A $5,500 Repair for $400

[Jeff Higgins]

My wife's Subaru Outback wagon lost power last week due to a plugged cat. In the preliminary stages of this little adventure we, of course, had no idea it was a plugged cat. It was off to the dealer for diagnosis, a dealer with whom we have had a wonderful relationship for our entire married life. We buy all of her cars from this dealer, and they have always maintained them for us as well.

It did not light up the check engine light, nor was it throwing any codes. The dealer traced the problem down to a plugged forward cat (it has two), and told her that it had disintegrated the catalyst, which had been blown downstream and had clogged and ruined the entire exhaust system. All of it. Two new cats, a resonator, two mufflers, and all of the pipes - $5,500 with labor. I told her to bring it home...

I called the service manager and asked how they determined all of this. She told me that their "best mechanic", a guy with "50 years wrenching on Subarus" (have they even been importing them that long?), had made the call. He said the "front" cat was glowing red, extremely hot. Hmmm...

The front cat on these cars is integral to the exhaust manifolds / forward "Y" pipe, and is very difficult to see, even on a lift. The second cat is about in the middle of the car, with a resonator aft of it. I was suspicious... his "forward cat" only appeared as such to him because of the resonator behind it.

The O2 sensors on this car are placed ahead of and behind the forward cat, on the manifold. So, if the rear cat goes, it's not going to throw the code it would if the front cat went. The mechanic said it was "kinda weird" that it showed no codes, but that he had "seen this before". No schitt, Sherlock. And he had no idea why...

When she got it home I let it cool down a bit and removed the rear cat and attendant piping. Shaking it, it sounded like a coffee can full of gravel. Tipping it up, I poured most of the disintegrated catalyst out. Using a mirror and a flashlight, I was able to inspect the front cat to my satisfaction. Intact.

Four hours later I had a new Magnaflow brand cat from the local auto parts store installed and ready to road test. $400. To absolutely no one's surprise, the car runs like new.

So, well, wow - I feel well and truly sorry for the portion of our motoring public who are beholden to this kind of "service". The dealer mechanic clearly didn't know this cat from a hole in the ground. Beyond that, to try to claim that the entire exhaust system needs replacement because it got contaminated by the disintegrated cat - wow, that's just beyond the pale. And people just pay, because they really have no other options.

Incompetent, crooked, or some mix of both? Opportunists? Hate to say it, but maybe because she is a woman?

[mgatepi]

There are just way too many people that will not ask the hard questions...they just pay. The dealers know this and capitalize on it regularly.
Dealerships make their profit from their service centers not from selling cars....

[biosurfer1]

Guess you have to amend your 3rd and 4th sentence now.

[1990C4S]

To be fair, the solution they proposed would have worked...

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Jeff Higgins

Incompetent, crooked, or some mix of both? Opportunists? Hate to say it, but maybe because she is a woman?

I've done a bunch of work on cars, and understand how the mechanical systems work (much like many/most of the folks on the board). I'm "mechanically inclined."

When I was younger, I spent ~3 years working at a retail parts place in FL. I've seen and heard some crazy stories about folks getting screwed. I'm not actually sure if "they" differentiate between men and women these days when they try this stuff.

I honestly don't know if it's incompetence or malfeasance. My guess is that it's a combination of both. Sometimes, it's one, sometimes it's the other and sometimes it's both at the same time.

I've heard and seen several stories where folks needed to have their auto transmissions rebuilt, but then they changed the fluid and filter and were fine.

I had a lady come in one morning with 3 little girls in tow. She bought 8 quarts of oil. I don't remember how it came up, but I ended up hearing that she had an appt ot go to Firestone on the weekend to have her oil pan gasket replaced because it was leaking and the 8 quarts of oil were what she'd need to get to work which was <5 miles away. Looking at her and the girls you could tell that they were at best, living paycheck to paycheck. I went out and looked at her car which was something like a Ford Escort or Mercury Topaz or something.

The oil filter in the car was front and center of the motor and easily seen and reached with the hood popped. The filter was unscrewed so far that I could fit my fingers between the filter gasket and the block. I screwed the filter back in and helped her fill the car with oil. I told her that her car was fixed and to never go back there again.

She told me the reason that she went there was because she had a Firestone credit card so it was the only place that she could go.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by 1990C4S

To be fair, the solution they proposed would have worked...

hahahaha. True!

[Chocaholic]

Also...most who use dealer service don’t have the equipment or ability to lift a car, get under it, disassemble a well-seasoned exhaust system, etc., etc.

