Are they guilty of hurting my brothers bird?

[dirtybird91]

My twin brother took his '91 SC fishing after having a new short block put in it and hit a rock when he took the car off road. (I know! Not wise!) The rock knocked a hole in his oil pan, so he had the car hauled in to a local shop. While the car was being worked on I gave him a raised SC top, new plugs, and a set of manifolds that I had honed out. The shop installed all these goodies, but did not use any type of gasket maker on the SC Top!:rolleyes: I went down to the shop and pointed this out and they finished the car off, but it would not idle. They first thought the car had a vaccum issue after running it for an hour. The mechanic figured out that he had messed up on the firing order after that, so they straightened that out. Now the car will not idle at all without "missing".
They figured out that a valve is bad now, and I personally think that they warped a valve by running the car for an hour without having the firing order right!:mad: Fortunately I have a new set of heads laying around the garage.
The car did not have a bad valve when we took it in! What are some opinions on this! Is it possible that they warped the valve by running the car with the wrong firing order!?:confused:

Frank

:mad:

[Mike8675309]

More technical in nature but I'm wondering how they figured out it's a bad valve if they hadn't bothered to figure anything more basic than that out before?

I guess I would sit down with someone there and make sure they understand that they are very likely on the hook for any further work done on the car. If they balk at that then I would consider taking the car somewhere else. As if you are going to have to pay for the work anyway, might as well have someone do it that didn't already screw it up.

[dirtybird91]

Well,
now they done some sort of test by putting tranny fluid in one of the cylinders and they are certain that it is a piston ring.
I say that a valve could have knocked a hole in a piston, but I don't know if it would be running as good if that were the case.:confused:

Frank

[93SC]

Do they know it's not April 1st where your at?

[Digitalchaos]

Tranny fluid into a cylinder? As far as I know thats shadetree at best. They should have used a compression check.

If the car absolutely ran fine before, and it was not damaged from the oil pan incident, it is likely they did something to it. I would first analyze all the work they did. Then I would go over it with them, to determine if they actually knew what they were doing. If you don't have that level of knowledge, find someone who does. Then, if you are able to determine they made a mistake (it sounds likely), I would begin negotiations with them to correct the error.

Unfortunately in the event that they choose to not take responsibility I do not think you have any legal repercussions, so avoid using this argument should the situation be this way.

Goodluck..

[Rob Noth]

Have they done a proper diagnosis on the idle problem or did they just jump to the conclusion that "a valve is bad". There are just so many things that could cause a bad idle, and most of them are much simpler and more likely to happen than a "warped valve." Although depending on how long your bro drove the car after the oil drained out, there could be all kinds of internal engine damage. It doesn't take long when you have no oil...