Tuesday, January 15, 2013

No Recourse?

Time after time we have had bad experiences with mechanics and technicians here in South Texas. Eighty percenters is what my friend Andy calls them. We limped through the summer, going through three or four air conditioning technicians and thousands of dollars, and neither one of our heat pumps work. We thought we had the rear heat pump working, albeit without the heat since the technician ruined the reversing valve. So we tore into the front heat pump to replace a burned out fan motor. After removing and re installing the front unit we found it didn't cool. Another technician stepped in and said he'd get it running for $500. I got the unit back and re installed it. It ran for about twenty minutes and stopped cooling. Meanwhile the back unit started blowing the breaker and I shut it down. Two eighty percent jobs coming to fruition at the same time-wow. We recently had the coach in the shop for about three months because the engine overheated and burned up. It was a constant battle with the mechanic to get anything done. The coach has not run right since we got it back. Now we are again fighting overheating and a mechanic that has looked at it says that the mechanic who replaced the engine failed to clean and flush the radiator. Additionally all of the hoses appear to be rotten and need replacing, All of that should have been accomplished during the engine replacement. We have also had fuel and other fluid leaks since the engine replacement. Another eighty percent job. We had the floor under our toilet rot out from water that came from a valve that failed. The bathroom floor is tile so it was impossible to know the under floor structure was rotting till the toilet came loose. We hired a mechanic to rip up the tile and repair/replace the underfloor structure. The toilet is still loose and some of the tile has not been replaced. Yep, another eighty percent job. When we were trying to sell our Jeep we finally had to take it back from the mechanic after waiting weeks to get it repaired. Turns out the biggest problem we were concerned about was a ten minute fix, The mechanic said the rear seal was leaking on the engine and that the transmission had to be ripped out. All it was was a oil sensor leak; a simple fix. I'm not sure what percent that job was. We even ran into this problem trying to get our laptops repaired. One of them (mine) is rotting in its carry bag because the repairman finally returned it without a hard drive after three months of constant harassment. That wasn't even close to an eighty percent job. We are now going to concentrate on getting the cooling problem addressed, as getting down the road is the most important thing. The main problem we have is we are terrified that we again are going to find ourselves holding the bag on another eighty per cent job. We don't have the money to hire legal counsel and persecute these idiots. It appears that there is no recourse for us and others that have suffered from incompetence. More and more it appears that I'm going to have to get involved in order to get things done properly.

2 comments:

  1. With 30 years of living in S. Tx., I can confirm incompetence has no boundaries...one of the reasons we left..

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  2. You would think with all the snowbirds in South Texas one could find decent service technicians. Have you considered getting help from the Good Sam Action Line? I think that's what it's called, but it is a resource of the Good Sam Club. They do get results.

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