Camaro Update

Ok, this will be a long one. Grab a beer and a sammich; you're going to be here for a while.

Tuesday night my Mom and I took her car to Strongsville in order to pick up the Morgan after his A+ certification class (10PM). Wednesday afternoon at 2PM Chippy calls about the car. Now mind you, I was told they'd call prior to installing a new computer, if necessary. Chippy tells me the car is $585, or $820 if they replace the alternator. I told him I'd call the Chevy dealer where Morgan works to find out the cost of the alternator, and I'd call him back. I called him in about a half hour and told him to not replace the alternator, and that he'd have to wait a while until we could pick up the car as they were supposed to call prior to replacing the computer. His reply was "I didn't know we were supposed to call". Fuck you, dickweed. Anyway, he calls back an hour and a half later to tell me they've located a used computer, have switched them out and the car is now $385. Nice, I'm not even going to comment on that right now. Anyway, my Mom loaned us $200 and we picked up the car that night. Chippy told us it would run rough because it needs a new alternator, but that it was fine once you got going. Um, wrong. The car stalled out as soon as you took your foot off the gas, whether or not you were sitting still. Somehow Morgan managed to get the car back to my house (about 5 miles from the "repair" shop), and then he hit the Interweb. Bare minimum, these fucks adjusted the timing with the timing control thing still plugged into the computer. So Morgan goes outside, pulls that control thing and the car runs much better. We went to Wal-Mart and back, the car ran almost like normal (I even got to drive it home!). The car was still a bit rough around the edges, but didn't stall or anything at idle. Morgan goes out Thursday afternoon at 2PM to leave for work, and the car won't start. By this time he's pretty well pissed off, so he proceeds to flip out. He wound up calling Chippy and screaming at him for every part of 25 mintues. Turns out the VIN on the replacement computer matches the VIN of our car; strange, yes? A lot of other things were supposedly replaced as well, but I doubt they were. Morgan wound up not being able to make it to work yesterday, so he wasn't happy at all. He did, however, get the car running again because he rocks. He drove it to a new repair shop last night (the guy recommended by Don) and then my Mom and I drove him home from there. The upshot is he's paying $385 to the people who fucked up the car, and now has to pay more to get what they fucked up fixed. The owner of the new shop we're taking it to, Bennington's, said he'll get it checked out today and let me know what's doing. Blah!

Below is what was supposedly done to the Camaro to the tune of $385:
Computer
Plugs
Distributor coil
Put on the scope thing ($55)
Cleaned the intake
Ignition switch/module
Labor

What we think they didn't do for various reasons listed below:
Computer
Plugs
Coil
Intake

OK, obviously the VIN match on the computer and our car indicates they are up to fuckery. At the very least they just replaced a $45 module in the computer and charged us for the whole thing. At the most they didn't replace anything having to do with the computer, and are charging us for it anyway.
One person said they changed the plugs, another said the didn't. OK?
One person said they didn't touch the distributor, another said they changed the coil that's on top of the fucking distrbutor, and that he tried rebuilding the distributor. Again, OK?
The rust and screws are exactly like they were when we took the car to the shop. There's no way they removed the intake for cleaning without breaking the rust off the screws.
The only thing everyone down there can agree on is they didn't touch the timing. Obviously they fucking did as the timing is waaaay off.
Additionally, the car now runs hot whereas it ran fine before they "fixed" him. He used to run at a quarter on the gauge, and the fan would kick on once it reached a half. Morgan said on the way to Bennington's last night the car ran at a half the whole time, and the fan didn't kick on. He also said he can hear coolant squirting out, and we have to keep adding it to the reservoir. Hopefully those fucks just bumped a hose loose, but I'll still call to fucking bitch about it. This is so far past ridiculous, I don't know what to do anymore.

I'll post again when I find out what additional work needs performing in order to get the car back to how it was before it died a week and a half ago. At least he's not being touched by those yahoos anymore, so that's a good thing. He's in capable hands, finally!

I took a break from blogging to spend time with the Morgan, sorry for the non-update the past couple days.

Hopefully I'll have the Camaro back Monday, that would rock.

That is all.