In July the timing belt pulley in my 2004 Ford Focus SVT disintigrated. It was plastic! The original owner who has rebuilt multiple Ford automobiles came over and helped my boyfriend get the car running again. Omeara wanted over $1100.00 for this service. We spent less than $150.00 for parts from Omeara.
After the work was done and car was running I still felt that it was just a little off so we went back to Omeara to talk to a mechanic. Larry was who we ended up talking to and was amazed that the guys had gotten it in time but still wanted the $1100.00 to do any work on timing. We asked if we did the tear down to the point where all Larry had to do was double check timing what that would cost since we knew price quote was close to 90% labor and the car already had all new parts. Thomas Lesnansky and Larry agreed to charge $2-300.00 just to double check timing.
On July 31 the car had been torn down to timing belt and we had it towed to Omeara Ford. When I arrived Tom Lesnansky wanted to charge me $3-400.00 and clearly wasn't going to change his position until I produced the written quote that he had given us. Once I showed him I indeed had his written quote he seemed annoyed and handed me off to somebody named Mark.
September 2 Mark called to tell me my car was back in time and it had only been off by one or two teeth which was why it hadn't felt right. However my car was still not running well. This of course made no sense to me. Mark then said in order to know what was wrong with my car they needed to run diagnostics on it for an additional $115.00. I told him absolutely not since places like Auto Zone will do diagnostics for free. When I arrived to pick up my car the kid that took me out to get it told me it sounded to him like it now had an exhaust problem. I asked him how does that happen that I bring it in for one repair and now it's got an exhaust problem? He then back peddeled saying that he wasn't a mechanic and he wasn't supposed to talk to me about what it needed done but then he said but it sounds like an exhaust problem to me and that his truck sounds same way. He did try to encourage me to let Omeara fix it and that I shouldn't drive it too much until it is fixed right. I thought that's what they were doing...
Once I got it home my boyfriend discovered the vacuum line disconnected which happens to be nowhere close to timing belt. Why was that taken off? More importantly why is my car not running correctly when they supposedly fixed the one problem that I asked them to fix? After doing an oil change, oil filter change and some general maintenance the car still is running poorly. I decide to take it to Midas and the first thing they ask is have you had timing work done recently? You need to take it back right now to Omeara and have them put it in time because it's NOT in time.By the way only talk to Brian Beardon because nobody else knows what they're doing.
So back to Omeara I go. The car has been back at Omeara since the 12th of September, it's now the 17th. I spoke to Mark on the 16th and he told me that Larry says the car is in time but it's got after market parts on it and perhaps that's the problem. What?!? There are no after market parts it's all stock Ford. Do they seriously not know their own products? Then Mark says it's running 'lean' and there is a crack in my manifold or maybe a leak around the couplers. Thats the code they are getting but they need to run the $115.00 diagnostic to know for sure. Am I mistaken or isnt the diagnostics where they get the code? So now they are trying to charge me for what theyve already done?
So I hang up and have my boyfriend call Mark. Marks tells him that the car is running 'rich' and it's because it's taking in too much air thru the cracked manifold. My boyfriend then asks Mark how did the manifold get cracked? The ONLY problem this car had when it was brought in was a little out of time so what did your mechanics do to it? Did they drop it when they were taking it off the lift or did they forget that the motor mounts were off and they dropped the engine? How exactly did the manifold get cracked? Mark says no they didn't do anything like that but I don't know how manifold got cracked you will have to talk to Larry who just so happens to be gone until Monday. I really feel that they weren't happy with the quote and decided they needed more money and one way or another they would get it. My car ran better being a little out of time than it did after Omeara got done with it. Even being a little out of time was not causing the exhaust problems etc that my car now has.
My advice would be to stay as far away from this dealership as possible. I really should've known better from treatment my son endured when he tried to purchase thru them but I told myself this is a different issue completely. Apparently not. I think they specialize in the run around treatment.
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