Took the car in for a service - plugs, filters etc cost just over $600. Got them to steam clean the engine. When i picked the car up (Wed night) they said there is a missfire as some water would have got around the coil packs/spark plugs when cleaning it, but it should be ok by the morning (today). Its not. Its still missfiring, and going slower than it should. Is it thier responsibility to remedy this!The missfire wasnt there before they had it.
thejazzpianoma,
Sep 8, 5:25am
I do like the irony of your username. How far have you driven it since picking it up!
morrisman1,
Sep 8, 5:26am
Yes take it back to them and document everything you know just in case all electrical things start breaking. $600 seems a bit steep for a service on a run of the mill car, what vehicle is it!
richynuts,
Sep 8, 5:27am
I steam clean the engine of my cars often, the only cars which seem to have a problem with water getting to plugs is mazda, remove leads and dry with compressed air and a dry cloth, this may take several goes to get completely dry, but will most likely be a simple fix.
bm4,
Sep 8, 5:31am
which surely is the garages responsibilty to remedy
richynuts,
Sep 8, 5:32am
True
franc123,
Sep 8, 5:34am
Highly unlikely it will just clear itself, especially if the engine is the type which has the long HT lead tubes and plugs recessed deep in the heads.It isn't your problem, take it back to them and get the moisture blown out/removed from the areas needed properly.
goulscout,
Sep 8, 5:36am
the garage should have taken the precautions to avoid this happening, obviously they didn't so therefore its their problem
hydroman08,
Sep 8, 5:38am
Its a 92 Leopard V8 $600 included normal service, clean, plugs (which took ages apparently), and wheel ballance. I took it for a drive this morning maybe 10ks in a 100km zone.
thejazzpianoma,
Sep 8, 6:04am
While the garage could have done better I don't think its worth screaming blue murder over at this stage. The 10km home may not have warmed the engine up sufficiently to clear the water out of where its causing the trouble.
I would suggest getting it properly warmed up but if its missfiring quite badly its probably not a good idea to to let it carry on like that for too long as you could give the catalytic converts a hard time.
Also, its an old car. The ignition coils could well have hairline cracks etc which will only exasperate the problem.
My advice is take it back and ask if they would mind giving it a go over with the air compressor etc at no charge as the problem hasn't cleared itself. Don't be in a rush to get snotty at them because while not ideal what they said was not completely unreasonable, sometimes with the likes of hairline cracks in ignition coils taking it for a run is all thats needed to sort things and if they didn't have the time to warm it right up before you picked it up I could see how they would do what they did.
hydroman08,
Sep 8, 6:18am
Hi Jazz - they took it for a 20 min or so road test before i collected it (which would have warmed it up plenty). Im not planning to have a go at them, but I would hope they would try remedy the problem at no cost to me.
thejazzpianoma,
Sep 8, 6:23am
Often you need a really good drive to sort those kind of problems as its the surrounding items that need to be well warmed up not just the engine itself. I have a car here with a hairline crack in the coil and if I get it wet it takes a good hour of running around to sort itself.
That said I am not defending them, if they are a decent outfit I am sure they will be happy to give it a good blow out at no charge, glad you are being level headed about it. I am all for giving people a serve when its due I was just worried you might have been gunning for a fight when it wasn't yet warranted.
Best of luck with it, it would be great to hear how you get on.
hydroman08,
Sep 8, 6:29am
haha nah they are really good.They did tell me to bring it back if I have any issues with the missfire.Im just hoping they can fix it easily, just bought the car and want to be able to have some fun in it!
thejazzpianoma,
Sep 8, 6:31am
I wouldn't worry too much, I would be very surprised if a bit of a sort with the air compressor dosn't solve it. Sometimes though you do get little cracks in funny underneath places thatyou just have to let dry by themselves with some encouragement from a warm engine. Don't stress chances are you will be right as rain.
stevexc,
Oct 13, 12:03pm
Same thing happened to me when I cleaned the engine in one of my cars ages ago.One of the HT leads wasn't on tightly so water got down in to the spark plug well.Took it for a long drive but that didn't work so I got the compressed air on to it and that worked perfectly.
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