Your best bet is to try and work out a deal with him. He can put a mechanic"s lien on it.
I don’t know any good mechanic around here that would do that. I know several that lost money trying to diagnose an electrical problem and couldn’t. Didn’t charge the customer a dime.
@Bing
For a real plumber that knows what he’s doing you’re 100% correct . Not all plumbers are created equal . Neither are all mechanics . It does seem like a strange story , an alleged professional mechanic that has a vehicle for 2 months & can’t figure out what’s wrong with it ?
Years ago this kind of situation could face every mechanic…esp ones that dont have OEM factory computers to interface with the car. There are a lot of car makers and they all have their flavor of something…and when you dont utilize that flavor…you are forced to begin guessing. Educated guessing nonetheless…but then we are opening another topic no?
Things are much better today with scanners that pretty well cover everybody…but they still dont cover all and every situation perfectly.
Things like this can happen…but if you are worth your salt? They really should NOT. You will never hit the $2400 of “No running change” parts replacements…if you know your shxx. I can see one or two items? but THIS seems excessive, and there should have been negotiations all along the way.
Blackbird
My personal opinion is that the mechanic should not have a car tied up for 2 months with continued guessing. A guess or two; fine. If it gets past that then he needs to throw in the towel and state that he does not know.
The big issue on reimbursement is whether or not the OP kept telling the mechanic to plow ahead. If so, that approval could mean the OP is on the hook for it all.
I’m also of the opinion that the mechanic should at least offer a hefty discount no matter what considering he reached the end of his ability.
It would be interesting to know what codes were present and what parts were replaced. Given a random lack of power one might suspect an iffy fuel pump or an issue with a drive by wire throttle body.
There are some issues that at times require a dealer whose equipment and technical info may not be available to the guy at the corner garage.
Cant argue with what OK44 said… I think we all agree on this. The mechanic should have said that he will try some things…and if he is wrong…he wont charge you…or just charge for parts…or some big discount like OK mentions… He should have been embarrassed the entire way in other words.
Nobody shotguns that kind of repair bill…stands next to the still broken vehicle and says …“Pay up”.
Blackbird
The OP said BMW mechanic. I assumed that meant the dealer. Maybe not so next stop should be the dealer. Agree that its a matter of degree. A $3 or 400.00 diagnostic fee would be one thing but $2400 is way excessive. My only point is that you can’t always expect total success and sometimes may need to pay someone a little for trying. But not $2400 without consent.
I would like to know the exact issue…and the parts replaced in trying to solve the problem. There is logic to this stuff y’know. Hopefully this guy can talk some sense into this shop and reach a mutually agreeable situation.
Hell for 2400 this customer should have a nice running car…no matter where this shop had to send it to get completed. This situation is a little nuts
Blackbird
If the story is basically correct & I found myself in that mechanics position I would have enlisted help from somewhere long before 2 months went by . I was never too proud to ask for help when necessary .
So to answer a few questions here, this is not BMW dealership, but a BMW and Mercedes specific shop with lots of great feedback on Yelp. The mechanic is a cool guy, but at $2400 and no improvement, I really don’t care how cool you are. So at first he wanted to change out the MAF sensor, and another valve in relation to that. Quoted $700 and it didn’t do anything. He then found a lack of vacuum at the brake booster and asked if I would consent to opening the valve cover to inspect where he saw bits of plastic inside. $600 for a valve cover replaced and still nothing. Being a sulev BMW, it has the fuel pump, regulator and filter permanently welded inside of the fuel tank. He told me he had taken it to the BMW dealership that he had worked at as the sealed tank needed very specific equipment to test and only the dealership had this. He said the tests showed the tank to be faulty. He ordered a tank and installed with no success, sent the tank back and replaced with another tank and still nothing. That was a $1300 fix and it turns out my original tank was fine. He refunded me $600 in labor after I started letting him know how unhappy I was with the fact that he hadn’t fixed the problem whatsoever and still racking up the bucks. He tested compression, along with a bunch of other tests and said everything checks out in good working condition. Now he is changing out the ignition, sensor and control module as they have to be from the same vehicle and it’s been another week since that was taking place meaning it didn’t work as I’m sure he would’ve happily called me if it had. So I have ok’d repairs, but these repairs were his professional recommendations to repair my car which is the reason I’m there at all. The 2 months has been the worst part and he stated that his entire crew on technicians as well as BMW tech support are stumped. He said he was willing to take it to BMW dealership of this fix didn’t repair the issue, but then I would be paying them to repair my car on top of what I owe him.
