So, I decided I needed to do a 60K service. I bought the car at 63,000 miles and 3 weeks after buying the car I bought the 60K service kit from 3sx.com. I found a mechanic with a shop to install it for 520.00. I dropped the car off thursday evening. The car wasn't ready until Saturday evening. I drove the car home. Later that night I took it out for a spin. The next day (sunday) me and my g/f deiced to ride into town for a bite to eat. Before I even made it into town my power steering died. So I pulled over and checked the fluids, they were fine. I decided to drive back home and do more investigating. On my way back home the dash cluster lit up. The car fell out of gear. I pulled over and had a tow truck pick it up. The car wouldn't even go into neutral. I peered inside the engine and the serpentine belt was shredded and all over the place. I had it towed to my mechanic. Later that day he told me the timing belt had slipped off due to the serpentine belt getting "sucked up into the engione and wrapping around something". So now my heads are at a machinist shop getting inspected.


In conclusion even though I took precautions to keep the timing belt from breaking off it STILL slipped off. The mechanic told me that they should have inspected the serpintine belt before putting it back on and it could have been put back on in reverse as opposed to being put back on in the same direction it had been when I first brought it in. The car was working perfectly until I took it to this guy for ROUTINE MAINTENENCE. Less than 24 hours of picking it up it's on the side of the road broke down. Am I in the right for telling this guy he owes me free work and parts for whatever he has to do to it now?

edit: It's a DOHC 24V N/A Motor with an auto tranny

 

Was anyone else there when he admitted fault?

 

It was over the phone.

 

Yeah, I'd be pissed!
The mechanic was all over that motor. Press on to have them fix their mistake. You paid them to do some preventive maintenance only to have it on the side of the road 24hrs from the time that they touched it...yeah, I would think that it would be on them.
I think you were in the right to tell him to pay for it.

 

Now they're saying that there's a cover thats suppoced to keep my serpentine belt from being sucked into the engine that I was lacking. Basically saying I should have known this when I bought the car. HOW THE HELL am I to know that they just simply didn't put it back on OR they didn't put it back on right OR that my cover didn't break off when the belt blew off. I swear.

 

If I recall correctly, the t-belt cover is a 3 piece unit. 2 section that cover the 4 cam gears and one section that cover the area around the crank pulley, water pump, etc.

 

thats why you NEVER have a hack, independant garage do something like a timing belt on a 3000gt. They're all morons.

 

This month just sucks. I'm glad it'll be over soon, lol.

 

That's not always true. The only mechanic I'll use is an independent...but he's not a "hack." There are plenty of small time mechanincs that do a good job...they are just hard to find.

 

my mechanic as a independant shop, but the guys there are former mitsubishi mechanics. so i think theyre the guys that should be working on the car.