Cars, Service Shop & Maintenance!

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Crap! How I hate automotive service centers.

About a month ago, I took my 99 Dodge Durango (nearing 150,000 miles, bought brand new) to a local service center.

My initial request was to have them flush & fill the cooling system and inspect & adjust the rear drum brakes (the front disc brakes were doing all the work).

About $400 later, I got the machine back, parked it in the garage and noticed a pin-hole leak in the radiator reservoir tank. Additionally, the rear brakes were not feeling real good either.

I phoned the service center, frustrated that I just paid $200 for a full cooling system flush, only to find a hole in the radiator (knowing that I'd have to again pay for the coolant service). The response I got from the tech. was something along the lines of: "hey, I was working under your car for half-a-day, I didn't notice the leak or else we would have notified you."

d2.jpgFrustrated, I decided to buy a new 2 core radiator off eBay and do the work myself. Having inspected the Durango, it looked like a standard radiator (for a 5.9L V8) without aux trans cooler.

I started the work yesterday and got the radiator mostly dismantled until I noticed the transmission lines running into and around the old radiator. I stopped my work and inspected both new and old radiator to asses if they were the same; they appeared to be identical.

I got everything detached and disconnected from the old radiator except a single transmission line (connected to the bottom of the AUX cooler).  This line had no discernible way of being disconnected and seemed to have been pressed in place. Since the new radiator came with replacement trans lines (aluminum), I decided to just cut the old line off at the radiator; out came the radiator.

Upon inspecting the new and old, I quickly determined that the new replacement transmission lines would not work on the old AUX trans cooler. There and then, I started to get stressed. I would not have a functional vehicle for the coming work week, and that it was probably now time to take the Durango to the service center (again!)

While at the parts store (AutoZone), I picked up a replacement PCV Valve since mine seemed to be making quite a bit of noise. Upon trying to remove the old one, and to my dismay, it broke off in the valve cover! I noticed small peices of plastic perilously close to falling into the valve itself!  I grabbed the shop-vac and sucked at the hole and was able to get the bits of plastic before they fell in.

I then got pliers and attempted to pull the remaining PCV valve out, but it broke again, this time dropping most of the remaining components into the valves! The horror! Now, I had a new radiator to install and I had to get the valve cover removed to extract the bits of plastic!

The cost was quickly adding up!

So, the wife and I (since we were planning on a new truck for me next year), decided to accelerate a new truck purchase (Dodge Ram 2500, Cummins Turbo Diesel most likely), we head out to see what was available in 2-3 year old trucks. We found a few we liked, but none had prices on them. I'll be phoning those dealers on Monday to start haggling.

Now, I have to determine if I just buy a new truck and let the Durango sit for a bit (I was saving it for my oldest son as his first vehicle next year), or just spend the anticipated $1000 to repair the truck and slow my new truck purchase.


..TO BE CONTINUED!


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1 Comment

I once lost a glow plug in my engine. It somehow backed out of the hole and shattered, and I never found any of it. Chances are that your oil pump won't pick up the pieces of your PVC valve and recirculate them, but an oil change would still be a good idea. :)

As for considering the purchase of a Dodge 2500 diesel, that sounds like a good plan. I can't say enough about newer diesel trucks--they've got great power, good for towing, and get good fuel mileage.

Good luck on whatever you decided to do. :)

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About this Entry

This page contains a single entry by James King published on May 3, 2009 2:55 PM.

Windows 7 Release Candidate Announcement was the previous entry in this blog.

2008 Dodge Ram 2500, 6.7L Turbo Diesel is the next entry in this blog.

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