Head gasket blown

Leme guess Ford 4.0l OHC?
Still better than Euro cars...I wouldn't know where to begin on that.

 

Holy crappoly!

 

Well, it's in the shop. I took it in Tuesday, they gave me an estimate Wednesday morning ($3500 including changing the timing chain and some other odds and ends while they have it out) and told me it would be done by Friday.

I called Friday and they said it had been more difficult than expected and it would be Monday, maybe Tuesday.

I called this morning (Tuesday, so they've had it for a week now) and they told me next week.

How did they go from a 3 day repair to 2 weeks? The only explanation they offered was "it's a long process."

 

Well that sucks, but sounds pretty normal. I haven't taken my Tacoma in for anything substantial yet but previous cars I feel like something always made it take way longer than estimated.

 

The job only pays 18.6 hours and from experience it can be done in the vehicle in under 14 hours. If they took the engine out to do the job [as the service manual states], and suddenly it's jumped from a couple days to a couple weeks? In my professional opinion, it's 1 [or a combination of] these 3 things; a) They screwed something up and are trying to cover their tracks, b) they're waiting on a machine shop to finish the heads, and/or c) they're having a problem getting the parts. Or it could be something simply totally mundane, like the tech assigned to your truck is up to their eyeballs in the major job that came in right before yours. Hard saying, not knowing. But I don't buy the "long process" excuse. Over 25 years in this business, it makes one a bit cynical towards the excuses of service advisors.

Hope it turns out OK for you. It's definitely an intricate job to do, but not difficult so long as you follow the manual.

 

Rust Belt. I remember those "out of state" cars that had a few years of Salted Roads. Oh, some of those jobs were "only six exhaust manifolds snapped." With OK-based vehicles, hard to know. I had one "Texas" truck but first spent time in the surf on the Texas Coast. Electrical nightmare and tested my patience replacing every fastener under that vehicle! 3-hour jobs turned into 6 hours.

Other ones I have run into are the "made in Japan" parts that were counterfeit. It's gotten worse; I try to source OEM stuff, but these days, I use a dealer to make sure I get OEM parts. So I've given the shop the benefit of the doubt; they could have ordered all brand name parts only to find $%^#! when a supplier starts using the lowest-cost bidder.

 

@bethes , with these delays has the estimate escalated too ?

 

I am about to talk to them but if they don't honor the quote we have a problem.

 

That my friend is usually called "earn while you learn".

 

They're waiting on the machine shop, and have no control over how fast the machine shop returns parts to them.

But also the CV joint is leaking oil.

 

Ah! Option b then. Good. Well, that's way better than them having screwed something up anyway.

CV joint leaks are easy peasy, but I doubt they'll put the truck back onto a lift until they're ready to stab the engine back in.

 

Sounds like you are getting the shaft too me O.P.

 

I dunno, I have used this shop before and I think they're good. I think in this case it's more a problem of poor communication.

 

So did yah get the truck back? Hows it running?!

 

Took 2 weeks but I did get my truck back. It's running fine, just turned 250K last week.

I changed the oil a couple days ago and found the coolant a bit low again. But no white smoke, so I guess that's the next thing I'll figure out

I love this truck, but I think I'm going to get a daily driver in the next few months that has fewer miles, and keep my truck for trucky things like camping and trailer hauling and whatnot.

 

Normal for coolant level in the overflow tank to drop as air works it way out of the system. Refill and if it drops more then you might have a problem.