Sounds like they made an "educated" guess based on experience. Hopefully they talked to you before doing this and left the ball in your court. When I have to do this I explain to the customer why I would suggest said repairs and that this may not be the correct part to replace but there is NO WAY to know. We blame the shop yet there is NO WAY to tell where his problem lies. If the problem is consistant then it is a ton easier to diagnose. But the problem is when the truck magically starts, now what? Hmm, let the truck go and have a pissed off customer when it breaks down again or explain to the customer the situation and let him make the decision. I dont think the distributor was a bad guess and seems rather logical. We dont yell or ***** to the doctor when he misdiagnosis us, we just let him rip off our insurance and keep on billing us and putting us through physical therapy until the problem is fixed. But bottom line, I hope they will make it right with you. In this situation I would now just begin to charge you for parts, no diagnosis time or labor. But if the shop TOLD you this was for sure the problem then they are in fact semi-responsible.

It really is hit or miss on proper repairs, It's sad because there are a lot of dedicated and trustworthy mech's.
I don't fool around anymore, I tell the service manager right up front that he will either be on my christmas card list or he will run and hide when he see's me pull up <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

The shops business is to fix vehicles. With that there comes the resposibility to have do the repair correclty.

Mistakes will be made over time, its just how it goes. Do something enough times you may get it wrong now and again. The better a tech you are, the fewer mistakes you make.

Now here is the big question who pays for the mistake? I really dont think that it should be the customer, but many shops depend on being able to BS people so they dont have to eat an expensive repair that was not needed.

If you were told up front, its a crap shoot , may be this, may be that: would you put $500 on a 50 -50 shot with no pay back if your right? I think you would go for another shop that could tell you for sure what the problem was , even if it cost a bit more.

That said there are a few scenerios that are possible:

1: You had a bad dist and the replacment is bad as well( intermitant).

2: You had a bad dist and a bad ECU ( shops claim). Not the most likely scenerio, but possible.

3: Your dist was fine and you have some other component that is intermitant.

Option 1, they should make good on their repair

Option 2, they need to finish the job and you are responsible of the ECU repair.

Option 3 say the shop messed up its diagnonis and should credit you for the dist repair.

Thats how it should work at least. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/cyclops.gif" alt="" />

My question is how can they tell what the problem is? They really need to be able to check the signals on a scope. If they dont have a scope or know how to use one then they are just guessing.

I would make sure that the old part is availible for a retest to make sure its really bad.

A reasonalbe question is how did they test the system to find the bad component? If (according to them) the ECU is bad and killing the distributor does that mean your new dist is now bad or damaged?


IMHO they are feeding you FUD... For fun you can fight FUD with more FUD:

How about they put in a defective dist in that blew up your good ECU?

Serioulsy, this type of negotiation can be tricky and depends on the integrity of the person you are dealing with. A second opinion of what is wrong from a shop that is good at electrical may be needed.

Kevin

The optical system has four wires. with key on and connector disconnected, you should have the following:
Red wire---battery voltage
Black wire---Ground
White wire---5 volts
Green wire---5 volts
If this checks out, reconnect the connector and crank the engine. The white and green wires should each toggle between 0 and 5 volts. In just a few minutes, you have isolated the problem.
No way to know?

He brought it in with a no start condition. How consistant is that?

So in other words, he pays for parts until you guess right?
Conner

Check em out with the better buisness bureau or consumer affairs to see if their were other complaints aginst him or his shop ...That way youll know what corse to take .