Economy Machine

"In response to Mr. Molina's claim, he first came to my shop on 9/11/14 and said he replaced his radiator and now has an oil leak. I checked his vehicle and found the oil cooler lines were not tight on the radiator. I tightened the fittings on the engine oil cooler and reinstalled the engine cooler lines on the radiator and added 2 quarts of oil to the engine. On 11/22/14 Mr. Molina brought his vehicle in to be checked for no heat, a transmisson leak, to check the front end, perform a tune-up and check the brakes. His bill came to $1141.00. The breakdown of the charges are: Front end work $244.16, front brakes $159.98, rear brakes $156.48, tune-up $289.88, tighten transmisson fittings in radiator and replace lower 0-ring on transmisson cooler lines $90.00. The only thing that had to do with the cooling system was that I replaced thermostat, flushed out the heater core and replaced anti-freeze at a cost of $125.94. At that time I showed him that his thermostat was black and advised him that the new radiator was black also from whatever was in his cooling system. When I flushed out the heater core all kinds of black particles came out. I don't know if it was some kind of sealer or what. I advised him the heater core would have to be replaced. He said he is not replacing the heater core. I had his vehicle running for over 1 hour and the vehicle didn't overheat- it stayed at normal operating temperature. He picked up his vehicle on his way to work. He said the vehicle overheated and had no anti-freeze in it. He had his vehicle towed back. I checked it over and put anti-freeze in it. His vehicle would not start. I pulled out the engine oil dipstick and it was full with sludge and anti-freeze. I drained the engine oil out and got a 5 gallon bucket of oil, anti-freeze, sludge and some transmisson fluid. I pulled off the intake manifold and found that the gasket was rotted out and that is how anti-freeze got into the engine crankcase. I didn't know if it blew the head gaskets so I pulled off the cylinder heads, too. I didn't find any damage to the cylinder heads or gaskets. I cleaned all the parts and replaced the head gaskets and intake gaskets. I flushed out the engine oil system 2 times with new oil and filters to clean out the sludge. I had his vehicle running for about 8 hours over a 2 day period and took it on multiple test rides down the highway and had no problems. Mr. Molina agreed to pay the $271.00 for parts. He picked up his vehicle and then called and said that he stopped for breakfast and when he came out there was anti-freeze under his vehicle. He said he looked and the lower radiator hose had popped off. I told him that I didn't have to touch the lower radiator hose for any work I did. Then he hung up on me. He called back to say that he was going to call his credit card company to dispute the charge. I told him don't bother I would cancel the charge. I think I went above and beyond what I should be responsible for since I only changed a thermostat and flushed out the heater core. I don't know what originally caused his radiator to blow in the first place. Nothing I did would have caused the intake manifold gasket to rot out. I also have pictures, video, all his old parts and fluids as proof of the problem why the engine overheated after he originally picked his vehicle up."