I’m by no means a fan of Firestone but certainly can’t see crucifying them over a steering rack leak whose cause is not known to any of us and on an 11 year old car to boot.
If the rack is leaking past one or both rack seals or the pinion seal then I see no way they could have caused this problem.
The only way I could see this being inflicted would be if someone got ham-fisted and abused the rack fluid lines by accident.
With 2 motor mounts being bad it’s also possible for a rack fluid line leak to occur due to excessive engine rocking.
As to the point about missing a leak and offering to repair it free of charge this may not be a matter of admitting fault but simply some free PR work to mollify the natives…
The only possible way I can see that they could have caused a rack seal failure is by improper lifting, as VDC suggested early on in the thread. That would also explain why they’re offering to repair it for free. Replacement racks are not cheap, so in my mind they clearly know what happened… and hope the OP doesn’t find out.
They weren’t just lifting the car on a rack. If they replaced engine mounts, they had to support the engine with something. If instead of supporting the engine where you’re supposed to support it, they did something like stick a jack stand under the steering rack and then drop the car down…
At any rate, I think TSM has a pretty good point - they’re gonna spend a good chunk of change fixing the leak. They don’t need positive PR (because they get a ton of negative PR anyway and yet people keep flocking to that chain and giving them money) and they are not in the habit of giving out free work unless they know they did something bad and don’t want to get sued and/or investigated.
As I’ve said, I don’t know if the “something bad” was actually damaging the power steering system, or if the “something bad” was claiming OP needed new mounts, alignment, etc, and charging him for it, and then not doing the work.
The slipup about “oh we only replaced belts” frankly makes me suspect it’s the latter, but either way, they owe him - and if they pay off that debt by fixing a leaky steering rack that they didn’t actually break, that’s OK by me.
The act of breaking free rusted and seized tie rods can place stress on an elderly steering rack. Most of the vehicle that I align are rust free desert cars but I do get a California car on occasion. California cars are not rusty but the adjustment part of the tie rod has no grease or anti-seize compound and a little bit of rain can cause just enough rust to make the alignment frustrating.
I’m glad I wasn’t involved with this one, I have enough problems.
It’s difficult to fathom someone placing a lift pad on a tie rod but anything is possible I suppose.
There’s also a few TSBs out on these cars for noisy PS pumps and PS leaks and which may or may not be applicable here.
Maybe the OP can find out a bit more about the exact problem and post back which could lead to clearing up a murky issue.
As I stated, I’m no fan of Firestone at all but it’s hard to hang someone for cattle rustling if one doesn’t know whether any cows are missing…
I was actually thinking they might have made the error when lifting the engine to replace the mounts rather than when lifting the car, but anything is possible. Mistakes can take many forms. I seriously doubt of anything malicious was involved, I think someone just screwed up.
Nevada just brought up another possibility. Perhaps someone used torch to free the tie rod without isolating the heated zone with a wet rag or something and the heat traveled up the rod damaged the seal. Anything is possible. There’s no way we’ll ever know.
Personally, I commend the shop for accepting responsibility.
How do we know the rack was actually leaking? Are we taking the word of the service manager at the Firestone place? Yes he is losing fluid, but it could simply be a hose. For all we know, the mech at the Firestone shop noticed that a hose clamp was not tightened on the second look, told the service manage and that is why the service manager was so quick to fix it for free.
So all this guessing and arguing over how the rack could have gotten damaged may really be moot, we don’t have any way of knowing do we?
My BS meter for this shop got pegged at the need for motor mounts. I think the OP better find a good mechanic and not fall for all the upselling. At least learn to get a second opinion.
I know that it’s probably been said by now: If the place really checks things, they should have found the low fluid. I just didn’t want to read all the other postings. Legendary foul-ups have been happening at Firestone tire centers for the forty years I’ve been hearing them. When it comes to nuts and bolts; they don’t hire the bolts very often. After reading one of the other postings, it looks like they did indeed break things. Can’t prove it from here but if I had to bet…
“My BS meter for this shop got pegged at the need for motor mounts”
Well, this model does have a history of motor mounts (and transmission mounts) that need replacing after just a few years.
If the mounts were already replaced, then perhaps it was BS.
If these were the original motor mounts, then this 10 year old Honda Oddity was actually overdue for this repair.
OP–What say you?
Were these the original motor mounts, or had they already been replaced?
I bought the car used in 2007, so unless the mounts were replaced before I got it, they were original. This has been an amazingly sturdy and reliable vehicle. She has more than 212,000 miles, most of which I put on her (3 kids, in-laws in another state). The only major repair we’ve had to get on her was a transmission rebuild three months ago. She’s part of the family, and I wouldn’t have begrudged her the rack and pinion, except the timing was suspicious. No problems with steering at all until I picked it up from the shop.
They never did give me more details about where it was leaking, just said they would fix it gratis when I questioned it. I just picked it up today, and the order sheet says they replaced the rack and pinion assembly. They also gave me the before-and-after details of the new alignment, which they didn’t give me before.
