The Major Auto Dealers Trust Em, or Go Elsewhere

Once upon a time, it was generally believed that while the car dealerships of the major auto makers were expensive, you got treated right and the job got done correctly. You could trust the dealer to tell it to you straight and do only what was needed. This was worth the added labor expenses to not being taken for a ride.

Took my car into the Ford Dealer last week, I also found out why they are often referred to as Stealers rather than Dealers. Anyway, I've got a 94' Ford Crown Victoria, I've owned this car since new in 94'. Started burning a quart of oil every thousand miles or so. Online research revealed this was a typical problem in pre 96 or so Crown Vics, the valve stem seals harden and crack allowing oil to enter the cylinders and get burned and vented out the exhaust. Knowing this I took it into a local dealer to have the valve stem seals replaced.

I drop it off at 7:30am and tell them to change the valve stem seals. They call me at 11:00am and tell me they have not started yet, because they removed the EGR valve and there is oil smoke coming out and I have "blowby". "Blowby" is a term used when oil from the crankcase is blowing by the piston rings and entering the combustion chamber and getting burned there, indicating bad rings on the pistons; they recommended replacing the engine based on the blowby condition, yea right! Not being born last night, I reminded the "service advisor" that I suspected the valve stem seals were bad, and that this is where the oil was getting into the combustion chamber. (Coming in from the top rather than the bottom.) Okay, they now started the job and let me know they wouldn't be finished until the next day. More problems to come...

The phone rings again at 3:30pm and now they tell me there is galling on the cam. They really need to replace the engine, this is indicative of major problems. Also the engine has substantial varnishing and sludge. Oh, I should mention this is an engine with 102,000 miles on it and most of it city miles. The varnishing and sludge is not totally unexpected, and right now I'm starting to figure the service advisor may be right, but the quote of $5,000 for a remanufactured engine is just way out considering the blue book for this car on trade-in is $1,500. So, I tell them to just do what I told them to do and to call me when they are done.

The next day at 2pm I give them a call and they are test driving the car. I pick it up at 4pm and there is a high pitched noise coming from it that I assume is the cam rubbing on a cam guide because of the galling and it being disturbed during the valve stem replacement. But, to my happy satisfaction the clouds of blue smoke coming from the exhaust are gone when I rev the engine. The valve stem seal replacement is a success. But there is still the issue of blowby to consider. On the way home, the "check engine" light comes on after about 15 minutes. I check the fluids and all is well.

Yesterday I take it into a local garage and have them run a full electronic diagnostic and to pull the codes. Seems there is no noticable blowby, all cylinders are balanced, iow, compression on all the cylinders is in normal range indicating no problem with rings. Furthermore the odd sound is coming from the fuel pump area. The codes for the check engine light indicate both sides of the engine are running rich because the oxygen sensors are not indicating anything to the computer. So right now I need to replace 2 oxygen sensors and a fuel pump. During this ordeal I noticed exhaust was leaking from a few holes in the muffler, got to replace that also.

Interesting news while getting the codes pulled. Seems the Ford dealer I was going to, has recently cut the paid vacation for all of it's employees from 3 to 2 weeks. They've also stopped matching contributions into the employees 401k's. No wonder they were hard selling an engine I didn't need. I'm glad I took the time to do my research before taking it in to the shop. All indications now are that while I do have some minor problems, the car is safe to drive. I'll be changing the oil every 1,000 miles or so, this should slowly clean out the engine as the detergents in the oil are only effective for the first 1,000 miles or so, I'll need to get it out on the highway once a week or so and really get it warmed up, this will help with the oil slowly cleaning out the sludge. Maybe one of those new high tech engine flushes later this summer...

This has been a real enlightening experience this week.

Major Update:

I don't know why I didn't post this earlier, but I took the car to a small independent auto repair shop to have a once over. Seems the high-pitched whine and rich burning condition are caused by a pinched return fuel line. Conceivably this was done when the valve cover was removed, but I wouldn't put it past the dealership to do this intentionally to get me to swap the engine for $5k after spending $740 for the valve stem work. In case your wondering about the return fuel line. Well in 95 or 96, Ford put a fuel pressure regulator on the fuel rail that feeds the injectors. So when the pressure is right in the fuel rail, the sensor stops the flow of fuel from the fuel tank, one fuel line from tank to engine. In my car, this is handled by a constant pressure fuel pump, fuel flows from the gas tank pump to the engine, around the fuel rail and back to the pump and into the tank. The high pitched whine was the fuel pump sucking fuel, but none coming. So the fuel pressure in the fuel rail was receiving an increase with no way to regulate the pressure resulting in an overpressure of fuel in the rail. When the injectors opened to allow fuel into the cylinder, the pressure being well above normal allowed too much fuel into the cylender resulting in a rich burning condition. So for an additional $330 dollars, I had 2 hours of diagnostics, and a fuel rail replaced. The end of the saga, the car is running great, no oil is being burned.