10/4/2024 – Breakdown
I was on my way down to New York City, NY when I smelled gas and the van was bogging down. I was in luckily going through a city, Latham, NY, and pulled over. I opened the hood and my engine bay was soaked and the engine was steaming. I started it again with the hood open and fuel was spraying everywhere. There was a Midas down the road a half mile and I blasted over there as fast as I could, blowing stoplights along the way.
They determined that it was a broken fuel rail. They quoted me $1500 for the part and another $700 for the labor. I said ok. They needed to order the part from the dealership and they did. After they ordered it I decided to see how much I could get the part for. I found it online with overnight shipping for $350. I tried to get them to see if they could return the part, but they said once it’s ordered, there’s no returns from the dealership. I got screwed out of $1200, sad face.
The next day they get it fixed and I leave for NYC. About an hour into the drive I get a check engine light and the van goes into limp mode. I pull over and call Midas right back. They said they’d look at it but it wouldn’t be until Monday. I figured I might aw well limp the rest of the way to Long Island and go to another Midas there.
I find one and go there on Monday. I sit in the shop for a few hours while they try to figure out the problem. At the end of the day they tell me to do to a dealership because they can’t figure it out. I leave and park for the night. After doing some research I open the hood to look at things. I find that they didn’t reconnect one of the intake tubes and one of the hoses was broken.
I immediately call them and tell them whats going on. They have me come back in to fix it up. The find the broken part costs $350 and want to check for a used one for less. They tell me they are going to tape up the the broken tube and would contact me the next morning. I’m about to leave and decide to double check before I do. Thankfully I did because the tech only put tape on one side. I almost kick in the office door and tell them what happened. They have the tech finish taping it up. I’m pissed at this point.
After I leave I call Midas corporate and tell them the whole story. Later that night a regional manager, that is on vacation, calls me back and I explain whats going on again. He asks me to come back up to Albany, NY to his shop. It’s the 10th at this point and I limp back to Albany. The hills on that highway were torture when I couldn’t accelerate up them. Here I am on the 11th and they replaced some seals thinking that was the fix. The Latham shop thought it was a VVT actuator, or a sensor, or this that and the other thing. Hopefully this fixes the problem and I don’t have to pay for it.