Also the car was taken on a test drive and drove great and idles great. The symptoms came up right when the customer picked up the car. Obviously we wouldn't let the car leave the shop running poorly.

 

Now the question is after he fully left the shop and went or when he started the car issues started arising?

 

Ok here is my take on things...

1)Op, you should have never taken the car once you saw the idle problem, let alone on the trip. If you have done dammage to the motor now, thats on you for pushing it.

2)TD, you guys perhaps should have thrown up the red flag the moment he commented about the idle.

That all said, it sounds like a point now where you both need to sit down together, and talk like adults. Op it was pretty much bull**** for you to air this before you have really sat down and talked this all out with the other party. Go into the talk with a open mind, remember that TD has to make money too or they can't stay open. TD on your side remember that you have a fustrated and upset customer, 1 bad customer = 10 lost sales.

Find the middle ground, Op your going to have to budge off your high horse and agree to pay some, thats just how it goes, this ain't a bike, it takes a lot of time and schooling/education to learn to repair cars. That time/education is worth money, but at the same time yes, I do agree TD needs to meet you in the middle someplace.

 

This is all true, and we don't want to have upset customers and like mentioned before we'll do our best to get the problem resolved so our customer is happy and trouble free.

 

Dude.. Hang in there... I also know 100% what you speak of. Motorcycle world would not stand for half the B.S. I have had to go thru with my Subaru. I think most the Subaru public just accepts things because of the years of.. Thats just how it goes...

I say give them a chance to fix it.


I take my car 800 miles away to get its work done. Costs a bunch more. But its all about trust, And having that same feeling you look for when in the motorcycle world. Its also not always you get what you pay for.
Mistakes happen. Its what you do after the fact is what makes or breaks the problem at hand.

 

Thought I would update this. I took the car back to TD on 1/24/12 with just under 5k miles on it since the initial work was done (check first post for come back reason). I dropped the car off and picked it up 9 days later on 2/2/12 at a hair over 219,000 miles.

The misfire- Kia told me the spark plugs (Pulstar iridiums, installed new at 169,205 miles) had a much larger gap than what was above spec and that one or two of the tips were rounded down. He also told me the spark plug wires (Ralliteks, installed new at 169,205 miles) gave a resistance reading above spec. He went ahead and replaced both of these items at the price of parts.

I was okay with this. Sure, he went ahead and did the repair and charged me for parts without my monetary consent, but that's not a problem. The plug wires were $99.90 and I found the same ones online (rockauto) for <$40. That was kind of annoying, but too late, not much harm done. Besides, I called up Rallitek and told them what the problem was and they said they would refund the money if I sent the old wires in. Stupid me forgot them at the shop. In the event they're still there, great, if not, too bad. I called Pulstar and they told me they would replace the plugs for free. Cool.

The oil leak- Kia told me it was a cam cover seal (still not familiar with what exactly this is) between the head gasket and valve cover. Something like a siliconed piece that is bolted down. He said he nor the machine shop should have touched that, but he fixed it. To be honest I haven't checked my oil level to see if it's still holding. Haven't driven the car hardly at all. No charge there.

Kia also replaced the alternator belt. One of the ribs was basically cut off. No idea why, not pointing fingers since I have removed that belt a couple times myself, but it was new at 175,306 miles. $16-17 part, no worries.

Finally, when I picked up the car, it was missing one of my RA flaps. I pointed it out to Kia and he immediately told me he would go ahead and replaced the full set for me since it disappeared with the car under his watch. Awesome. Sweet. That basically makes up for everything else. So far, though, no word on new flaps. Some fault on my behalf too, since I didn't really follow up on it (extremely busy with school/work).

The car is running *better* now. I have only gotten a CEL for the 0420, something the car has been throwing since long before Kia worked on it. The fuel trims are back within 5% so that looks healthy. Sometimes at idle, when the engine is cold or cooler, it feels really lumpy from the driver's seat, but who knows, that could just be from it being cold. When it's warm it's fine.

So overall...I'm just happy it worked out like it did. Hopefully I eventually get new flaps (going back to Colorado at the end of the month and they're awesome with snow) soon and even more hopefully, Kia kept the spark plug wires. I would still recommend this shop to anyone out there, but don't do what I did and accept/pay for a repair on a car running in the condition that it was when I picked it up the first time.

 

use a spacer on the postcat o2 for a possible temporary fix to the 420 code (not smog legal) or replace cat and postcat o2.

 

Yeah, I'm going to be getting a Tsudo high flow cat section sooner or later. It includes the CEL fix. Front o2 sensor is brand new (replaced with head gaskets) and rear sensor was replaced about 40k miles ago.

Plus the car is still registered in Colorado, and won't be transferring out here because I'm just here for school.