Need advice on issue with mechanic!

[Timz0r]

Issue at the mechanic.

I need a neutral perspective. Sorry for the wall of text, lmao.

My exhaust detached from my catalytic converter one day a couple of weeks ago. No big deal. I scheduled it in to have the local muffler shop zip it back together.

The next day at work, my phone rings and the wife of the owner of the shop informs me it's finished and that it'll be $50. No worries. I pay with an e-transfer and assure her that since I have a spare key they can just lock up my car and leave it inside. I planned on picking it up right after work.

My wife drops me off to pick it up shortly after dusk. I jump in, let it idle for a minute, and then give it a little blip of fuel. Sounds great! Time to head home (roughly 5 miles).

About two blocks from my house, my oil pressure light starts flashing. I stop the car, shut it off, and pop the hood.

Upon inspection, the entire firewall, back of the engine block, control arms and front axle were COATED in oil. Probably the entire contents of the oil pan. I grabbed a rag and wiped down the oil feed line (I figured it had to be that for that much oil to have spewed out as well as the direction it went). I found a decent sized crack in a bend on the line.

I commute for work, so I had a spare gallon of oil in the trunk. I poured in roughly two quarts, waited a few minutes, pulled the dipstick, wiped it off, and checked it. It was at the minimum mark. I do my own oil changes so I knew I could add another quart, so I did. Waited another minute and checked it. Almost at the full mark, great.

I disconnected the vacuum line running to the turbo actuator and drove it the last two blocks home and shut it off. There was more oil sprayed out of the line, but after checking it roughly an hour later, it was still well above the minimum mark.

The next morning I called the shop. I got the owner. I mentioned that I had picked up my car the day before and I was wondering if there was anything mentioned on the work order. He told me that it had a decent oil leak coming from around the turbo. I told him that I wasn't aware of it leaking when I brought it in. There was no oil spot where I park it in my driveway, and there was no oil spot where I parked it when I dropped it off at their shop (I drove back in the wife's van after I got my car home the night before to check and snapped a few pictures.)

I told him that almost the entire contents of my oil pan had leaked out by the time I got home, and that no one informed me that my car was leaking oil when they called to collect their money via e-transfer. He said his wife sometimes forgets to mention stuff like that as she primarily controls the finances. I inform him I'll have a look at it on the weekend and hopefully there's no major damage to the turbo, etc. We kind of left it at that.

Fast forward to this past Saturday. I removed the broken oil feed line and installed a new one. I then performed an oil change. I primed the turbo as per the shop manual, hooked the injection pump back up, started the car and let it idle. After about 5 minutes I sat in the car and slowly brought the RPM up. At around 2,000 it began squealing like metal on metal. The exhaust was shooting out white smoke. Great, blown turbo.

NOW, this is my dilemma: who goes good for it? The shop for not informing me about my car pissing oil out of the feed line, or me for assuming the car was in the same shape I dropped it off in before driving it home?

Thanks for any advice.

**TL;DR:** Mechanic didn't tell me my car was leaking oil. Drove it home. Turbocharger blew up. Who pays for it?

 

[rocky raccoon]

This is my personal opinion only;

As stated, the shop did nothing to your car which could have affected the turbo or it's oil feed. Not telling you of the oil leak is shoddy but not criminal. It occurs to me that a leak of that magnitude would have been obvious if you had periodically looked under your hood and/or checked your oil.

I don't thing the shop has any liability in this case.

 

[Mozambiquer]

Issue at the mechanic.

I need a neutral perspective. Sorry for the wall of text, lmao.

My exhaust detached from my catalytic converter one day a couple of weeks ago. No big deal. I scheduled it in to have the local muffler shop zip it back together.

The next day at work, my phone rings and the wife of the owner of the shop informs me it's finished and that it'll be $50. No worries. I pay with an e-transfer and assure her that since I have a spare key they can just lock up my car and leave it inside. I planned on picking it up right after work.

My wife drops me off to pick it up shortly after dusk. I jump in, let it idle for a minute, and then give it a little blip of fuel. Sounds great! Time to head home (roughly 5 miles).

