Before you choose where you're going to spend your money on servicing/repairing your car, you can get a feel for how a shop will treat you by the customer's reviews.
But what does "+11tybillion" really tell you, as a consumer,about a particular shop?
Nothing, as far as I can determine.


Here at DBTuned, Suabrus are not just our livelyhood, they're our passion.
We take great pride in the quality of our work we perform on your Subaru.
You've invested a lot of money in your Subaru and expect perfection in whatever work is performed on it.
You DEMAND that the job is done in a timely manner and done correctly the first time.

Sometimes, though, we make a mistake.
It's seldom anything more than a minor adjustment, but every once in a while, it's major.

Which brings me to the gist of this post.

Last Friday, we released a 2003 WRX back to the owner after performing an engine overhaul. Not an inexpensive job!
Car was delivered on time to a very satisfied customer.
Then Monday arrived...with several emails, PMs, and voicemails from a very concerned owner.
"My car is leaking oil! What do I do??"

"If you feel it's safe, drive it back to the shop. If you'd like, call H&L Towing, and we'll cover the cost of towing."

Car shows up and we determine the oil pan is most likely the culprit.
"Your car will have to stay the night...do you need a rental car?"

"Really??? You'll cover a rental car?"

"Of course."

The oil was drained, pan removed, and that's when we saw the root cause of the leak...defective sealant.
The OEM sealant that was in the dimple grooves of the oil pan hadn't cured...four days after application.
Upon seeing this, the decission was made to reseal the oil pump as well.

The engine still dropped one drop of oil every 10 seconds, which is one drop too much.

There's only one other sealing surface in the area and that's the case halves. And the only way to reseal the the case halves is to remove the engine from the car, teardown the engine, and re-apply a bead of sealant.
Which takes time... a lot of time, in fact.

I made the decission that the car was safe to drive for a feww days until we could get the customer back to the shop.
To bring the hassle of being carless to an absolute minimum, we assembled another shortblock...using different sealant this time.

That's right...we opted to replace a freshly overhauled shortblock with another freshly overhauled shortblock just to keep the waiting time to a minimum.

The customer dropped his car off last night, and as I type this, the crew is about to fire up the new-new shortblock... leak free.