DON'T GO TO FIRESTONE on Military Highway in Virginia Beach
I have a 1991 Buick regal 3.8. These engines are notorious for the camshaft position sensor magnet braking off of its holder on the camshaft. If I was to fix it it would have taken a full weekend if not more. So I didn't feel like doing it so I took it to Firestone so called "professionals". They quoted me $450 but come to find out it cost me $700. About a total of four hours after I got the car back I noticed a lower engine knocking. I took it back and they said its not their problem. But, i looked at the recipt and the had done an oil change, they used 5W30 Synthetic. My car is an older car and I've always have used 10W30 conventional. I know enough about engines to get me by but I do know you cant just up and change from conventional to synthetic. But within about a week after this all happened I had changed the oil 3 times and the last time I had noticed the oil was marbled with metal shavings. My car is an old car but it wasn't high mileage, it only had 56,000 miles on it at the time. But I had to get a used engine from a junkyard. When i pulled the old engine out we opened the timing cover and saw that when Firestone did this they cut the oil pan gasket. They didn't drop the oil pan. They just used about a full tube of RTV silicone sealer to use it inplace of the gasket. They didn't let the RTV set for 24 hours and when it mixed with the oil it flaked off and clogged the oil ports on the piston bearings for the 1 and 2 cylinders. When I took the bearings off they were pitted and discolored and it was even overlapping and peened over. And when they were putting the timing cover back on the used a torque wrench and got a bolt that was too long and torqued it too much and chipped the timing cover so the took the bolt out and put some RTV on the head ov the bolt and tightened it back up. When I saw this I decided to write to corporate Firestone. I typed a 3 page letter with 18 detailed pictures of the engine. I heard back from them about 2 weeks later and the sent out a professional mechanic to take some pictures and he gave me a line of BS saying that these engines are notorious for these bearings going out. I haven't heard anything back from them yet. At then time I was only 17 now I am 18 and I spent over $1000 on my car on something that I didn't cause. Now I am seriously in debt because of this. This all happened in April 2008. So if anyone that reads this could post it on other local or even statewide or national forums it would be greatly appreciated. Oh yeah I took it to the Firestone on Military Highway in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
Thanks again
Thanks again







