Peacefrog53
NAXJA Forum User
- Location
- Lake Forest, CA
Not XJ related, but still Jeep related. Had a question for you guys. My good friend took his 2005 Cherokee (3.7 V6 appx. 130,XXX) over to repair shop for a no-start issue. I told him since the battery was new, and tested good, and that the car just wouldn't do anything except make a little click once, that is was most likely the starter. I hit the key a few times over and over to try and get some voltage built up to get the solenoid to fire, and it did. Turned the truck off then tried again, and it took a few try's, but fired up. I then tried to jump the starter the old fashioned way with a jumper across the terminals, and just got a light click..once. There was no check engine light, and no current codes.
So he took the truck to a shop called "Brake Depot" in Santa Ana. They said he had a CEL on, and that it read a misfire in cyl#6. The tech there said he replaced the spark plug wires, and it was fine. That's funny because with that engine they have coil-on plugs....no distributor or spark plug wires. My friend drove the car home, about 2 miles from the shop, and he said it started running really rough. He didn't even stop at the house, just drove it right back to the shop. The owner then tells him that there is a leak from his water pump, which wasn't there when he took the car to the shop originally, and that there is very low coolant in the truck. My friend left the truck there overnight for the shop to diagnose the problem. The next day he received a phone call from the shop saying that he had a blown head gasket. They quoted him about $1K for the repair, and said it would be ready in a week. The week went by....and another....and finally got another phone call from the shop. "Your cylinder head is cracked, and we are trying to find another one". Once I heard all of this I told him to have the shop put everything back the way it was, and get it out of there.
Mind you he took the car in for a no-start issue, to a brake shop....first bad idea in my opinion. Got soaked for $200 for "spark plug wires" which are non-existent, then gets told it's a bad water pump, then there is no coolant in the car, then a blown head gasket, and now a cracked head that they can't seem to find. The truck ran, and drove, perfectly fine, when it would start. The problem was getting it to start.
After checking with the Bureau of Automotive Repair I discovered his license expired in October of this year. Maybe he just hasn't gotten around to renewing it. The shop is not STAR certified, and it looks like their SMOG license has expired, yet they have a 0.81% re-test pass rate... weird. Most reviews of the shop are about them overcharging unsuspecting customers, and replacing parts that don't fix the problems.
What do you guys think about this? I told him to contact the BAR and ask them, before confronting the shop owner. Most likely the owner is going to try and soak him for the cost of the repairs, which I'm sure will exceed the $1K estimate.
I've been working on cars and trucks for most of my life, and have a few ASE certs, so I'm not THAT dumb when it comes to repairs, and this sounds a little fishy to me. I haven't actually laid eyes on the truck since it was brought to this shop, so this is all just from my friend. However, I have worked on his truck, and he is a co-worker of mine, so I see the truck all the time. I drove the truck two days prior to this whole fiasco, and did a once over for him, as he was going to be taking a long drive, and everything checked out fine, including all of the fluids. No leaks, no crap in the engine bay, no CEL. Just a bad starter that I didn't want to replace due to time.
What do you guys think?
So he took the truck to a shop called "Brake Depot" in Santa Ana. They said he had a CEL on, and that it read a misfire in cyl#6. The tech there said he replaced the spark plug wires, and it was fine. That's funny because with that engine they have coil-on plugs....no distributor or spark plug wires. My friend drove the car home, about 2 miles from the shop, and he said it started running really rough. He didn't even stop at the house, just drove it right back to the shop. The owner then tells him that there is a leak from his water pump, which wasn't there when he took the car to the shop originally, and that there is very low coolant in the truck. My friend left the truck there overnight for the shop to diagnose the problem. The next day he received a phone call from the shop saying that he had a blown head gasket. They quoted him about $1K for the repair, and said it would be ready in a week. The week went by....and another....and finally got another phone call from the shop. "Your cylinder head is cracked, and we are trying to find another one". Once I heard all of this I told him to have the shop put everything back the way it was, and get it out of there.
Mind you he took the car in for a no-start issue, to a brake shop....first bad idea in my opinion. Got soaked for $200 for "spark plug wires" which are non-existent, then gets told it's a bad water pump, then there is no coolant in the car, then a blown head gasket, and now a cracked head that they can't seem to find. The truck ran, and drove, perfectly fine, when it would start. The problem was getting it to start.
After checking with the Bureau of Automotive Repair I discovered his license expired in October of this year. Maybe he just hasn't gotten around to renewing it. The shop is not STAR certified, and it looks like their SMOG license has expired, yet they have a 0.81% re-test pass rate... weird. Most reviews of the shop are about them overcharging unsuspecting customers, and replacing parts that don't fix the problems.
What do you guys think about this? I told him to contact the BAR and ask them, before confronting the shop owner. Most likely the owner is going to try and soak him for the cost of the repairs, which I'm sure will exceed the $1K estimate.
I've been working on cars and trucks for most of my life, and have a few ASE certs, so I'm not THAT dumb when it comes to repairs, and this sounds a little fishy to me. I haven't actually laid eyes on the truck since it was brought to this shop, so this is all just from my friend. However, I have worked on his truck, and he is a co-worker of mine, so I see the truck all the time. I drove the truck two days prior to this whole fiasco, and did a once over for him, as he was going to be taking a long drive, and everything checked out fine, including all of the fluids. No leaks, no crap in the engine bay, no CEL. Just a bad starter that I didn't want to replace due to time.
What do you guys think?