Good News & Bad News

[Spookymufu]

AAAAACCCCCKKKKKK! My van broke down yesterday!!! I just paid $1800 to fix it!!!!! Overheated, sounds like a piece of metal clanking around inside and now it won't start at all! It's stuck in a parking lot down the street. POS! POS! POS!!!!!! I'm so pissed!!!! I'm about to push the ^$%#@! into the lake!

take it back, they should have a 60-90 day warranty.

[Pumpkin_Man]

Cars can be a frustrating situation at times, especialy when you can't depend on it. Luckily for me, out of all the cars I owned, there were only two that were totaly undependable. That Datsun, and the Galaxy 500. That Datrun, especialy, was a POS that I wanted to drive off a cliff, or give it to some one who I hated. My Toyota ws dependable, except for a couple of repairs that it needed, but the frustrating part was getting parts in a timley manor, and at a reasonable cost. The uninstalled price for a heater cable, and keep in mind that this is back in 84, was over 40 bucks. That's just a little metal cable that is strund from the lever to the valve to open the heater. The wait time for that cable would have been around a month. A month can be a long time whtn temps are dipping below zero and your truck has no heat. I managed to get heat by turning the valve by hand. The uninstalled price for the blower moter was around 96 dollars plus state sales tax, excise tax and a deliver fee, and the wait time was about 5 weeks. This time, we were in the middle of a horrid heat wave, and there was nothing I could do but fork over the mulah and wait.

About 3 years later, my igniter went bad. IT was actualy still under warrenty. The dealer gave me all kinds of 'hard-luck' stories, about how they didn't have any in stock, and their wearhosue didn't have any in stock, and I would have to wait 8 to 10 weeks for the replacement to come. So, I want to a Napa auto parts store, ordered the igniter, paid close to 75 bukcs, waited two weeks, and they send me the wrong igniter. So they had to trace everything back, I waited, and waited, and waited. Meanwhile I had to borrow a car, an old Chevete from my older brother who was planning to sell it, and finaly, about 3 MONTHS later, they sent me the right igniter. It took me 10 minutes to do the instalation myself.

Two days after I replaced the igniter, I traded the Toyota for the Chevy Cheyenne pick-up.

Mike

[MacPhantom]

sounds like a piece of metal clanking around inside and now it won't start at all!

Maybe your mechanic left a wrench in the engine.

[Pumpkin_Man]

If there was a wrench actualy inside the egine or crank case, it would get inbetween the pistons and the engine would ceas up totaly. It would just clank. If that's the case, that mechanic would be liable for replacing the whole engine, and for any other subsequent damage that it causes.

Mike

[MacPhantom]

Maybe it was in the cam tank, or maybe they left the wrench in the hydrogenator.

Or it could be a problem with your caspratometer. Did you check your mobrenalter?

[Spookymufu]

the jackman screws might be loose...

[ilovemichaelmyers]

It's sitting in my driveway. I don't even know what to do with it. I just want to be calm first before I talk to them. I really don't want to hear any bad news and I have a feeling that they will tell me it needs a new engine. I'm going to hope for the best and see how it goes.

[Pumpkin_Man]

You mentiontions a clanking noise. What it sounds like, is that a blade from your fan might be comming loose. Is your car a front wheel drive or a rear wheel drive. In the case of a rear wheel drive, the enngine is mounted facing towards the radiator, and the fan is mounted on the crank shaft. That was the most comon way cars were built back in 'the day. ' Very often, the fan would come loose, or one of the blades would come loose and start clanking against the radiator. IF THAT'S THE CASE, you are very right not to drive the car, because the fan could cut right through the radiator, and then your engine would over heat because the coolant would leak out.

In the case of a Front Wheel Drive, the engine is transversaly mounted (mounted sideways like a motorcycle engine,) and the fan is powered by an electric motor. The same problem can occur with the blade, all though it's not as imediate a danger because that little electic motor does not have nearly the torque as the engine does. What could happen, though, is that the fan can hang up on something, and lock up the motor, causing the fan motor to burn up, and then you don't have adiquate air circulation and the engine will run hotter then it should. Most electric fans won't cut in until the coolant gets up to a certain temp. My bike has the same thing, as does my Aveo. The electric fan will cut in if the engine is running hotter then is optimum driving rang temp.

