My car overheated about an hour and a half away from home 4 days ago and each day there is a new problem with it. I'll try to make this brief. On Sunday it broke down and was towed to a Jack Williams. On Monday they said I need a new heater core ($822) and I'd be out of there by 6pm, it took longer than they expected and said it would be done first thing on Tuesday. Fine by me. They call up on Tuesday and say there is a new problem, one of the hoses has a hole in it and needs to be replaced ($108), they have to order it so now I'm gonna have to wait till Wednesday. They said that if I rent a car then they will reimburse me so that's a credit to them (I'll believe it when I see the money). I called up on Wednesday (today) and they said that they took it for a test drive and it overheated on them. I was told that the neck on the radiator is brittle and falling apart ($350), they have to order one and they will have it done on Thursday. I'm thinking that tomorrow they will discover that the water pump is bad. My question is, if they pressure tested it, like they said they did, wouldn't the problem with the hose and radiator be recognized from the beginning? I don't know anything about pressure testing a cooling system but it seems like finding a hole in hose would be very easy. Then it took 3 days to discover that the neck of the radiator is brittle, is this possible? Does anybody know how it's determined if a heater core is bad? I'm thinking that since the car is still overheating then the heater core probably didn't need to be changed. I obviously don't know much about the subject and if somebody can fill me in on what the standard procedure is for finding problems with an overheating car it would be greatly appreciated. I live in New York and the problem happened in Pennsylvania, the car is a 96 BMW 328is. I have to talk to these people in the morning and I want to sound more knowledgeable than I have been. Do you know PA law regarding this?
- posted
16 years ago