What a blast.
But, the car was making noise and it was time for an oil change anyway, so I drove her down to Don Herring Volkswagen/Subaru and asked them to check the fluids, filters, belts, hoses, and “find out what that noise is….”
So they did the oil change and took the car for a spin to figure out the noise.
Subaru, Japanese car, standard or metric?
Apparently, mine was standard, because the metric oil filter they put in the car fell out while they were testing driving it, so all the oil leaked out and the engine seized.
They gave me a free overhaul.
You bet it was free.
Two weeks later, I was trying to make a turn from Skillman to Mockingbird in north-east Dallas when the car died. $300 later the carburetor was re-tuned.
Two weeks later, the car threw a rod at the corner of Singleton and Skillman in Oak Cliff. The reason that bothered me so much was I had to use the phone at the sporting goods store on the corner there. The Brady Bill had just passed; so even through it was eight in the morning, the place was packed. (At this point, Somer had renamed my car “Jean Gray”, because it kept dying and coming back to life.) Don Herring apologized for the inconvenience and said they’d replace the engine at no cost to me.
Two weeks later, the car overheated and cracked the head-gasket.
Only now, Don Herring said they wouldn’t take care of it because the “hoses were so old that all the coolant had leaked out.”
Funny, when I had taken the car in two months previous I had asked them to check, quote, “fluids, filters, belts, hoses,….” Anyway, they had just replaced the engine. In order to do that, you have to disconnect a number of hoses, and then re-connect them. Didn’t anyone notice that the hoses were “just so old”?
But they refused, so I called Subaru of America and they started an inquest. Finally, the decision was they couldn’t do anything because the car was ten years old.
But the car was ten years old and running before I took it to Don Herring….
In the meantime, Don Herring no longer does Volkswagen/Subaru in Dallas.
They do Mitsubishi.