Answers to your car questions

READER’S COMMENT

I, being a garage owner, totally agree with the garage from Guelph that you shafted them. The woman had asked them to make sure that the brakes were repaired as required and that is exactly what they did, by replacing the cheap rotors when they had done the brake job. You most likely would have been asking them to replace the damaged brake shoes after a month or so of being worn out or burned by the poor quality brake rotors. You have always said in your columns that it is up to the technician doing the job to make the determination as to what is needed to do a proper job. The technician at the garage in Guelph did just that by replacing the brake rotors with ones that he believed to be of a better quality. You do have the power to intimidate garages even if you think that you do not. This time you were wrong to question the technician’s decision to replace the poor quality brake rotors with ones that he believed would do a better job. Another honest garage owner in Milton

MY RESPONSE

This comment is in response to my column last week where the technician replaced rotors on the car after the owner had replaced them about one month prior to having the front brakes repaired. The garage was doing the front brake work and did not like the rotors on the car that the owner had previously replaced so they put on their own grade of rotors. I agree that the technician did the right thing in replacing the brake rotors if he believed that the rotors on her car were such that they would create a problem in the near future. It was up to the customer however to decide what she wanted to do with the old rotors and not up to the garage to dispose of them without consulting the customer first. The garage knows the law and they should have kept the old rotors for her or asked her if she wanted them to be disposed of. Under the Consumer Protection Act (Motor Vehicle Repair), repairers must offer to return to the consumer all parts removed from the vehicle in the course of work or repair, unless advised at the time, that the work or repair is authorized that such return is unnecessary. All I asked the garage for, was the return of the old rotors, which they could not produce. I did not question the right of the technician to change the rotors that were on her car if he believed that it was in the interest of safety. The power as you call it, is not intimidation but it is being on the right side of right.

QUESTION

I am taking on the task of trying to rebuild my 2005 V6 engine and when disassembling it, I was very careful to mark all parts as to where they go and how I took them apart. I made one mistake when disassembling the engine by not marking which pistons go where when I was replacing the wrist pins. I spoke to a technician and he told me that it is very important to make sure that the pistons are placed into the same chambers as they were removed from. What do I do now and is there anyway that the pistons can be linked to the cylinder bore that they came out of? If you have an answer, I would appreciate it. Don from St Marys

ANSWER

It is very important that you keep the piston rods and their caps together and also keep the engine block crank bearing caps together but it is not that important to put the pistons into the same cylinder bore. The rods and their bearings should however be placed into the same cylinder bore. The rods are generally marked as to which cylinder they came out of.

QUESTION

I am having a little bit of a dilemma with my car after an accident in the parking lot. A lady scraped the left door and front fender of my 2002 Buick when she was parking. We did not call the police or my insurance because she told me that she would pay for the repairs and suggested a place that would do the work for me. The repair was done but the paint is off color, which you can clearly see when the sun is shinning on the left side of the car. I like the body shop staff who told me that the white paint is faded on my car and it is therefore hard to match the white paint. Is this true? I can live with the slightly off color but why should I, when the accident was not my fault. I would like your opinion. Clare from Vineland

ANSWER

I spoke to Casey, one of the owners of O’sullivan Automotive Body Shop and he told me that the white paint can be very difficult to match because white paint fades and can sometimes turn yellowy over time. I also spoke to the body shop that had done the repairs on your car and they have agreed to paint the rear quarter of the car to make the one side perfectly match, if that is agreeable with you. Let me know what you want to do and I will notify the body shop for you. They have also agreed to loan you a car for the day. In the future, I do not recommend that you make deals with anyone at an accident scene because most deals made this way, come back to haunt the person, who is not at fault for the accident.

QUESTION

Hi Dennis, love your column on wheels.ca. I drive a Toyota Sienna 2002 that is giving me trouble when I refuel. I can only let the fuel trickle into the tank or it will cut the flow as if the tank is full. When I finally get it filled, it doesn’t want to start for a couple of minutes but all other times, it starts right away. Thanks for any suggestions that you can give me. J from Stoney Creek

ANSWER

Take your vehicle into your garage and ask the technician to remove the rubber vent tube from the charcoal canister and clean out the rubber tube along with the intake on the canister. Your technician is going to find that the rubber hose is clogged with dirt or with small insects that can get into the tube and clog it. This procedure should not take anymore than twenty minutes to complete. The starting after refuelling should have nothing to do with the canister vent tube. Fix the clogged air vent tube first and then let’s look at the other problem if it still occurs.