Stereo Shop Caused Truck To Not Start / Won't Pay

[tacoINtacoma]

What is the name of your state?WA

Recently I had airbag suspension put on my truck. When that shop was finished he could not make it start, indicated it was flooded and thought that it happened when the ignition was in the on position but with the engine off. He flushed the cylinders and it ran fine. I never investigated the problem, and never had any problems since, I just avoided leaving the key on.

Next I took it to a reputable / national stereo retailer and had $6,500 worth of stereo and alarm installed. When they were finished it would not start. They, and I assumed it was the previous problem that the airbag shop reported.

I had it towed to a mechanic which found there was no power to the ignition control module or fuel pump and that the brake and oil indicators on the dash would glow dimly, even when the truck was off. He also found a power wire from the alarm back-feeding power through the ignition. When he disconnected the alarm from the truck it started and ran normally. He could not reproduce the suspected flooding problem and stated that it is not uncommon for flooding to occur if the original shop worked on the truck for over a months time.

Went to the stereo shop, they changed the wiring that caused the dash lights to glow and insisted that they could not, even in the original configuration, cause the truck not to run and could not find anything that they did that would cause the truck not to run and therefore would not reimburse me.

I'm going to the mechanics today to get a more detailed description of what he EXACTLY did to make the truck run again and take it back to the stereo shop.

If they do not reimburse me the mechanic fees I am considering the following actions:

Contact their corporate office.
Contact an Attorney to draft a letter of intent to sue, and/or hopefully a statute that makes them culpable since they were modifying the ignition system by connecting an alarm and the damage occured while the vehicle was in their possession.

When I brought it in it ran. When they were done it would not. The mechanic says it was the alarm. The installers modified the wiring so the dash lights would not illuminate (and modified who knows what else), and claim they did nothing wrong.

What do you folks think?

[palulukon]

i can't answer legally, but i do know what has worked when something goes wrong at one level of management...i ask to speak to the manager, and if not satisfied i ask who the manager of the manager is...if that level manager does not take care of the problem then i ask who their manager is...working my way up the totem pole i find a manager who does resolve the issue. all of these chains have layers of managers...you just have to find the one that will take care of your problem. get the info from your mechanic and with it in hand go back and ask who the next level up is...

folks like this play on most will go away. can't tell you how many times someone has said my hands are tied...so i say okay, let me get the spelling of your name correctly and now tell me who is your manager...if they say there is none then ask specifically who is the district manager...

if you have to take it to corp headquarters do the same proceedure...

[tacoINtacoma]

Went back to the mechanic and presented a more detailed account of what he did to repair the vehicle.

They remained skeptical and continued to give alternate explanations as to why the problems existed.

The manager said he would talk to his superiors, but again, did not sound too optimistic. He refused to provide the names of his superiors.

I consulted an attorney and he agreed to write a letter.

Before the letter was sent the manager called to say they were issuing a reimbursement check. I cashed it today. Case closed, sort of.

My proximity detector for my alarm still does not work and I have a slow power drain on my battery which causes the battery to go dead if I let it sit for more than a day.

But all in all it was the repair bill that I wanted paid and I got it.