So I pick up my car from the shop today and drive it home. I had the main rear seal on the engine changed. Driving home I noticed that the suspension was kinda weird. It was bouncing, like there was no shocks in the front. When I came home I looked on the car from the side and it looks like the car is a "low rider" in the front. What the hell did the mechanic do now???? Did he forget to hook something up after he had the transmission out?? Give me some ideas before I go back to the shop tomorrow and raise hell.

 

Hmmm, rather than move the engine he may have removed the front subframe and suspension to replace the seal, I'd ask how he got to it. Shocks don't influence the ride height, it's the springs, have they cocked them up in some way?

 

I'm heading over there now. I'll let you know what he says.

 

So I went over there yesterday. The car was up on the lift and me, the mechanic and the service manager was there, and we are baffled why it's running so low in the front. Everything looks normal under there. When they changed the seal they lowered the transmission and the exhaust. Never messed with the front end. The car is running about 1 1/2-2 inches lower in the front after I picked it up from the shop. I have a picture of the car before and you can clearly see it's lower. When I was driving it, before taking it to the shop, it had a hard bouncy feeling when going through bumps.
They are keeping the car there today too and going to compare it to another car they have there. Same model as mine, and to see if they can find something different on my car. My first thought was that the car had air chocks and that they were leaking or something was not hooked up right. Air rides did not come until 2004, so that's out of the question. Then I asked the mechanic if it looks like that car has after market springs, and he said no "looks normal".
The "good" thing is that they gave me a brand new XF to drive around in. So as far as I'm concerned they can just keep my car and let me have the XF. What a sweet ride.

 

Turns out I had bad shocks..duh..took me 45 minutes to remove and replace myself. That was easy.