Pro Tech Auto & Repair

They estimated the cost at $588 including everything.  I told them to proceed.  A day later I missed their call and on the voicemail they said "you need to come down here and look at this."  I went down there, and they had performed some of the work, having changed out 5 of the 6 spark plugs.  But on the 6th plug the spark plug broke even with the engine block.  He said that it wasn't his fault, but he showed me the pry bar he was using for leverage to remove the old plug, being about 2 foot long.  I tried not to get upset, but rather went to the auto parts store and bought some "PB Blaster" screw loosener spray and a $20 kit of "easy out" screw removers.  I told him that a mechanic friend of mine recommeded turning the engine over a few times to see if the compression in the cylinder would push the ceramic parts of the plug out of the hole.  He said he would try to get the spark plug out, but didn't think it would work.  I didn't hear anything for two days.  When I called him, he said he tried my trick, but it didn't work, so he drilled out the center of the spark plug and used the 'easy out.'  He had warned me that if he had to do that, the ceramic pieces would fall down into the cylinder, basically ruining the cylinder.  I guess he got impatient and proceeded with that anyway without my permission.  When I talked to him he said that it was now running worse than when I brought it to him, and it was probably a fire hazard as it was leaking gasoline around the area he drilled into.  He wanted to take the head off and clean out the cylinder.  I told him that I wouldn't trust him to do any more work.

Granted, the van has 150,000 miles on it.  But, it was running and functional when I brought it to him, now I have to have it towed away to another mechanic that will tell me if it is a total loss or not.  I wasn't expecting perfection, and I tried to make it easy for him to do the right thing but he wouldn't do it.  If he hadn't charged me the labor I might not have been as sorely disappointed in him as a service provider.  Basically, he charged me $240 labor to break my engine, and installed about $200 parts onto an engine that will need to be replaced anyway.