I just got my Seville head gaskets repaired and every thing was fineuntil i saw they charged me $112 for a new water pump. and had some questions.

1) Water pump was new and replaced about a week ago and the dealership i took it to said it was bad because it was leaking. It was installed by a rapair shop that previous week here is what i noticed(1ST pic). That black ring is not the ring that came with the water pump when i bought it. That black ring is sillicone not the rubber gasket that was suplied with the part.

The repair shop had charged me full labor ($140) and charged me for a SEAL which i didnt quite understand since it came with the water pump. i figured mabe it was somthing else and considering i had took everything apart and was just having problems getting the water pump out i called them and they said they would finish it and only charge me $65 for labor. I figured that would be great and i could be on my way. I noticed that the paper work they gave me stated i supplied my own parts and there was no warranty. It doesnt say if there is no warranty for the labor or no warranty for the part. So my question is What do you think can do from here? i am thinking i can get my money back since they didnt use the parts i supplied them with and in the end made me end up paying for another water pump from the dealer.

2) Which leads me to my second problem. The dealership which replaced the Head gakets charged me for a new water pump ($112) and i had told them that the water pump and thermostat are less than 2 weeks old. they said "ok well we will take a look at them and let you know if they still are good." I just told them they should be good. so i said "if they are found to be bad call me and let me know since i have reciepts for these parts and will get them exchanged." They said "OK great, then we will call you if they are bad." I then assumed they were on the same page and left them to work on my car. So after every thing was said and done they give me a bill and charged me for all the head gasket parts and labor and i then saw the NEW WATER PUMP & T-STAT that was replaced with out me even knowing and they didnt even call me like they said. I asked them why they didnt call me to inform me they were doing this and there excuse was "Since the car was here and we had all the parts we figured tere would be NO PROBLEM." So my question is can i possibly blame the previous repair shop for what happened here or am i just going to have to bend over and take it like? If you look at the water pump (2ND pic) it looks new still.


But just for every body to see the rest of the pics are the head gaskets and one of the bolts that i was carefully able to get the treads off that come out of the block when replacing gaskets and thats why the block requires timserting.

 

here are the other pics i wasnt able to do it on one post.

 

Regarding the dealership I don't think there is much anything you can do. They are notorious for doing things like that and pretty much telling you to get bent. As far as the repair shop you had the first pump done at. You said they used your part and said they didn't use your part. Which did they do? If they didn't use your part and didn't call you maybe you can get some money back from them but thats really up to them if they are a good shop. I don't know if you have any kind of a legal stance on this.

 

Are we talking about THREE water pumps?

I dont know if I would re-install a pump that came off on a headgasket job, regardless of its age, and risk MY reputation on a pump related failure that could ruin the whole job.
Would you be willing to pay additional charged IF they had reinstalled the pump and it failed? I bet not.
Would the 1st shop stand by the pump AFTER the dealer pulled it and reinstalled? doubt it!

when I am removing parts, I may make some assumptions of what will be replaced and do the job accordingly .. meaning, I wont spend time being careful with parts that are not going back and the estimate/cost of the job would reflects that. Labor is always much much more expensive that parts, unless there is gold or rarity involved.

If I was in your shoes, I simply would verify that a new pump is there, and make sure that I got what I am being charged for.

the 1st pump has a guarantee? return and exchange for a new one and keep it as a spare.

I know that is not what you wanted to hear, but we live in a world where parts are cheap (relative speaking) and labor is very expensive. The days when we took things apart, clean then, tested, inspected, are long gone.

Unless there is rarity involved, R&R is usually the motto these days, in any biz, auto, housing, aerospace, TVs, electronics, etc. ..

 

I totally understand and that the dealer ship felt that the pump needed repaired to keep my car from overheating. But It would have been nice if they would have called and let me know they were just gona go ahead and use their part and not give me a chance to exchange mine. i may have sounded as if the water pump was replaced 3 times. I had bought a new one then realised... that wasnt must not be the problem. So when the gaskets were being replaced the dealership decided to replace my new water pump with theirs since it was more convenient for them instead of calling me and having me take the new one and exchange it. So yes i am most likely going to keep the new water pump now as a spare. but im just mad that i got charged to put in my new part that wasnt installed properly the first time by using sillicone instead of the gasket supplied and caused me to get another pump (2nd pump) installed for no reason cause i could have taken my new on back and exchanged it instead of being screwed into paying twice for labor for the pump and twice for the part which is a total of $252 for 2 pumps and labor. Also why would the first repair shop install the new pump with silicone instead of the gasket that it came with ? thats what makes no sence to me, seems as if they were doing things half asssed. So i was just wondering if you were in my shoes what would you do? I feel that the job should have been done right the first time and if the gakset broke than the 1st repair shop should have not used sillicone and should have used another gasket.

 

Take the 2 week old water pump back to where you got it with the purchase receipt. Show them with the new service bill that that it needed to be replaced again in a short period of time. The should give you a refund.

 

I DITTO Badlac.

Just the use of silicone, IMHO, warranted the R&R.



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So is that how you would install the water pump is by using silicone to seal the water pump and was that rubbuber gasket that comes with the water pump for something else then? Thanxs for your guys opinions i just want to make sure im not getting screwed by the First shop that did the water pump replacement. I figured if they werent suppose to use silicone to seal up the water pump.

 

Using sealant instead of a gasket isn't uncommon. Sometimes a gasket just won't seal correctly. I doubt if that had anything to do with a failure though.