[Jeff Higgins]

Originally Posted by biosurfer1

Guess you have to amend your 3rd and 4th sentence now.

Yeah, I know a lot of people would do just that. Never go there again. The thing is, though, her next car will be another new Subaru, that much is certain. She loves the things. No talking her out of it. And, well, when new, we always buy the extended maintenance and warranty packages. So, while still under that coverage, I couldn't care less if they want to throw new parts on it for no good reason. Of course when it's their dime, the diagnosis likely changes dramatically, so there is that. But, in the end, is any other dealer going to be "better"? This place has an outstanding reputation. And we have a 30 year relationship. They get her in when others wait for weeks for appointments. I'm not sure, at this stage of our lives, if I want to re-establish with another dealer, and not only be in the back of their appointment que all the time, but likely receive no "better" service. It's a quandary.

[HardDrive]

I took my MB to the stealership for an oil change. It had an engine light on because of an emissions part (secondary air injection pump). The part is garbage, they typically only last 2 years. Because I do not live in a county that does emissions testing, I ignore it.

I didn't ask an estimate, but they took the light as an invitation to give me an estimate for everything that they could find wrong with the car. $7000. worth of baloney.

[Steve Carlton]

That's a tough one. I tell Volvo buyers I wouldn't own one past the extended warranty. Not easy to say, but in my mind, honest.

I would say their "best mechanic" concept is flawed. He's either incompetent or dishonest. If the service manager thinks he's their best mechanic, either she is wrong or dishonest. How would it go for you if you specifically requested this mechanic not work on your car if you went there again? What do their Yelp reviews say? Perhaps it was an honest mistake (with $5K of your money at stake), or maybe they saw an opportunity to shake down a trusting long term customer. My confidence in them would be shaken.

How hard would it be to go to another Subaru dealer? Would making appointments a couple of weeks in advance be that difficult?

[KNS]

You need to tell the Service Manager what you found. He may be honest but the 50 year tech an idiot. If the SM is dishonest it will alert him not to try and pull any more schit with you.

[Seahawk]

I hate that, Jeff.

Thankfully, with one exception that really wasn't that egregious, the local Toyota dealerships maintenance department is great and reasonably priced.

I took my 1996 LC in (they have a guy who knows them very well) for an oil change, filters, tire rotation, etc. and to look at the a/c, which is blowing tepid. I live in a part of the world where, as I have said many times, you can wear the air. No a/c is, to put it in aviation terminology, a downing discrepancy.

Just got off the phone: "3/4 low on R Whatever, passed 20 minute vacuum test, can't find the leak if there is one. We put a tracer element in the R Whatever and recommend you bring it back in 2000 miles. It will take us 10 minutes to find a leak if there even is one. It might be the original stuff. A/C is blowing cold.

The rest of the 100 Point Inspection is clean."

$310 with taxes. I know a 100 Point Inspection is the "Family Size Deodorant" of the auto repair game, but they, perhaps because some of the kids that work there went to school with my kids, I've owned seven Toyota's and have had my cars serviced there for 25 years, they have been fair.

Still, trust but verify.

[908/930]

Possibly the best selling tech they have, the service managers job is to convince you to spend, I absolutely would call them on it, recommend he gets some proper training. I have done this at a BMW dealership when the car was in for a warranty check and the tech tightened the wheel bolts to about 200ft lbs, they supplied me new bolts, never went there again.

Send a email to the sales manager telling him you are not impressed with the service team, and will have difficulty purchasing a car there again, at least that way somebody up top will hear about it.

[pmax]

I'll play contrarian.

Whatever damaged the secondary probably had an effect on the forward.
And the mechanic is correct, there's crud from the disintegrated cat in the system. Fixing it correctly which of course is gold plating to us but hey, to some ANR types does matter, means getting all that out of the system which leads to that recommendation.

[greglepore]

Yeah, its why I avoid dealer service departments like the plague once the vehicle is out of warranty. They do things "by the book" which means the least likely way to cause a bringback, cost be damned. In your case, imho a good shop would say, hey, your center cat is bad, you might want to do the exhaust, but at a minimum do the center cat. Leave the choice to you. In any event, even if you did the entire exhaust, a good muffler shop could do it for 30% of 5500.

[Jeff Higgins]

Originally Posted by pmax

I'll play contrarian.