In either case, the car should be towed to a reputable mechanic and checked out.

Mike

[adrian]

you should open up a garage

[ilovemichaelmyers]

ok I really don't know much about cars and how they work. it had blown head gaskets on the top of the engine I guess and cracked manifold from overheating. The mechanic had it towed to their shop where they supposedly "fixed" it, they told me that they put different heads on it from a Chevy Lumina, it's a Chevy Venture, they said they had to shave down the rockers to make it work. So it worked fine for about two weeks and came home with it overheating again and making a LOUD clanking sound and now it won't start at all. I want them to come and get it but he won't call them, it has a warranty but he says that they will keep it, I don't know why they would do that but ok. It's just going to sit in the driveway until he gets his head out of his a$$ and handles it or else I'm just going to make that decision. He said that one of his friends took out some kind of gasket and threw it in a tree! WTF? now we have to buy a new one and install before they find out it was taken out and that will void the warranty. I'm very irritated by this but I'm staying calm about it because really I don't care about it right now. I will just ride it out and see what happens.

[Spookymufu]

I assume "he" is your hubby?

If you wait too long you might run out of warranty, those places usually only give 60-90 days.

What gasket did his friend throw in the tree?? It couldnt have been a head gasket, they are under, well, the heads and those are under the rocker manifolds....unless he tore the heads apart...

[adrian]

see... i read these posts and am just blown away by all the car lingo lol i know nothing

[Pumpkin_Man]

Adrian, my fad taught me a lot about cars through out my childhood, and there are a few grunt-level things that I can do, but my problem is getting my hands to dow hat my head knows they are supposed to. My father had a simple philosophy for all hos sons when it comes to driving, and that is that we know enough not to destroy a car by driving it with a leak in the radiator hose, or on a flat tire. He expected us not only to be able to drive properly, but he also expected us to know what each "idiot" light on the dash board meant, and what to do when it comes on. So if I wanted to borrow the family Mercury to take my gf to the prom or to the movies, I better be able to pass HIS driving test.

Ilovemichaelmyers, I wish I had an easy answer for you, but it sounds to me like they didn't reattach the cylender head properly, or that while they replace the cylender head and gead gasket, they didn't fix what was wrong with the coolign system, which was causing the engine to over heat to begin with. If the gasket is blown, or if the head is loose, you won't get any compression, so the engine won't fire. That's all I can tell you without actualy seeing it.

Again, after you have had a chance to compose your self and get by your initial frustration, you should probably take the car to a well know, reputable mechanic or even to a deler, and find out what the car needs. It might even be advisable at this point to consider a newer or lower milage car to replace it with, because it sounds like you may have to replace the entire engine. If that's the case, then it would be cheaper to just replace the car, depending on how much a working car of the model year you have is worth.

The way you can make that determination is to go to cars.com. Use the trade-in calculator. Put in the make, model, year and all other pertinant information, and you will get an accurate calculation of the "Kelly Blue-Book" value of the car, or a figure close to what a dealer will give you on a trade in, BASED ON the condition of a working car. If the car is worth a lot in working condition, then it's worth replacing the engine. If the trade-in value of the car is only about 1900 or 2000 dollars, and it coses 3500 or more to replace the engine, then it's not worth it. Keep in mind, that you won't get anything on the trade-in for a car that is not in running order, but if you have the money to replace the engine, you could probably find a better car that is in working order, and then you can junk the old one.

Good luck.

Mike

[ilovemichaelmyers]

I assume "he" is your hubby?

If you wait too long you might run out of warranty, those places usually only give 60-90 days.

What gasket did his friend throw in the tree?? It couldnt have been a head gasket, they are under, well, the heads and those are under the rocker manifolds....unless he tore the heads apart...

Um no valve cover gasket is what it was. Insignificant other I meant to say.

[Midnite Shadow]

I assume "he" is your hubby?

If you wait too long you might run out of warranty, those places usually only give 60-90 days.

What gasket did his friend throw in the tree?? It couldnt have been a head gasket, they are under, well, the heads and those are under the rocker manifolds....unless he tore the heads apart...

Um no valve cover gasket is what it was. Insignificant other I meant to say.