I thought I'd ask the community, since I'm sure you all have a lot more experience with these things than I.

I brought my car in for a CEL the other day, and about 45 minutes later, the tech says that my "air temp sensor" being unplugged was causing it, because the AEM intake has no spot for it. I argued that the MS intake was exactly the same, but he insisted that it was different, and he knew what he was talking about. Well the service manager was a nice guy and decided to only make me pay for half of the hour of labor ($45 rather than $90), since it wasn't covered under warranty.

Well, I did a little research, and thanks to 4years, found out that the connection that the tech was calling the "air temp sensor" was actually the VFAD controller, and it should be tied off, just like in the instructions for the MS intake. My problem was simply an uncapped vacuum hose.

Here's the deal: I know it's not a lot of money, but it really steams me that they can be so consistently wrong at the dealership (both the dealerships) near me. Why is it that I can easily find any info I need on this forum, and the guys that are getting paid to be experts on these cars don't know ****?

So, should I go back and demand my money back for the guy feeding me a line of BS? Or should I just let it go? What would you do?

 

Well lets break this down, you had a CEL. Did the modification of intake cause the CEL? What caused the uncapped vacuum hose? Was it the installers fault for not capping the vacuum? Warranty or not, it sounds like you will be SOL.

 

Yeah probably. The vacuum hose being uncapped was in fact my fault from installing the intake, however they gave me a completely wrong diagnosis. If they're going to charge me for their services I would at least hope they know what they're talking about. I'm just coming from the point of a network consultant, where if I were to go to some business and shoot some wrong advice from the hip and charge people for it, they'd at the very least be asking for their money back when they discover what I said was completely wrong. I guess these guys have an advantage though, because really, who else am I going to take the car to?

 

what exactly did they charge you for? just the diagnostic time? well then i think you would be out that money. but i think you should stop by and tell them you found the problem and show what the problem is/was. also ask them to show you the air temp sensor they said was not connected.

 

Yeah they charged me for the diagnostic time. I'm quite sure I won't get my money back, and they already showed me the "air temp sensor" when I was there. It was the vfad controller (green plug). Maybe I should just let this one go. The question of course is, where do I bring my car next time it needs service? Both the places near me suck.

 

Sometimes dealers don't tell you the truth or the service writer doesn't understand the answer so they tell their version of the story.

 

You're pretty much SOL on the money. A lot of shops/dealers charge a separate fee for just plugging into the computer to read a code let alone diagnosing it. Your fee was probably a combination of the two.

As for service I'd say pit one against the other. If ya bring it in to check something out have the other second guess them. Then to bring "a 3rd Party" into the mix check to see what people here think. That's probably your best bet if its something serious/intermitent.