Private Mechanic doing Valve Spring replacement

[Bowflex]

It’s a long job and expensive job. It makes no sense to pay for it when the dealer is doing it for free. You also get a rental car and warranty through the dealership.

[Stomachbuzz]

Originally Posted by Impureclient

I am a travelling bacon collector with a penchant for kite flying. I have arachibutyrophobia and like long walkways that lead to beaches.

Sapphireho is a former conjoined twin educated in endogamic marital counseling and trained in Sambo. He likes long walks on the beach, is allergic to peanuts and has luposlipaphobia. Also, he's Batman.

I can't wait to see you together on House Hunters then

[DandoX]

Originally Posted by TommyW

well I have a very trusted mechanic that has worked on all but my Porsches for 30:years. I’m sure this is hard for you to understand. Carry on....

If I where you I would take it to Longo, they have a solid track record of performing the J02 recall. I was super paranoid and difficult customer and they did a good job. They had no problems telling me if any of the cars they have worked on for J02 recalls had comeback with engine failure. Danny the service advisor I had, told me the few issues they have seen after the recall which where minor and then resolved by the dealer. I would guess they have done over 40+ at this point.

I did a lot of research to find the most capable dealership with the best service dept record in the general area and found that Longo wast the best bet. Call em up and ask for Danny the service advisor and make sure the master tech named Jason does the job. When I had mine done he was the only person allowed to do the job, and he did it well. They let me go meet Jason and talk with him, he was doing a J02 recall on another FRS at the time. I explained Im paranoid and Im placing a lot of trust in him because I treasure my twin greatly. He reassured me and did a solid job.

[TommyW]

Originally Posted by DandoX

If I where you I would take it to Longo, they have a solid track record of performing the J02 recall. I was super paranoid and difficult customer and they did a good job. They had no problems telling me if any of the cars they have worked on for J02 recalls had comeback with engine failure. Danny the service advisor I had, told me the few issues they have seen after the recall which where minor and then resolved by the dealer. I would guess they have done over 40+ at this point.

I did a lot of research to find the most capable dealership with the best service dept record in the general area and found that Longo wast the best bet. Call em up and ask for Danny the service advisor and make sure the master tech named Jason does the job. When I had mine done he was the only person allowed to do the job, and he did it well. They let me go meet Jason and talk with him, he was doing a J02 recall on another FRS at the time. I explained Im paranoid and Im placing a lot of trust in him because I treasure my twin greatly. He reassured me and did a solid job.

Awesome. Thank you. I will reach out to them for sure.

[Dave-ROR]

Originally Posted by Stomachbuzz

This knee jerk fear over the valve spring recall is like totally unreal lol

Yall know it's like a 12 hour job as per the shop manual, right? Like, the motor has to be removed, and then the heads pretty thoroughly disassembled.
It's a lot of labor to pay for.
And then you have to pay for the new springs. I have no idea how much they are, but it's laughable to even consider paying for it out of pocket when it's being offered for free.

One of the mechanics is a Subaru tech, with all the parts laid out, specific instructions from Subaru, all the tools and equipment to do the job. By now, they have probably done at least 200 of them. Oh, and, by the way, it's free. The entire job, plus oil change, plus coolant, and a few other small trinkets.

The other mechanic is a private tech, with none of the parts until you either supply them, or he finds a list of all the parts necessary. He has no instructions, other than his own intuition/experience. Maybe he can find some torque values, but that's it. And all his tools/equipment are generic.
This will very likely be the first valve spring recall he's ever done.
Oh, and his price is $1000 + parts.

Tough call....

If you're THAT worried about it with $$$ to blow, why don't you just let the dealer do it for free, sign off on the recall, and then immediately go to a private shop and have performance valvetrain put in or something?
The fear mongering just don't make sense to me.

While I agree that a dealer should do this (and a private mechanic won't be able to show the recall as completed anyways..) there are plenty of failures still happening. A co worker had his fail about a month ago. The car I bought from salvage auction was just done 3 or 4 months ago (and it then got hailed on while sitting around broken).

So again I agree the dealer should do the work but let's not pretend that they aren't still breaking them.

[Stomachbuzz]

Originally Posted by Dave-ROR

While I agree that a dealer should do this (and a private mechanic won't be able to show the recall as completed anyways..) there are plenty of failures still happening. A co worker had his fail about a month ago. The car I bought from salvage auction was just done 3 or 4 months ago (and it then got hailed on while sitting around broken).

So again I agree the dealer should do the work but let's not pretend that they aren't still breaking them.

lol
dealers and mechanics will break everything they touch eventually

I'm skeptical the failure rate on this recall is really any higher than the failure rate on any service they do. The difference is this recall is much more invasive than most vehicle services they do.

