Sprague Street Auto Service

The customer brought a *** *** with a 2.4L in line engine to us because his water pump was leaking. The car had at least 120,miles on it and had the original water pump. The water pump needed to be replaced in order to fix the leak. The labor required to replace
the water pump is similar to the labor required to replace the timing belt. This car had the original timing belt and the timing belt should have been replaced at around 90,to 100,miles. If the timing belt fails, it causes severe engine damage. For these reasons, we recommended to the customer that we replace both the water pump and the timing belt at the same time. It's very common to do both at the same time. We told the customer that this would cost $and he said he couldn't pay this muchSo, in order to build goodwill with the customer, we agreed to do the job for $600. This is way below the market rates that shops typically charge for this work. When we worked on the car, we found that the plate for the crank sensor was bent and that the crank sensor had been ruined as a result. We did not cause this damage. It was there when we opened things up. The crank sensor plate costs us $and the crank sensor costs us $100. We asked the customer to cover this additional cost and he said he couldn't afford it. So again, in order to build goodwill with the customer, we decided to absorb this cost and complete the job. The new timing belt would not work properly without these parts being replaced. So, at this point, we are doing a job that should cost the customer $but we are only going to charge the customer $600. He was getting a good deal.When the customer picked up the car, it was running fine. He paid us $557.06. He returned about week later complaining that the car was running rough. We looked at it and determined that it was misfiring. This has nothing to do with the timing belt and water pump that we replaced. We recommended that the car be tuned up which would include replacing the spark plugs and coils. It looked to us like the spark plugs and coils were the original ones in the car and since the car has high mileage, this is typical maintenance that would be done. We told him we'd need to charge for this work and he walked awayTwo weeks after this, he comes to us with a bill for $for work done on the car for a tune up and asked us to pay for it. We refused to do so.We don't feel we did anything wrong. We did not make any money on the job since we discounted the price by $up front and absorbed an additional $in parts costs all in an effort to build a good relationship with this customer. The work we did on the car involved the timing and serpentine belts and the water pump. We did not do any work in the part of the engine that would require a tune up (spark plugs, coils, filters, etc.) so how could we be responsible for the work he had done for the $350. The vehicle involved is a years old and high mileage so the owner has to expect that the car will require a lot of repairs and maintenance. How is that our fault? We won't be reimbursing this customer since we feel we did nothing wrong