Do not have Zahntech do any major repairs. They do great basic service, great for routine maintenance. I had an engine rebuilt ($5k), and brought it back to Zahntech after 1 month the engine was losing coolant. They could not (would not), find the leak and did not believe me. I brought it back to them 5 - 6 times over the course of 5 months because the engine lost coolant - constantly. Long Story Eventually I forced them to pull the head - tiny hairline crack in the head - they said I overheated it and wouldn't fix it without me paying again for another head. I wish I could have forced them to look into the engine further, because 4 months later the engine needed rebuilding again ($5k), That coolant leak caused 2 cylinders piston rings to gauld and bind (probably loss of lubrication), gared up the cylinder walls ++. The fact that I brought my car in complaining about coolant loss on thier engine rebuild and they didn't believe me and they couldn't/wouldn't even find the leak 5 times just tells me they did not want to be responsible for the work they performed. Aaagh, I can't go on. Beware of major mechanical work here.
We agreed to do this work after being asked multiple times and refusing. The vehicle in question is a diesel that has been converted to run waste vegetable oil. The pistons were damaged and the engine needed to be replaced or rebuilt with less than 100K miles on it. I agreed to do the job on the condition that the waste oil kit be removed from the car. After the customer removed the kit we performed the work and delivered the car to the customer. I requested that the waste oil kit not be reinstalled until the engine had been broken in and I told him I preferred that he not install it at all. Several weeks later the customer returned with a complaint of coolant loss. I pressure tested the system and found several leaks at hoses on the waste oil kit that, by this time, had been installed by the customer. Also, all the coolant had been replaced with a different type. After repairing the leaks at the waste oil kit at no charge I was unable to detect any other leaks. A few weeks later the customer returned again with a complaint of coolant loss. At this time I was unable to find any leaks after hours of pressure testing with no loss of pressure and extensive road testing. Eventually, on a subsequent visit, I was able to verify sudden intermittent coolant loss with no external leakage apparent. At this time I decided that removing the cylinder head was the only option. Upon removing the cylinder head I found that the overheat indicator placed on the head by the machine shop had melted. I also found a hairline crack in the cylinder head. All evidence pointed to an overheat situation causing the head to crack. The customer insisted that he never overheated the engine but the evidence strongly suggested otherwise. At this point I offered to replace the cylinder head with no labor charge even though I had no obligation to. By the time we were done with this we likely spent 10-15 hours in unbilled labor for a problem that all evidence suggested we didn’t cause. Had the work I performed not been tampered with by the customer we almost certainly would have taken care of everything under warranty. However, if that were that case this likely would have never happened in the first place. A scenario like this was the reason I initially refused the work and it is unlikely any shop would have done as much as we did under the circumstances. Although I appreciate the complement on our general service work the implication that we aren't any good at major mechanical repairs is simply not accurate.
- Zahntech Automotive