I had the frame replaced on my 2005 Tacoma, and my truck was disgusting when they gave it back. It was ridiculous. So many issues (large and small) that I have well documented through legal paperwork, photos, videos, etc.

I shoved it up their *** then, and I [was]/[am still] prepared to do that if my FRS blows up. They get paid for the service, and I'm not going to be worse off because they f'ed it up.
But it's also been like 8k miles since they did the recall, so I don't know.

I think you guys have to realize -- and a lot of owners of these cars are young men who have little, if any, experience with car ownership or dealing with mechanics/dealerships -- this is a risk with any service you have performed on your car, or anything else in your life for that matter!

It's ALWAYS the same deal:
"You broke it when you were working on it."
No I didn't.
"Yes, you did."
Prove it!


It's literally the same thing.
Let's say your Chevy Malibu blows the head gasket. You pay the dealer to fix it.
15k miles later it blows again, and you take it to a different shop who says "whoa whoa whoa!!! This was shoddy work!"

What are you gonna do? Take it back to the dealer, who will deny it, then you gotta fight them.
This is not isolated to the "J02 recall" -- it's LIFE guys.

You hire an HVAC tech to work on the AC at your house. 6 months later you find out they goofed around and tweaked one of your refrigerant lines, causing it to rupture when winter came.
You have to turn back the clock 6 months and try to fight them on it.
"That happened after we left."


The easier it is to hide being the ambiguity of the situation, the more they will do it.
"Someone else FUBAR'd that after we worked on it"
"It wasn't like that when I worked on it"
"Prove it was us"
"Your car was already like that"

It's always he said/she said. You have to learn skills and develop tools to protect yourself in this world. Maybe you gotta be that annoying customer who takes lots of B&A pictures. Maybe you have to meet each tech working on the car. Maybe you have to be that annoying guy who calls 3 dealers and asks how much experience they have with the recall.
Maybe you gotta get your hands dirty afterwards fighting an uphill battle, threatening legal action.

[Dave-ROR]

Originally Posted by Stomachbuzz

lol
dealers and mechanics will break everything they touch eventually

I'm skeptical the failure rate on this recall is really any higher than the failure rate on any service they do. The difference is this recall is much more invasive than most vehicle services they do.

I had the frame replaced on my 2005 Tacoma, and my truck was disgusting when they gave it back. It was ridiculous. So many issues (large and small) that I have well documented through legal paperwork, photos, videos, etc.

I shoved it up their *** then, and I [was]/[am still] prepared to do that if my FRS blows up. They get paid for the service, and I'm not going to be worse off because they f'ed it up.
But it's also been like 8k miles since they did the recall, so I don't know.

I think you guys have to realize -- and a lot of owners of these cars are young men who have little, if any, experience with car ownership or dealing with mechanics/dealerships -- this is a risk with any service you have performed on your car, or anything else in your life for that matter!

It's ALWAYS the same deal:
"You broke it when you were working on it."
No I didn't.
"Yes, you did."
Prove it!


It's literally the same thing.
Let's say your Chevy Malibu blows the head gasket. You pay the dealer to fix it.
15k miles later it blows again, and you take it to a different shop who says "whoa whoa whoa!!! This was shoddy work!"

What are you gonna do? Take it back to the dealer, who will deny it, then you gotta fight them.
This is not isolated to the "J02 recall" -- it's LIFE guys.

You hire an HVAC tech to work on the AC at your house. 6 months later you find out they goofed around and tweaked one of your refrigerant lines, causing it to rupture when winter came.
You have to turn back the clock 6 months and try to fight them on it.
"That happened after we left."


The easier it is to hide being the ambiguity of the situation, the more they will do it.
"Someone else FUBAR'd that after we worked on it"
"It wasn't like that when I worked on it"
"Prove it was us"
"Your car was already like that"

It's always he said/she said. You have to learn skills and develop tools to protect yourself in this world. Maybe you gotta be that annoying customer who takes lots of B&A pictures. Maybe you have to meet each tech working on the car. Maybe you have to be that annoying guy who calls 3 dealers and asks how much experience they have with the recall.
Maybe you gotta get your hands dirty afterwards fighting an uphill battle, threatening legal action.

Of course mechanics can break something while attempting a fix. This failure rate is much higher though because they RTV the ever living shit out of it after scraping off a ton of RTV that was factory applied. I've taken one of these repaired (and then blown up) FA20s apart and the amount of RTV used was absolutely ridiculous. After seeing the way Toyota techs repair these (and the failure % was much higher with them than it was with Subaru techs) it's no wonder they have issues.