About two blocks from my house, my oil pressure light starts flashing. I stop the car, shut it off, and pop the hood.

Upon inspection, the entire firewall, back of the engine block, control arms and front axle were COATED in oil. Probably the entire contents of the oil pan. I grabbed a rag and wiped down the oil feed line (I figured it had to be that for that much oil to have spewed out as well as the direction it went). I found a decent sized crack in a bend on the line.

I commute for work, so I had a spare gallon of oil in the trunk. I poured in roughly two quarts, waited a few minutes, pulled the dipstick, wiped it off, and checked it. It was at the minimum mark. I do my own oil changes so I knew I could add another quart, so I did. Waited another minute and checked it. Almost at the full mark, great.

I disconnected the vacuum line running to the turbo actuator and drove it the last two blocks home and shut it off. There was more oil sprayed out of the line, but after checking it roughly an hour later, it was still well above the minimum mark.

The next morning I called the shop. I got the owner. I mentioned that I had picked up my car the day before and I was wondering if there was anything mentioned on the work order. He told me that it had a decent oil leak coming from around the turbo. I told him that I wasn't aware of it leaking when I brought it in. There was no oil spot where I park it in my driveway, and there was no oil spot where I parked it when I dropped it off at their shop (I drove back in the wife's van after I got my car home the night before to check and snapped a few pictures.)

I told him that almost the entire contents of my oil pan had leaked out by the time I got home, and that no one informed me that my car was leaking oil when they called to collect their money via e-transfer. He said his wife sometimes forgets to mention stuff like that as she primarily controls the finances. I inform him I'll have a look at it on the weekend and hopefully there's no major damage to the turbo, etc. We kind of left it at that.

Fast forward to this past Saturday. I removed the broken oil feed line and installed a new one. I then performed an oil change. I primed the turbo as per the shop manual, hooked the injection pump back up, started the car and let it idle. After about 5 minutes I sat in the car and slowly brought the RPM up. At around 2,000 it began squealing like metal on metal. The exhaust was shooting out white smoke. Great, blown turbo.

NOW, this is my dilemma: who goes good for it? The shop for not informing me about my car pissing oil out of the feed line, or me for assuming the car was in the same shape I dropped it off in before driving it home?

Thanks for any advice.

**TL;DR:** Mechanic didn't tell me my car was leaking oil. Drove it home. Turbocharger blew up. Who pays for it?

Mechanics have no requirement to state any issues they find. If you had taken it to them to fix an oil leak, or if they had replaced the turbo, then you would have a case, but sorry to tell you, you'll be the one responsible for replacing the turbo.
Another thing is that with mechanics, if you run it low on oil, it's not on them, since cars have a low oil pressure alarm or light that is supposed to go off as soon as oil pressure drops. It's then your responsibility, even if you stopped right away, unless you have video proof of you shutting the vehicle off right away as soon as the light comes on.
Also, an oil leak can develop very quickly, especially a cracked line.
Now, if you had reason to believe that they had damaged the line, and proof of that, then you could have grounds for getting a replacement, but you probably don't have that, I would assume.
I work at a mechanic shop, and we get so many people saying "ever since you did___this and this happens, I think you're responsable..." We say that the worst customer is named "Everett Sinchu"
I understand your plight, but don't think you have a standing to call the shop responsable for the failed turbo.

 

[Timz0r]

This is my personal opinion only;

As stated, the shop did nothing to your car which could have affected the turbo or it's oil feed. Not telling you of the oil leak is shoddy but not criminal. It occurs to me that a leak of that magnitude would have been obvious if you had periodically looked under your hood and/or checked your oil.

I don't thing the shop has any liability in this case.

Thanks for the reply.

My vacuum pump has a slight oil leak so I'm pretty consistent with checking the oil. I am mostly just irritated they didn't tell me about it since the owner even said it was written on the work order.

I guess I just won't go back.

 

[Mozambiquer]

Thanks for the reply.

My vacuum pump has a slight oil leak so I'm pretty consistent with checking the oil. I am mostly just irritated they didn't tell me about it since the owner even said it was written on the work order.

I guess I just won't go back.

