Am I being ripped off by the dealership mechanic?
2005 Ford F150 with the 5.4L V8 Triton Engine. 98,000 miles.
About a month ago while I was towing my small boat up a hill, my check engine light flashed on and off for about 20 seconds, and if felt like I lost a bit of power. I know this is bad, so I exited the freeway. As I slowed down the light quit blinking so I continued home and the truck drove like normal. The truck continued to drive like normal for the most part over the next couple of weeks. It developed a whine in the engine that sounded like there was a belt/pulley issue. After about a week (since the check engine light came on), I brought my truck into my regular mechanic to inspect the noise. He poked around and said he could not really tell exactly where it was coming from (nor was he able to pull any codes). He told me to continue driving it, and bring it back in if it got any worse.
Added (1). About a week after that while trying to accelerate onto the freeway (uphill again), I noticed that my truck was not accelerating like normal. When I stepped on the gas, it did not have its normal get up and go. I floored it and the truck started to sputter, and again the check engine light flashed. This time though when I slowed down, it quit flashing and stayed on. I immediately turned around and headed back to my mechanic.
Added (2). He was able to pull a code (06147 I think) that said something about being lean on bank 2. I left my truck with him, and the next day he told me I had 2 problems. The first was a misfire in one of my cylinders (the codes wouldn't tell him which one), and secondly he said that he tried to locate the sound of the whine, but after pulling every belt and pulley off the engine, the truck was still making that sound.
Added (3). He thought that after listening with his stethoscope, that it was coming from inside the engine block. My mechanic said he really didn't have the tools to work on the problem from here, so he advised me to take it to my local Ford dealership.
So I brought my truck into them. Since I had two problems (the lack of power and the whine), they charged me a double fee to diagnose the problem.
Added (4). After a couple of days, they called me back and told me that 3 of my cylinders were bad and my spark plugs, boots, and air filter needed to be replaced. They also said that the whine was coming from a leak in the exhaust manifold. A day later they called back and said that they discovered another smaller leak on the left manifold and it needed to be replaced too. So I approved them to fix both those issues.
Added (5). After a couple more days they said my truck was still not ready because the check engine light kept coming on and they weren't sure why. They said they would need to "drive it quite a bit" to figure out why. Today they called me back and told me that my truck will not go over 30mph and that it was my catalytic converter and that it too needed to be replaced.
Yes. Anyone with a brain would have done a compression check and measured the oil pressure hot and cold and checked the valve clearances to be sure the major things are ok. These days the people dealers call mechanics can't do anything if there's not a code to be read. Go somewhere else.
" Mechanics " aren't really mechanics any more. They are just code readers. If there's no code to tell them what to do they are lost.
For 50 bucks you could get a scanner and read what's wrong yourself.
So my questions are, should this have been diagnosed in the beginning with everything else?
Could they be the ones that caused the issue with the catalytic converter?
Do I have a legitimate gripe that they seem to keep finding issues wrong with my car, or is this just the nature of the beast?
My car seems to be in worse shape now than when I brought it in (definitely would drive faster than 30mph anyway), is there any way for me to hold this shop accountable for their work?
If I would have known all of this is my issue, I don't know if I would have started down this trail (they are asking close to $9,000 now with the catalytic converter. Am I just screwed here and have to suck it up?
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