I dropped my car off on Saturday because the battery wasn’t holding a charge. They called Saturday evening to say I needed a new battery. Easy enough fix. I was on my way to pick the car up, when they called to say they put the new battery in, but now the car wasn’t starting…even though the alternator and new battery were testing fine. They thought it may be something in the fuel syestem. They requested thier technician look at it Monday morning. Got a call Monday saying my car was suddenly starting and everything seems fine. Paid over the phone and picked up my car at 9:30pm after work. All of a sudden my power steering isn’t working…I can barely get back in the space. I leave my car there with a note.
I drove my car to the car shop. All of a sudden my power steering isn’t working when my car was on thier care. Could this be a shop mistake? I have been recording all conversations with them, just in case.
What is the model year of your Taurus?
How many miles are on the odometer?
Does it have hydraulic power steering, or is it equipped with electronic power steering?
I don’t see how they could test the alternator without being able to start the engine.
When it wouldn’t start, did they mean it would crank ok, but not catch and run? Or did it not even crank?
There’s lots of possibilities, but my guess is the problem is they replaced the battery and afterward the engine wouldn’t crank. The rea son is wouldn’t crank is b/c you have a faulty starter motor. But faulty starter motor can be intermittent, change w/temperature, or maybe they just banged on it. So they finally got it cranking ok and called you. They figure you’ll be coming back to fix the starter motor, but why make a big thing about it. It may be that the battery wasn’t the problem all along, it was the intermittent starter motor making you think the battery wasn’t holding a charge.
The steering problem – either a coincidence or if you have electric steering, maybe something w/disconnecting the battery caused some parameters to be forgotten in the computer memory and need to be re-learned.
