I had a US$1500 unexpected car repair! Ugh!

[oregano]

I was in Sacramento starting last Wednesday to have the overgrown gum tissue scraped away from my dental anchors in preparation for the plates going in. I had planned to return home on Sunday, but Saturday morning my car suddenly started idling rough. I drove it to a local repair shop that I trust and that would take walk ins. They said that one of my spark plugs had gone bad, along with its attendant "coil" (the thing that "caps" the plug to create a complete electrical circuit). With a car engine you can't replace just one bad plug, you have to replace all of them, especially since the other three were about to go bad too. And of course all four coils needed to be replaced. Cost: US$1460! Apparently the coils are US$250 EACH!

The front desk guy was really apologetic and was reeling off ways to mitigate the cost, so I told him, look buddy, I am going to be driving 300 miles within a couple days, and I don't want to break down in the middle of nowhere. He said, ok buddy, whatever. I told my mom and she started crying. But she said yeah, it needs to be done since I have to drive in some pretty remote areas between home and Sacramento. Even worse the fuel system needed to be flushed, and it took longer than they thought, so the shop had to stay open an hour past official closing so a tech could babysit my car while the cleaner went through the engine.

I waited there about two hours for my car to be done, I had my mom drop me off 45min before the shop closed so I could be there when it was done so I wouldn't have to worry about having my car be there overnight since the shop is in a ghetto. So I spent two hours in an un-airconditioned repair place with only a giant fan to keep the waiting room cool. When I finally got back to my mom's house it was way past my usual meds time so I had to stay an extra day.

 

[Aspychata]

Sorry to read this. Cars are expensive, however you really depend on your car, so it had to be fixed.

 

[Mary Terry]

I'm sorry that happened to you. Cars are costly to maintain.

This isn't relevant to your situation but a couple of days ago I was talking to an employee at the local Mercedes dealership about whether I should trade in my car and get a new one. He recommended that I not do that because the new models are notorious for having electrical problems. Even if a new car is still under warranty, it is incredibly inconvenient to have to take it in for repairs. My older Mercedes has never had electrical issues, I always have it serviced on schedule as recommended, and it runs great. It's a very reliable car so I'll continue to keep it. Sometimes we're better off with an older car that we take care of.

 

[oregano]

I'm sorry that happened to you. Cars are costly to maintain.

This isn't relevant to your situation but a couple of days ago I was talking to an employee at the local Mercedes dealership about whether I should trade in my car and get a new one. He recommended that I not do that because the new models are notorious for having electrical problems. Even if a new car is still under warranty, it is incredibly inconvenient to have to take it in for repairs. My older Mercedes has never had electrical issues, I always have it serviced on schedule as recommended, and it runs great. It's a very reliable car so I'll continue to keep it. Sometimes we're better off with an older car that we take care of.

Brand new cars are filled with all sorts of complicated electronics. When I still had my Corolla (so in the mid 2010s) I was talking to a service supervisor when I noticed the electronics on his desk. I told him I am a computer nerd and he said that the aluminum lined board I was holding was a main computer for a Toyota Corolla. The Corolla at that time (so maybe a 2016 model) had FIVE motherboards like the one I was holding. And that was before onboard GPS and all the sensors and whatnot. When you get into the area of a 2023 Mercedes you're looking at a computer with wheels.

On top of that, manufacturers absolutely refuse to make a basic car like my 2016 Hyundai Accent anymore because they're "not profitable". So most everything available new in the USA is a luxury SUV or "pickup truck" that is a SUV with a short open back that is just for looks and not hauling. "Luxury" means all the electronic gizmos they can stuff inside. I think eventually we will become like Cuba where old cars are kept for decades and the powertrains swapped out. Actually, that was common practice in much of the US until the 60s.

In Australia the big thing is to take old 70s and 80s Japanese econoboxes and dump electric motors in them. VW enthusiasts down under take old style Bugs and swap out the Ramspeiss engines for electric ones and rip out the back seats to make room for the battery. A hole is carved in the dash for a monitor that is about the size of an iPad. By the time my Accent's engine quits that trend will be roaring in the US so I will simply do the same. By then battery technology will have improved, and charging infrastructure too.

 

[Mary Terry]

Well said, Oregano! I do love my Mercedes and have always taken care of it. It has low mileage, too. I'm going to keep it until I'm mistaken for one of those little old white-haired ladies in a classic old car who never drove anywhere except to church on Sundays.

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

I just finished working on my 2001 MR2 in preparation for a trip. It is starting to burn a little oil and I wonder if the pre-catalytic material Toyota put in the exhaust manifold is breaking down and scoring the cylinders through the EGR. I was planning on putting in a 2ZZ-GE engine, but not right now.

 

[MildredHubble]

I just finished working on my 2001 MR2 in preparation for a trip. It is starting to burn a little oil and I wonder if the pre-catalytic material Toyota put in the exhaust manifold is breaking down and scoring the cylinders through the EGR. I was planning on putting in a 2ZZ-GE engine, but not right now.

Yikes! I'd detach the EGR. Is there anything stopping you doing this or would it be highly illegal where you are? I guess it could flag a fault code in something that modern.

 

[Au Naturel]

Did you get a second opinion? I assume the car is no longer under warranty.

I know modern cars are often designed to be difficult to repair, but that's a heck of a bill for what should be trivial. It sounds like they are dropping the whole engine to do it. Manufacturers recommend swapping out all plugs simultaneously, but still, plugs are cheap and should last for at least a hundred thousand miles. I have only ever replaced one bad plug at a time and never had any issues.

I have an older car. I could do it myself in 15 minutes with a socket wrench. I love older cars.

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

Yikes! I'd detach the EGR. Is there anything stopping you doing this or would it be highly illegal where you are? I guess it could flag a fault code in something that modern.