These are the vehicles I always wind up with… However…I am told the prior history and I ALWAYS repair the vehicle in the end…in fact it becomes a bit of self competition. Ive become fairly well known in my area…if other shops cannot fix the problem and you are about to give up… People eventually seek me out or find me somehow. Im not saying I am the best or anything, far from it. I have my “Go To” guys on lots of things for sure.
Maybe I approach things differently than most. Invest the time it takes…and usually…that is ALL it takes, time. I dont know why others do not…or cannot invest this time…time is money to many so it might begin and end there. However, your conundrum sounds like what I hear prior to receiving many of my patients.
Sorry you are going thru all of this. If you were near me I would try to lend a hand. I live in the Philly suburbs. It pains me to hear things like this. Just know…its fixable, someone just needs to give it the proper attention and time.
Blackbird
Thanks Blackbird!! I’m the second owner of this car, and the prior owner had every document met repair all performed at BMW dealerships including oil changes etc, and it’s been a pretty amazing vehicle from his paperwork. The sulev model has a lot of extra emission crap which is good for the planet, not so good for the consumer. Being this rare make, it’s not as common around the shop which makes it harder to diagnose I guess. It’s been a tough thing to mentally accept that I could have invested more than half the vehicle’s value and still have a parts car after the fact.
Five different approvals to to move forward with repair attempts complicates things, this is much different than one $2400 repair, at some point you could have stopped the repairs and taken the vehicle to a different shop. Some of the repairs can be argued as valid and necessary like the valve cover replacement.
There must be a lot of miles on this car, the SULEV related parts like the fuel tank have a 150,000 mile warranty.
Just a word of caution on Yelp. There have been a few complaints that people pay to have negative comments removed, plus nothing like faking your own good customer comments. I’m wondering if you should drive to Philly at this point and take the train back till spring.
LOL… Uh oh… Now the pressure is on… Same S*&^ different day…
Blackbird
Regarding meanjoe's comment about the mechanic/doctor parallel
Ok4450, sorry about bringing that up. I didn't mean to make you or anyone uncomfortable. I'm sorry to hear that.
I agree with @Bing about yelp . . . you have to take good reviews with a grain of salt and do your own research before doing business with someone
The Los Angeles Times has had a few scathing articles about yelp. I respect the particular journalist, and I don’t think she would make things up
In addition to businesses paying to have bad reviews disappear, or “be buried” on the last page . . . apparently businesses are also allowed access to the phone numbers and email addresses of people who left bad reviews. Then they use strong arm tactics and threaten all sorts of nastiness, until the bad reviews are either deleted, or changed to a good review
The implication is clear . . . yelp is open to being bribed, which makes their entire business model suspect, IMO
@meanjoe75fan, don’t worry about the doctor parallel. I’m not uncomfortable; just pxxxxxx off.
The good doc should consider himself lucky because another large, pretty volatile brother in law was going to remove the doc’s spleen and a few other organs by hand until some relatives interceded.
My wife has had nursing school so she stepped in and put the hospital on the spot with some pointed questions. That led to the doc being removed from the cardiac unit and in a twist of fate the doc died not many years later of a heart attack while in his 40s. Poetic justice…
As to the OP’s car problem, with multiple approvals to proceed I’m not convinced that they could prevail even in a small claims suit. Those judges are in a 3rd world country dictator mode so they can do what they want even if it’s not legally or ethically correct.
The outcome, if it gets before a judge, will heavily depend on what exactly has been put in writing between the owner and the mechanic concerning this repair. The judge probably won’t allow an award to the car owner simply b/c the mechanic hasn’t been able to fix the problem.
Excellent case for Judge Judy and you. If you win, you don’t pay. If you lose, the mechanic gets paid out of a fund, not your pocket. They are always looking for good cases where the total sum sued for doesn’t exceed 5 grand.