I know how it is. I sometimes get frustrated at the service advisor when he doesn't tell the customer about a defect I find on a vehicle. It's happened many times. Some customers are appreciative to know about things like that, others get mad though.

 

[CableJockey]

...others get mad though.

I remember a prime example from high-school when I was busting tires:
Lady came in for a tire-rotation, her explorer was leaking oil bad, a nearly constant stream running off the engine that trailed all the way into the shop.
When it was brought to her attention (we wanted her authorization to investigate) she became livid, screaming that it was "none of our business", demanded to speak to the manager, gave him a tongue lashing for "disrespectful" employees, and even began blaming us for causing the leak!
Stirred up quite a mess...

After that, the boss told us not to bring up anything that wasn't directly related to the requested service: note it on the work order, but do not raise it to the customer's attention.

It's messed up that businesses would need to resort to such things in response to a few horrible customers, but liability lawsuits are very real... Perhaps a similar policy existed with the OPs mechanic?

 

[Stupendous60]

I had an alignment done at a Firestone shop on my 2002 project car (I am a technician-not allowed to use alignment rack at work) Get in to drive off and the brake booster wooshes when I step on the pedal...no issue prior to that.. I see red! What did that goober do?!! Took a breath, decided not to confront, maybe it was coincidence. Fast forward- remove booster and master- master leaking from rear seal-emptied the booster in a glass jar with what I could best describe as black tar fluid. So booster/master was bad. BUT! why didn't the tech say anything? The consensus is- Joe/Mary customer, under the same circumstance would scream bloody murder and blame/demand shop be held accountable/fix it as if they caused it. My opinion is your mechanic, being professional and confidant in his abilities, should have told you about a serious oil leak.

 

[Timz0r]

Eh, it's all good. It would have been nice if he had have informed me about it, but I guess those are the breaks! He admitted his wife should have told me, they didn't refrain from mentioning due to some odd policy, she just forgot.

It turns out at the end of the day my turbo was fine – I had just failed to tighten the bolts on the EGR elbow going from the cooler to the valve. This led to a terrible screeching leak that sounded like a blown turbo.

At the end of the day, lesson learned. I now know to assume that the shop doing any work on my car is incompetent and to check their work plus anything they may have damaged, from engine components to lifting point pinch welds.

Thanks everyone.

 

[Mozambiquer]

Can't speak about car industry but when I worked at the Volvo trucks dealership part of my province's legislation is that major defects found during any inspection the customer is notified. The 22 point( or 99) inspection we do was our get out of jail free card should it leave the shop with a major defect other than the direct work we carried out. The customer can refuse the work 100% but we have a record of it. So if the semi goes around a corner and one of his airbags blows causing the load and truck to flip, he could try point the finger at us for legal and insurance reasons, we kindly send a copy of the inspection with work declined by customer.
Obviously depends on the level of service, $50 repair isn't going to get you an inspection but shop could point it out.

The laws are different for heavy duty trucks. I work at a shop where most of what we do is big trucks, and I've been told that we could be held liable for not noting and reporting safety issues. Now, you may only get in trouble if they have an accident because of it, but still, we do record everything we find. There have been times that I have reported a vehicle to DOT when they decide against repairing severe safety hazard items, like brakes, and continue using the vehicle. One of the other things we're told to report is the usage of red diesel

 

[oilhammer]

I'm guessing here, that your car is a nearly two decade old rusty car (hence the two instances of metal parts failing in this thread alone) and that the shop probably didn't bother to look the car over too much. They did what you asked, and that's all. We get cars in our shop all the time that will empty an ink pen if you decided to take the time and itemize EVERYTHING wrong with the car. If something is blatantly obvious like a safety issue (we have biannual safety inspections in MO, but IL doesn't... so we see some real crap), we will certainly note it. But a 19 year old diesel Volkswagen that has some oil leakage down the backside of the engine? That's a lot of them, and I'm not sure unless it was leaving puddles everywhere I would have considered that something to mention.

I think it is just coincidence that it happened when it happened. It sucks. It's an old car. In a harsh environment no less. It will need attention now and then.