The material that is causing the problem is a ceramic mesh in the exhaust manifold that gets swept into the valve. The only cure is to remove the exhaust manifold and remove that pre catalytic material. I will keep my eye on oil consumption for the time being.

 

[MildredHubble]

The material that is causing the problem is a ceramic mesh in the exhaust manifold that gets swept into the valve. The only cure is to remove the exhaust manifold and remove that pre catalytic material. I will keep my eye on oil consumption for the time being.

That sounds rather irritating! One thing I have found out about Toyota engines since my dad bought his Prius, is that the oil control rings on the pistons can seize causing excess oil consumption.

Fortunately that's not happening on his car, but I did discover this issue on several other Prius engines we looked at. One way to tell this is to take off the oil cap with the engine cold and sniff it. If you can smell a strong smell of fuel then it's likely this is occurring. If this is the case, then best to get it looked at sooner rather than later as this can cause scoring on the cylinder walls.

If it is just the material getting into the engine via the EGR circuit it might be possible to just detach it and blank off the holes temporarily. Though as I say this might be a fruitless endeavour as the car may throw a fault code and limit the performance.

Normally on an older engine I would recommend going up in oil weight a little as the more viscose oil will slow down oil consumption and prevent further wear. But with this option, the oil control rings could get gummed up sooner :-(

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

I need an excuse to put a 2ZZ-GE engine and 6 speed tranny in my car.

 

[MildredHubble]

I need an excuse to put a 2ZZ-GE engine and 6 speed tranny in my car.

That will certainly resolve your oil burning problems!

 

[Gerontius]

My girlfriend and I were hanging out yesterday and changed spark plugs in my old 1996 Corolla. $22 for a set of NGK copper plugs. She was pulling them out by herself once I helped her get the hang of the ratchet (she has zero prior mechanical experience.)

Cool project or expensive repair? Depends on how you go about it. Get the Chilton's manual for your car and a small diagnostic computer available at a parts store. Save time and money. $1500 for plugs and coils is lunacy considering Hyundai/Kia are low priced cars. You can go take $1500 and buy a very old but serviceable used car with it.

 

[Au Naturel]

My girlfriend and I were hanging out yesterday and changed spark plugs in my old 1996 Corolla. $22 for a set of NGK copper plugs. She was pulling them out by herself once I helped her get the hang of the ratchet (she has zero prior mechanical experience.)

Cool project or expensive repair? Depends on how you go about it. Get the Chilton's manual for your car and a small diagnostic computer available at a parts store. Save time and money. $1500 for plugs and coils is lunacy considering Hyundai/Kia are low priced cars. You can go take $1500 and buy a very old but serviceable used car with it.

There are people who are intimidated by anything mechanical. I'm lucky not to be one of them but I am intimidated by other things that people would find silly. Probably because of how and when I grew up. Cars were designed to be easy to work on back then. Today's cars are deliberately designed to be difficult. They want to intimidate you into going back to the dealership, where you'll get charged a premium.

My wife has a 2023 Subaru, and that car is multiple nightmares to work on. Blow one tire and the manufacturer says you've got to replace all 4 of them because the tranny can't handle the difference in diameter. The alternative is to buy a tire and have it lathed down to match the others.

We are fortunate to find a mechanic we can trust absolutely and have been going there for 30 years.

 

[MildredHubble]

My girlfriend and I were hanging out yesterday and changed spark plugs in my old 1996 Corolla. $22 for a set of NGK copper plugs. She was pulling them out by herself once I helped her get the hang of the ratchet (she has zero prior mechanical experience.)

Cool project or expensive repair? Depends on how you go about it. Get the Chilton's manual for your car and a small diagnostic computer available at a parts store. Save time and money. $1500 for plugs and coils is lunacy considering Hyundai/Kia are low priced cars. You can go take $1500 and buy a very old but serviceable used car with it.

I agree with this philosophy. I thought about making a comment on the price the repairs cost but I have to remind myself sometimes that what I can fix for less than £100, with a few parts and some time, is not applicable for most people. So I instinctively bork at seeing the bill come in at ten times what it would cost me to do the same repair.

There's not much that can go wrong with such a repair. Being careful not to drop anything into the cylinder head through the spark plug bore is probably the biggest risk. Though depending on the age of the car, some engines have the spark plugs/glow plugs etc buried deep in the cylinder head and sometimes partially dismantling the engine is necessary to remove them. Now allegedly, this makes for a more efficient engine, but I suspect in reality, it's more along the lines of what @Au Naturel described in their post.

VW are amongst the worst for this sort of practice in my opinion. Toyota and Nissan are my favourite brands to work on. Hyundai have been pretty decent too.

 

[1ForAll]

Nine years ago we bought a new Ford, the cheapest model they had. Today it is on its last days as the transmission is going bad (surges/hesitates when engine is hot at 18mph and 38 mph speeds, despite it being just 90k miles. Apparently between 2011-2016 the PowerShift dual-clutch auto transmissions put in certain Ford models those years were later found to have serious defect.

Anyway, a class action suit there against the company was filed by many, as that company refuses to recall those vehicles for free repair despite knowing the dangers there. So, are we going to repair it? Heck no. Not at $5,500 for transmission parts, and $1500 for labor, and as we have no confidence the car will last even with it fixed, based on what learned more about that car and model.

Got a brand new one lined up, to buy very soon. Rather spend 20k for that cheapest model and hope for the best for 10+ years. Yes, we know "you get (the quality) what you pay for." But, most all other cars were well above that price, averaging mid 40's. We refuse to spend more than low twenties for some new vehicle, or lease or buy used, as neither of the later options appeal to us.

I remember the days in the 1980s when I could get a car for eight thousand dollars, when I bought my first new one.