Should I Pay For This?

[benjaminm13]

Ok, so I recently had my 2000 Lincoln LS in for work at the shop. It needed an alternator (which I told them when I dropped the car off). And they told me they'd take care of it.

So after a week, they told me the car needed a steering rack and that the fluid leaking out of the steering rack was somehow leaking onto the starter, causing it to short (I had sketchy feelings about this suggestion, but I have had a good relationship with the guys in this shop and wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt). They also told me that the car needed a new battery because the one in the car kept dying on them.

I got the call that the car was all set and went to pick it up after paying close to $1000 (steering rack, battery, labor, etc). Suprise! Suprise! Car was dead in the lot. Not a thing happened when I turned the key. The alternator was dead. I had no choice but to leave the car there and I dropped the keys back through the slot in an envelope on which I scribbled "Dead in lot. Needs alternator".

Another week. Another battery (which they covered) and another $400. Finally the car was running. Everything seemed fine.

About a week or so after, I noticed a pooling of fluid under engine on the drivers side. Not a huge puddle, like a system had drained on the ground, but enough to let me know there was a leak somewhere. I checked the fluid and it was green, so instantly I'm thinking "coolant".

Long story short, I did some further investigation and found my newly replaced steering rack to be leaking fluid...




My question for this forum is, should I expect to be charged for the same shop to fix something that they failed to fix initially?

It's been a matter of weeks and I'm pretty sure there is nothing I could've done to cause my steering rack to fail, so they only conclusion I can come to is that they failed to make the repairs correctly the first time.

I know it was kind of a lenthly post, but its be a rather lengthy ordeal.

If anyone knows somebody who wants a 2000 Lincoln LS with 167k miles and a 5-speed manual transmission let me know...

[shorod]

Green power steering fluid? That doesn't seem right. Without seeing the car in person and having an opportunity to check things out first hand, it's hard to say what the real problem is. Years ago I worked for my dad at his shop and it was surprising to me how many times there were more than one issue causing the customer's problem. It's a lose-lose proposition for the shop. If they replaced the alternator at your request and that didn't fix the problem, you'd be upset, even though you told them that was the problem. If they replaced the alternator and the battery, you'd question the need for the battery and think the bill was too high. If they replaced just the battery since it would be pretty obvious it's bad, then the alternator was also found to be bad later, then you'd be upset again. If they sent you on your way with a new alternator and a new battery, then you got home and the next morning you happened to notice a puddle of power steering fluid, you'd accuse them of having damaged a steering line in the process of changing the alternator.

After 167k miles, you need to expect the car to require some maintenance.

If you can in fact prove that the items they replaced did not need to be replaced, at a minimum the shop should offer to only charge you for the cost of parts and not labor. But be careful not to accuse them of something you cannot be sure of, you may burn your bridge with a good shop that you should have been able to trust.

-Rod