Poll of the minds..
 

As many of you may have read, I recently hydrolocked my 2008 Honda Ridgeline.

I opted, due to poor customer service, to have the truck repaired outside of my normal Honda dealership. I had the truck towed to a local shop with a fairly awesome reputation for quality service and generally standing behind their work.

In any event, they replaced the short block. Before reassembling the engine, they sent the heads to their normal machine shop. The machinist disassembled, bathed, pressure tested, checked all the clearances, measured all the valves, replaced the valve seals, and reassembled the heads. They were given a clean bill of health.

The engine was assembled and installed. On first start-up, the cam on the left head (rear) seized and basically welded itself to the head. The cam had to be air hammered out of the head. It also sheared the cam sprocket woodruff key

The shop is now denying any liability, and saying that there was pre-existing damage to the head that they could not have seen by the machinist. Now, in my personal experience, machinists do not deal in maybes, they are pretty much the most black and white people in a very grey world. Your parts are either in spec or out of spec, and that if there was a problem.. They should have caught it.

Personally, I've been sleeping on this for 3 days now, and my feelings on the matter is that everyone knows that this is a insurance job, and they are denying liability because they figure if my insurance will pay for additional parts, no one is really hurt here. While it's true that it will not cost me any money out of pocket, it's the general principal of the matter.

This adds another $1600 to the total bill.

What do you think?

Have you asked the machinist about it?

Put an LS1 in it and call it a day? What do you need 4 camshafts for when 1 + 2 more cylinders works perfectly fine. :D

Sucks man, I'd defiantly contact the machine shop. If its a problem with the machine work, its their fault. If its not, its the shops fault IMO.

I don't know who the machine shop is, I'm not their customer.

I say ask the machine shop because the machinist could inspect that head better then the mechanic who beat the cam out with a air hammer.
Wouldn't the shop be willing to say who the machinist is though?

Why do I need them to inspect the head again? It's fucked, I saw it.

To determine fault maybe? You're here bitching about your head that was gone over by a machinist from head to asshole just froze up on its first cranking. Something wasn't right so apparently they didn't clean an oil passage or something and its someones fault. The shop says its no one's fault and you have to pay out the ass and you don't want to so get another opinion from the machinist. Not like your shit is going to be running tomorrow anyway so what do you have to lose?

Wouldn't you have been better off having the dealer just install a brand new engine?

sounds like someone forgot to label the cam bearing caps?

maybe you can get your ins. company to deal with the shop directly.

that's the source of their liability right there - if you took the heads to "a machinist" it would be different. I don't see how you can hand the entire job over to a shop and then have them avoid any responsibility for the work. They need to take up the issue with their machinist that gave the heads a "clean bill of health".

What's the point of sending it to a machinist to make sure it's all ok when he's incapable of doing it. That's his job. Check everything and make sure it's within spec. If there's something he couldn't tell, then he's incompetent. I mean, what could be so hidden that it surprised everybody? Somehow machinists check specs on engines everyday, machine or replace parts out of spec and build engines back to operating condition...

I'm raising the flag on this one
:bsflag:

I agree with Rob. You are in an actionable position.

There's no caps on these head, they slide in like a domestic v8.

My insurance company has already written a check for the parts, they have no interest in getting in the middle, even if it means paying less money.

My sentiments exactly.

It really comes down to the fact that THEY decided to assembly the engine with cylinder heads that THEY (their contracted machinist) deemed ok. You weren't involved in that decision at any part. If they called up and said, "hey, we're 95% sure the heads are fine, but wanted to get your OK to install them first in case they're not." what would you have said? Hell no? No fucking way? ;)

Keep asking them questions on the premise of "who made the decision" and they'll implicate themselves every time. I've had to deal with this situation more than once with business between a contractor and my client, and there's really no way out of it IF the contractor (the shop) made the decision to proceed.

Fuck the dealer, and fuck honda. I'm attempting to not give Honda any more money than I have to. I have to buy parts from them, but I don't have to line their pockets with labor tickets.

Honda wouldn't have even inspected the heads.. Of course, knowing what I know now.. I'd be in the exact same spot.

If the insurance company paid for the repairs initially, it's their issue.

But, you do realize that you essentially lost the warranty on the engine from Honda by taking the vehicle to an independent shop.

Not a wise move on your part.

The engine was ruined, they denied to warranty it, it was getting replaced no matter what. All parts purchased from Honda come with a 12 month/12,000 mile warranty, installed at a dealership or otherwise.

At this point, the only original engine part (aside from external accessories) will be one cylinder head.

I fail to see how my warranty would be any different. Not like I would expect Honda to warranty a damn thing.

As for it being my insurance company's fight, they don't care. They already wrote the check for the additional repairs.

The only way to keep the factory engine warranty would have been to install a new Honda engine at the dealer.

The dealer denied warranty because it was hydrolocked (correctly denying warranty). However, if the repairs were performed there, you could have kept the remainder of the factory engine warranty.

Once the issues now are straighted out, and the engine fails in 15 months you are stuck.

Tony

According to the owners manual and my finance agreement, that simply is not true. I did my research, and simply put any problem I've had with the truck since purchase Honda has not corrected to my expectations, or they've flat out refused to do anything at all.

I don't care, fuck this truck, fuck honda, and fuck my dealer. I'm not planning on keeping the truck 15 months or 12 months. If i can't drive through a foot of water, I bought the wrong fucking truck.

Besides, did I ask anyone about my warranty? No, because I don't care. Warranties are only as good as the company who backs them.

I am curious to see what happens with this shop. It's BS when you pay somebody to do work, they screw up and then try to weasel out of it.