opinions

[mcditalia]

I want to share a recent experience I had with a restoration shop here in NJ. I had my rear differential rebuilt and detailed besides other work. I explained that the differential leaked fluid when the car was originally brought in the shop and I supplied a rebuild kit that I bought myself.

When I get the car back, the rear still leaked, though not as bad as it did before. It was suggested to go through a couple of heat cycles and re-torque the bolts. Still leaked. So I eventually bring the car back. The cover was reported to be slightly "warped" and the cover needed to come off again to reseal it better. Bottom line, it was agreed that he would perform the labor at half the cost stating that he didn't notice the warping before. Was this fair or not?

 

[67HEAVEN]

The cover was reported to be slightly "warped" and the cover needed to come off again to reseal it better.

How did he know the cover was slightly "warped" before taking it off again? Truth is these midyear differentials are actually mounted "into" the cover which is hanging from the rear crossmember.

You can see the four bolts coming down through the cover in this photo...

Typically, you would install the diff "into" the cover (which is hanging from the frame crossmember) in a body-on situation, rather than trying to remove the rear cover from the diff.

So, back to my question.......How did he know the cover was slightly "warped" before taking it off again?
;squint:

 

[IH2LOSE]

I guess its a silly question but where excactly is the leak coming from?

Is the cover off now and he is able to confirm with a straight edge that the cover is warped

Or

did you bring it to the shop and he put it on the lift and after inspecting it still in the car he said its a warped cover and youll have to pay extra


EDIT Sorry I just re-read you post and it seams the car is still together and he is looking at it to determin the cover is warped????


If you brought it in to fix a leak, and the leak was not corrected because they over looked something I dont think you should have to pay a dime.unless the said to you when the car was apart. "We have you car apart, I think the cover is warped,we can try and put it back together but it may leak or we should put a new cover on it for an addtional charge what to you want do" if you said dont replace the cover then its on you

If they miss disanoised the leak repair then it should be on them with the exception of the addtional parts or labor you would have originially had to pay extra if the car was still apart. there lack of knowledge or skill or exspereance should not cost you more money


The the last thing how did you schedule this

Did you say I have a diff leak I want fixed and while you at it detaile the bottom of the car?

or

I want you to detail the bottom of my car, I purchased a seal kit for the rear end please put it use it


I say this as we are a heating and cooling company and we used to get in to trouble with customers because they would call us to replace there outdoor A/C unit, We install a new one and when we are leak testing the system we find a refrigeration leak in the inside coil of the home, May bee its a tiny leak or a large one but we allways test , we would tell the customer you have a leak Uou have to fix it,if we dont the new unit will have problems , They would say well I bought the new unit because i assumed the leak was out there you have to fix the leak for free, Well thats not true they hired us to replace the outdoor unit we should not be liable for the leak

Now when we get a call like that we ask them why they want to replace the out door unit, If they say they always lose refrigerant gas we then suggest a leak test to properly diagnoise the problem because the leak may not becoming from the out door unit it just may be a simple repair .

 

[Sky65]

Assuming the agreement was to repair the leak and rebuild the diff, that my friend is a "comeback". They should fix it no charge except for cost that would have been incurred anyway while they were repairing it the first time. If the cover is the cause of the leak they should charge you only for the cover, you would have had to pay for that the first time. And, any additional labor to replace the cover with the the diff already removed. You already paid for that in the first rebuild. IMHO that is the way a reputable shop would make good on a mistake. Mistakes happen sometimes. I have no problem with that. How they make it right is the real issue.

 

[mcditalia]

The leak was coming from the bottom of the cover. When the car was brought in for repair I supplied the rebuild kit and had the rear diff and half shafts detailed. I advised the shop the diff was leaking then.

When I telephoned the shop, he stated that he would dissasemble the rear again and "assumed" that the cover or casing was "warped" and would split the cost with me to "reseal it". This is without him even looking at it. I agreed because I needed the problem to be fixed ASAP. After bringing it back to the shop and getting it fixed, I was advised that the cover was warped a few hundreths of an inch and he had no way of knowing that the first time. Looking back this is bull****. Why wasn't it checked it the first time?

This didn't sit well with me but I agreed to split the cost which came to be $600. Mainly because I believed the shop had a good rep and also becasue I needed to resolve this ASAP. My first receipt states "rebuild diff" and the second one indicates "fixed diff leak" which makes it seem like 2 different things. But bottom line, the shop knew it leaked and that cover should have been looked at the first time.

Either way, I got ripped off $600. So beware if you live in NJ with who you choose, and this shop is loosing my future business and hopefully the business of others. Not sure why it resulted like this. Seems stupid for a shop to pull this **** with a new customer.

 

[GTR1999]

Sounds to me your shop is not familar with vette diff's.

The diff will leak from several places.

The pinion yoke and/or seal
The side yoke seals
The rear cover or the bolt holes in the rear cover. When longer spring bolts are used they'll crack the cover boss inside.

I specialize in vette diff and never had a warped cover, that's BS in my opinion. Cracked or broken yes, never warped. I suppose there is a chance of this happening but I'd look at the other areas.

If the diff was rebuilt how was it done? Were you given the setup spec's on the job? How does it sound?

I would look into this more as I suspect you didn't get what you thought you did.

Good luck

 

[JL66REDCPE]

Please share the name of the shop with us. If this is a shop we should avoid, we have to know who it is so we dont get stuck.