and so on. I stressed to the service writer that this only happened in traffic and under 20mph. So what do they do, they put 80miles on it and said there are no codes and can't dupilcate the problem. So i asked the service mang. if they droped the pan? Nope, said they can't put fluid and a filter in it if nothing was wrong. After going round and round, I got in it to leave and didn't even get out of the lot and it did it three times. So I got the service mang and took him for a ride around the lot. Never even got out on the road and what do you know, he said that dosen't feel right! Put it right in the bay and pulled the pan and found a broken pin in the valve body and locked up a check ball. You can't find stuff like that with a scanner! Some times you have to put the computer down and pick up the tools!

The abs would come on in my Dodge truck under 6mph while you were coming to a stop and try to push the pedal back out on you. A very scary thing to happen while towing! Same deal, after 25 miles of road testing, no codes no problem found.  Well after all most hitting two people i took it back for the third time. Well this time when the tech pulled back in from another road test that showed no problems the truck wouldn't stop and drove thru the opened shop door over the rack and dam ner out the back off the shop! So after that they put four new wheel sensors, master cyl, vac. pump, and a abs controler on it with no codes or "Star" saying so. Service mang. still knows me on a first name base and I haven't been there in 5 years. lol It just shouldn't be that hard to get your car fixed should it? Most of times its not the techs fault as they are only going to do what they get payed to do. Its the service mang that needs to Step up to the plate and get the problem resolved! Whatever it takes, more time, or a more skilled tech. 

I knew from your response you were a Dodge tech Mike, and you guys get the short end of the stick sometimes working out of a book for time. Not all the time though. It works both ways! Nobody wants the hard jobs that take time and a lot of skill to trouble shoot cause you can't make money like that. I use to do it right out of high school. But there was to much work one week and can't feed your family the next week for me.

[1SlowFormula]

sorry guys, after my vent fest I took a little siesta, then took yesterday off and didn't go near a computer for fear work would try and get their hooks into me, LOL...


The truck is an 05 the problems started under warantee, and has been in multiple times where they couldn't reproduce it until it got real bad, but is now out of warantee, I'm still fighting that one. But doubt I will get it done under warantee since they said it doesn't match the original complaint, but the reason for taking it in was 2 fold. One, it is the same issue that was there prior to being out of warantee so I hoped they would be kind(er) to me. Two, I didn't have the tools to check the fuel system other then a preasure gage and seeing it drain off, so asked them to check the fuel system.

Mike - I was just trying to be helpful because I did most of the troubleshooting myself and wanted to give them the direction to head, there were no codes, yes I checked before even taking it in when I did my troublshooting. I did nto pull the rail myself, and this is why I said it was POSSIBLY a leaky injector, but add the quick fuel pressure drop to the fact that as soon as it is primed fuelpreassure is back and fine, and add that to the sysmtoms that are exactly the same for any flooded car FI or carb, then it come down to it being flooded, and the only way that cane happen barring a completely screwed up vehicle that should throw a code is a leaky injector. My frustration came from them going all over the wrong end of things, redoing most of what I did, holding my truck up for 3 days prior to them finally comming to the conclusion that it myst be the fuel system that I told them about from the beginning. Then add to that when they finally came to the same thing I did after havin the truck for 3 days, they didn't have the special tools to even test or check it and would not listen to me when I tried to tell them it didn't need any special tool to check for a leaky inctector, I only got arguments that they needed this special tool first to see if it was a leaky injector (bad) or leaking back through the pump/regulator (not as bad, and would not cause the symtoms) and then they may just have to replace them all because there was no way to know which injector may be leaking. I again tried to explain it but it did not seem to get through to them. The funny part to all of this is I talked to them yesterday, they couldn't tell anything with the special tool, an decided to pop the fuel ril up like I tried to tell them about and ass soon as tere was pressure in the system they could visibly see one injector dripping steadily. This tech now has 5+ days invested in it and will only get paid for the R & R 1 injector, and the dealership is chaging me (trying to) 190 for the R & R of the 1 injector. I tired from the begining to make it easy on them and the tech and gave them a way to tell in about 20 minutes what was wrong, but instead they decided to go the hard way and ended up doing it my way in the end. and to add insult to injury the service writer called me and told me that they had to order the part and it would not be in until today, and asked if I wanted to pick up the truck, while I hear grubling on the other side of the phone I said "No, he would have to put the rail back on and all that stuff just to take it off again tomorrow" an dhe responded that the mech was right there and said the same thing. Even the service writer is hard on you guys makin you double your work. could you imagine if you went through all this crap for someone who didn't know what was going on and they asked the customer to pick it up and bring it back the next day,and they said "OK I'll be right over"?

Joe - I could fix it, but didn't want too  (that and I hope it was going to be covered under warantee)

Larry - now that it is out of warantee I will be fxing it myself... 

[Brian C]

Car Dealers Suck!

[mj79stang]

well, it's good both of you guys got your stuff fixed eventually or will eventually i guess. i just wanted to make it somewhat clearer from the lowly dealer tech's side of things. it seems 9 out of 10 people have no idea how dealer shops work, especially warranty issues. most even think the techs make close to the dealer's labor rate per hour if i made $74.95/ hour, i would be giving rhodes some competiton in d/r. hell, nobody in the shop even makes 1/4 of that per hour. so just know that when you bring your stuff to a dealer for WARRANTY repair, in most instances, depending on what the complaint is, the repair is going to be done differently than if it was a customer pay job. i.e. cel on and a code is present that invloves a sensor that is part of the wording of the code, that sensor is going to be replaced and next to no diagnosis is going to be performed. why? because the tech won't get paid for anything other than replacing the sensor if that is what his diagnosing leads him to. pathetic isn't it? i could go on and on and on.

[Darin Stine]

It is sad the way it works.  If I got anywhere near the $109/hour our shop charges, I would be running with the big dogs too.  We get warranty diag time within reason, but most other dealers/manufacturers won't pay for it.  If I am getting paid to diagnose, I do...If not, I won't put nearly as much time into tracing a problem before component replacement....why would I?  I don't work for free.  You'd be surprised how many people bring cars in that are out of warranty and expect them to be diagnosed/checked out for free. I have never gone to a Dr. or Dentist and have them check something out for free.

The entire car business is f'ed up.  Hard to make a living being honest, but I do it...and so do many others.  There are twice as many out there that will cheat you as well.  If there is something I can help you with John, let me know.