Now between Opie and I we have had 3 of these recalls done on personal vehicles now. Each one had an oil drain after and a quick look to see if any excess was in the pan and pickup. All were clean and none of those cars have had issues.

[Lonewolf]

Originally Posted by Stomachbuzz

lol
dealers and mechanics will break everything they touch eventually

I'm skeptical the failure rate on this recall is really any higher than the failure rate on any service they do. The difference is this recall is much more invasive than most vehicle services they do.

I had the frame replaced on my 2005 Tacoma, and my truck was disgusting when they gave it back. It was ridiculous. So many issues (large and small) that I have well documented through legal paperwork, photos, videos, etc.

I shoved it up their *** then, and I [was]/[am still] prepared to do that if my FRS blows up. They get paid for the service, and I'm not going to be worse off because they f'ed it up.
But it's also been like 8k miles since they did the recall, so I don't know.

I think you guys have to realize -- and a lot of owners of these cars are young men who have little, if any, experience with car ownership or dealing with mechanics/dealerships -- this is a risk with any service you have performed on your car, or anything else in your life for that matter!

It's ALWAYS the same deal:
"You broke it when you were working on it."
No I didn't.
"Yes, you did."
Prove it!


It's literally the same thing.
Let's say your Chevy Malibu blows the head gasket. You pay the dealer to fix it.
15k miles later it blows again, and you take it to a different shop who says "whoa whoa whoa!!! This was shoddy work!"

What are you gonna do? Take it back to the dealer, who will deny it, then you gotta fight them.
This is not isolated to the "J02 recall" -- it's LIFE guys.

You hire an HVAC tech to work on the AC at your house. 6 months later you find out they goofed around and tweaked one of your refrigerant lines, causing it to rupture when winter came.
You have to turn back the clock 6 months and try to fight them on it.
"That happened after we left."


The easier it is to hide being the ambiguity of the situation, the more they will do it.
"Someone else FUBAR'd that after we worked on it"
"It wasn't like that when I worked on it"
"Prove it was us"
"Your car was already like that"

It's always he said/she said. You have to learn skills and develop tools to protect yourself in this world. Maybe you gotta be that annoying customer who takes lots of B&A pictures. Maybe you have to meet each tech working on the car. Maybe you have to be that annoying guy who calls 3 dealers and asks how much experience they have with the recall.
Maybe you gotta get your hands dirty afterwards fighting an uphill battle, threatening legal action.

Show us on the hot wheels where the bad mechanic touched you...


But in all seriousness, there are good mechanics and bad mechanics, and even sometimes the good ones make mistakes (just like with any kind of professional-lawyers, doctors, etc.). Deal with it and move on. If you are out a lot of money because of someone's mistake, then fight for it, but don't let it consume your life. In the end, it's just a car...

[TommyW]

Originally Posted by Dave-ROR

I've taken one of these repaired (and then blown up) FA20s apart and the amount of RTV used was absolutely ridiculous. After seeing the way Toyota techs repair these (and the failure % was much higher with them than it was with Subaru techs) it's no wonder they have issues.

Now between Opie and I we have had 3 of these recalls done on personal vehicles now. Each one had an oil drain after and a quick look to see if any excess was in the pan and pickup. All were clean and none of those cars have had issues.

Is RTV the hand applied sealer they use?

[DarkSideFRS]

U can tell who are the ones that got screwed on the recall vs the ones who made it without any issues... The later ones tend to talk almighty and being very ignorant of the fact that a lot of people got screwed... I have to take mine in around June next year in order to get my CA registration...I am hoping for the best, but won't be surprised if I can screwed

[Dave-ROR]

Originally Posted by TommyW

Is RTV the hand applied sealer they use?

Yes. The bigger problem is all the factory sealant they dump into the motor. The new sealant just makes it a pain in the ass to take it back apart. Mine also had a bent oil pan from their repair.

[jflogerzi]

even if you get screwed dealer still needs to fix it. But While your in their have them do a few Maint. items like Spark plugs, TOB (check the clutch and have replacement on hand if needed. The dealer will do this at no costs as long as you provide them consumables.

[finch1750]

Originally Posted by jflogerzi

even if you get screwed dealer still needs to fix it. But While your in their have them do a few Maint. items like Spark plugs, TOB (check the clutch and have replacement on hand if needed. The dealer will do this at no costs as long as you provide them consumables.

The people getting screwed are the ones where the dealer didn't fix it.

[jflogerzi]

Originally Posted by finch1750

The people getting screwed are the ones where the dealer didn't fix it.

That's what I mean. Have the dealer do it because they will need to make you whole if they mess up. Do not pay out of pocket for the recall.

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