Present company excluded of course :D

I had a mechanic look at the my E28 about 3 months ago, because it had a hesitation problem. It was hesitating in all ranges, so I took it to the mechanic and let him do his thing. He came back and said he was sure it was a lean condition and replaced the spark plugs.

The car was still hesitating when he gave it back, so I shot it back at him and he did "power cleaning" (high pressure?) of the injectors. He gave it back to me again, and it still had the same problem so I gave it back to him one more time. And he replaced the injectors.

The third time he gave the car back, the problem was still there so I got frustrated and started going through my own little check list that I've compiled on american made cars. I disconnected the O2 sensor and the problem stopped. So I replaced the sensor today, and the car runs beautifully.

I paid this mechanic over $800 for all the "repairs" he did. Even after he gave it back to me with the problem still persisting everytime. The sensor cost me about $45 with shipping and took me 10 minutes to replace.

My question to you guys is this: What should I do about this mechanic? I'm tempted to take some legal action against him, but am I going to be fighting a lost cause? I've heard that mechanics tend to completely cover their butts and there's no way I'll be able to prove that he was trying to get over on me. I signed a paper that said he was hooking a computer up to my car and that was $74 no matter what, but if he actually hooked that up, wouldn't it have said that the sensor was bad?

Yeah it would have said the sensor was bad, I watched my mechanic do it, and he just got rid of the error, simply because it was an error. I then went and go tmy car inspected and passed :) lol. But As far as legal action, I'm not sure as to what you can do. I'd be pissed just like you, but unless you have a lawyer that's good at this kind of subject and knows what he can get him on I'd bite the bullet and never return to that guy again.

why did he hook up a computer to you car?
e28s are way before the days of obd2 ports....
lol

why did he hook up a computer to you car?
e28s are way before the days of obd2 ports....
lol

I don't know a whole lot about the computer end of car maintenance, but I do remember seeing him hook a computer up to some connector that was near the fuse box. I can only assume that's where my $74 went.

why did he hook up a computer to you car?
e28s are way before the days of obd2 ports....
lol

Yes, but not OBD-1. He probably did not look for a slow-responding oxygen sensor.

Present company excluded of course :D

I disconnected the O2 sensor and the problem stopped. So I replaced the sensor today, and the car runs beautifully.



Why didn't you just do this in the first place before giving it to your mechanic? :shifty

Why didn't you just do this in the first place before giving it to your mechanic? :shifty

lol good question. At that time I was a little nervous to work on it myself. I'm very used to muscle cars (60's - 70's era) having owned at least one all my life, but german cars are a very different world. I figured I would play it safe and let a professional do the work.
In retrospect, that was about the worst decision I could have made. I've since bought myself the electrical manual, BMW service manual, and the Bentley manual. I won't make the same mistake again.

Thats a bum deal... it could have been he didn't even think to check the O2 sensor. You would think that if he really wanted to snatch your funds, he would have "fixed" a slew of other things, in addition to the O2 sensor and made off with more cash than he needed, yet taking care of the problem as well, as not to raise suspicion.

Take the honest approach and tell him how you ended up fixing it in no time flat then ask him to refund you the labor atleast. If no dice, then make a sign and stand out in front of his shop. :-)

Take the honest approach and tell him how you ended up fixing it in no time flat then ask him to refund you the labor atleast. If no dice, then make a sign and stand out in front of his shop. :-)

LOL That's a GREAT idea!! I actually work for a company that sells and repairs grand format printers, so I could print up a banner the size of one the bay doors in bumper sticker material. I could go late at night and stick some permanent adhesive vinyl on there. Now, what to write......