I brought my car into a local repair shop that I found online (good reviews…although only 3). They gave me an estimate of $260, and told me that the crankshaft seal needed to be replaced. 2 hours later, I needed a new oil pan gasket and seal, oil pan, timeing cover gasket and seal, and of course with all this an oil change.
$400 later, I go to leave for work the next morning to find a new puddle of oil in my (landlord’s) driveway.
I brought the car back and now they say it is another gasket that needs to be replaced after 5 minutes of being on the lift. I know nothing about cars, but it seems a bit ridiculous that they could diagnose a new problem after 5 minutes today, when they had the car for 9 hours last week.
Sounds a little fishy to me. It is especially fishy that you needed a new oil pan. That makes it sound like they’re looking for a boat payment. Did they say why the oil pan needed to be replaced? It can certainly be hard sometimes to identify all of the places from which oil is leaking. But if it left a puddle overnight that is the kind of leak that one should be able to identify. Of course, from a great distance & w/out being able to actually look it is very difficult to say much for certain.
What gasket do they now want to replace?
I would maybe run the car through another shop, ask them what is leaking and compare it to the list of what was just done.
When I returned to pick the car up yesterday they told me that I they replaced “the gasket”(I tried to get the name of which one it was out of them but they wouldn’t give me a straight answer). And did not charge me.
And of course this morning I went outside and there is another puddle of oil in the driveway.
I was going to bring it to another shop and see what they have to say, along with the receipt of what work these jokers supposedly did. I think I may have to come to terms with the fact that the car isn’t worth this aggravation and it’s time to just buy a new one.
I wish there were some sort of consumer rights for these situations.