Do you have to pay for the work when their work didn’t fix the problem

cardriver2714

My check engine light went on. Took vehicle to a licensed repair shop in New York. They ran the codes and said I had a minor leak and it was probably the gas neck as the word gas cap was still lit up on dash even though I did put in a new gas cap on that day. Said gas necks can get rusty and there can be leaks anywhere on it. Did not run any tests just gave their educated opinion. “If you changed the gas cap, it must be the gas neck. This code says minor leak”. With labor and part paid $200 for a new gas neck. Check engine light didn’t go off nor did the word gas cap. Spoke to garage and they said keep driving car and check engine light should eventually go off. Drove car for a week, check engine light still on as well as word gas cap and decided to get a second opinion. Took it to another shop that did a smoke test and they found the cause of the minor leak and for the codes and it was something completely different from the gas neck. Not even near the gas neck. I had it fixed, paid $300 and check engine light immediacy went off. Went back to first shop to discuss and said car did not need a new gas neck but I’d meet them half way and take $100 back instead of the $200 I paid. The owner said no. They are not refunding me anything even though I showed them the smoke test results and the receipt from the work that took care of the check engine light. If a place misdiagnoses your car do they typically not refund? Owner said “we don’t give refunds”. Just asking. Never ran into this before.

thecardoc3

The gaps in the information here leave a lot to the imagination. Without having tested this myself and proving exactly what was going on in the first and each subsequent visit it's very hard to be sure what genuinely was needed and what was not. I have had many people that always say, "It's just a bad gas cap" and while that's possible, without actually testing correctly what is really happening when they say that is they are guessing.

Finding a rusted filler neck is normal. But finding other failures isn't uncommon either. It is very likely that the filler neck was bad and needed to be replaced, but without testing correctly before and after the repair to confirm the system is completely repaired there is just no way to know. You didn't specify what year your Jeep is, but I suspect this had the ESIM system and not the NVLD system. Testing would start by commanding the system to run a self-test which checks for the large and medium sized leaks. When that test fails there is a detectable problem on the car right now and all the tech needs to do is learn how to isolate parts of the system to find out what parts are OK and which ones have a concern. Newer ESIM systems can also run the small leak test if they have the updated vehicle software and a fuel tank pressure sensor. When these didn't have the fuel tank pressure sensor, I would "Tee" one in to allow me to see the pressure/vacuum in the tank and cannister while I was testing. This is something I have been teaching technicians to do for quite a few years.

As far as them giving you money back, that's really between you and them. Nobody knows if it did or did not genuinely need the filler neck at this point. For what it is worth, $200 part and labor sounds way too low for a filler neck and labor especially when the O.E. part lists at $363.00 IMO.