Here is an interesting one for everyone to ponder...

Friday we took our STR on a 150 mile round trip. First long drive since we got her back from a routine visit to the shop. During the visit to the mechanic, the oil was changed, tires rotated, and the fuel filter replaced.

Everything checked out and we headed out on our trip. We made it the first 75 miles with no problem, filled up the car as we only had about 1/2 tank when we left. We had a full tank of 93 octane (anything less causes pinging and knocking) we left the gas station and went from there to grab a bite to eat. We sat for about 1 1/2 hours at dinner, came out started up the car and headed off on our way back home.

We got about 1 mile down the road when the car just stalled and killed (acted like it had just run out of gas) we coasted to a stop and called roadside assistance. The genius comes out and asked me if we ran out of gas? (we were literally across the street from a Mobile station) I told him no it just stalled out and wont start. He tinkered around and checked the fuses of course nothing was wrong. He had a flatbed dispatched out to tow us to the shop...

Fortunately as we waited a guy stopped to help and he was the manager of a local Monroe service station. He got his master mechanic and ofered to get us fixed up that evening! Nice guys not exactly Jaguar mechanics, but given the situation anything was welcomed.

They looked the car over determined the fuel pump wasnt working. FOund a replacement at Auto Zone for $499 and they installed the new pump. Car STILL wouldnt start, no fuel at the rail but car would run with brake cleaner... Finally we retraced all of the work my dealer had done (routine maintenance) and found the fuel filter had been installed backwards!!

As soon as they disconnected the back side of the filter the mechanic was "sprayed" in the face with fuel. We reversed the filter, reattached the lines and the car roared to life! Havent had a problem since...

The experience cost me $1100 including the tow, question for the group is this, do you think installing the fuel filter backwards would have burned out my main fuel pump and would it cause the symptoms we experienced this past weekend?

I would like to go back and get the shop to make good on these expenses as I feel like they should have been able to install a fuel filter (especially given the big black arrow) in the correct direction...

 

Well I think we can only guess but if the fuel filter restricted the fuel enough to kill the engine it must be a pretty big blockage! So yes it could over work the pump. I can’t remember anyone doing this before?? I always blow both ways thru new gas filters just as a check and am surprised it was that much different. I don’t find very much difference blowing either way?

You can try to get something back from the shop but look at it from the shops point of view. How do they know what you say is true? People always try to say it someone else's fault even if it's not.

I would not hold my breath about getting any money back.
.
.
.

 

Thanks tbird!

I did take the receipt over to my shop and explained the situation also helped that we were stranded road side on a busy road with NO exmergency lane for 3 hours until road side assistance showed up. The shop manager felt terrible about the situation and profusely appologized for the issue and the risks to the family.

He made a copy of the receipt and said he would have the finance / accounting office send us a check in the mail for the total repair $1024 bucks!!

Real stand-up guys here in Cincinnati!! Goes to show that there are still some good honest shops out there afterall!

 

That's awesome! Put the $$ away for the next "repair" you come across...

 

nice one cb and a good result in the end, thanks for sharing