Did the shop mess up my van?
I have a 2001 pontiac montana, had it for 4.5 years,
with on and off problems. A few months back, the
brakes started failing on me. They would squish
down to the floor without breaking, then when
pressed a second or third time, they'd finally stop
the car. I took it into a shop and had the breaks
fixed - I'm a clueless ladybrain about cars - and the
problem wasn't fixed. So, I took it back and had the
brake cylinders fixed. Not that either. My hub tried
to do the brake booster on his own. Fast forward
two months, I was sick of watching it sit in my
driveway, so I called a tow and had it hauled back
to the shop. They fixed that, and lo and behold, the
problem was still a problem. So, the owner finally
says he thinks it's the master cylinder. We pay him
to fix that, and we leave happily with our now
breaking car.
The next day, it overheats. We are in Cali, and the
temp had been 112* that day, so we let it cool, and
went on our merry way. My hub drove it to work the
next day, and it overheated on the way there. After
he left work, it wouldn't start without a jump. Then
it overheated after only a few miles. So, he let it
cool, and I jumped it again, then he would squeeze
the coolant thing because water wasn't getting to
the radiator - it was cool to the touch in the middle
of a hot engine. We followed in this fashion the 19
miles back to the shop.
The guy is saying that we blew a head gasket, our
fault entirely, but my husband suspects that the
tubing wasn't properly reinstalled. I am so
frustrated about this, I could die. Do cars this old
just blow all of a sudden, because they're gnarly
and awful, or could this be the fault of the
mechanics?