Whatever damaged the secondary probably had an effect on the forward.
And the mechanic is correct, there's crud from the disintegrated cat in the system. Fixing it correctly which of course is gold plating to us but hey, to some ANR types does matter, means getting all that out of the system which leads to that recommendation.

That very well could be. More information: I did remove the entire exhaust system aft of the manifold / first cat (it's amazingly easy to do on these cars). When I shook the crumbs and pieces out of the second (aft) cat and its piping, material only came out from the front, which would make sense if it was blocking the system. I did the same with the section of pipe with the resonator (which is aft of the second cat), the aft "Y" pipe, and both mufflers. Can't be too careful... None of these either rattled when shook nor was I able to dump any material out of them. In light of that, I'm relatively confident that all of the degraded, loose material was captured in front of, and came from the front of, that second cat. Which, of course, made me think it all could very well have come from the first, or forward cat.

If the first cat (the forward cat, the one in the manifold) had failed, one would expect the check engine light to come on, with a code generated by the O2 sensors. The fact that that never happened is an indication that the forward cat was fine. A visual inspection - and I could see most of the honeycomb with a mirror and a flashlight - indicated that the forward cat was fine as well.

One aspect of all of this that I find quite troubling is the fact that their "best, most experienced" mechanic is so unfamiliar with this car that he thought the second (aft) cat was actually the first (forward) cat, and that the resonator was the second cat. He could not understand how the cat could fail and not throw a code, since it must have the O2 sensors bracketing it. The fact that this second cat has no O2 sensors in front of or behind it is very, very easy to see with the car on a lift. It's all very exposed and quite visible (that's why I was able to swap it out so fast).

So, he knows it a cat, yet it's quite obvious there are no O2 sensors anywhere near it, and he is puzzled as to why it would not have thrown a code. No O2 sensors anywhere near what he thinks is the aft cat either. You need a flashlight, and you need to know where to look, but the two O2 sensors bracketing the front cat are visible (and accessible enough to easily replace). All you have to do is look...

This guy didn't know any of this, after "50 years" of working on Subarus. And he apparently was not curious enough to perform even the most cursory research - a quick look at a shop manual would have shown him the entire exhaust layout (as it did for me in a quick internet search). Just basic inquisitiveness - "why wouldn't it throw a code?", or "why am I not seeing any O2 sensors?", or "why would the 'second cat' be so darn big and a completely different shape?" and on and on. All pretty darn simple stuff. All stuff I was able to discern in about ten minutes of internet research. I don't even own a shop manual, I have never been trained on Subarus - and it took me ten minutes to figure this out. That bothers me - their "very best, most experienced" mechanic, with "50 years" on Subarus, had no idea what was going on...

[GH85Carrera]

My mother in law owned a Mercedes and there was no dealer in the little town she lives in. So she would make a trip down to spend the night with us, and then she would "let" me drop off the car, and they took me back to work.

It was just a routine service, and the car had no issues at all. The mechanic looked at the owner's name and saw Bertha, and assume she was an old lady that does not know much about cars. They called my number since I told them to call me when it was ready. He stammered a bit when he heard a man's voice, but the service writer said the mechanic noted that the front struts were shot, and the entire brakes systems needed to be replaced. The car had 30,000 miles and was driven by the epitome of the little old lady going back and forth to church and the grocery store.

I told them do NOT touch the struts or brakes, just do the normal service it was supposed to receive. I got the car home and looked at the brakes. I knew if the brakes were shot there would be a warning on the dash. There was none. I pulled the front wheels off, and the brakes were at 75% of the pad left. The rotors were pristine. I pried and shook the front end. I noticed zero noise or issues at all.

She sold that car 10,000 miles later with the same brakes and struts that the factory built the car with.

They quoted many thousands of dollars for the work that was "needed" to be done according to them.

I just know they saw her name, likely talked the the salesman that sold her the car new, and found she had written a check for it and figured she was an easy mark.

She drives a Nissan now and the dealership she uses is owned by a guy that she taught in 2nd grade. They treat her like a queen, and she loves it.

[LWJ]

I’m not the best mechanic. But I am fairly good

My wife will complain about all the service people we hire.

My response? Who are you comparing them to?

Me. And, btw, you’re welcome.

I (like Jeff) set the bar higher.

Funny.

[pmax]

Yeah, but did you speak to the mechanic or was all this relayed through the service manager mouthpiece ?

[Superman]

In the early days of CATs it was common for the innards to break away from the housing and rattle. The guts are a sort of brick of lightweight, brittle honeycomb. I generally fixed them with a broom handle, if you know what I mean.