She called me because she couldn't get her car started after work. We had to get it towed out of the underground parking which is quite a pain in the ass apparently.
I spent a couple hours troubleshooting the issue (smoky exhaust, barely started, ran like shit) and I burned out the starter in the process and had to put a new one in. Starters in these little 3.7L engines are pretty pathetic.
At some point in all this she mentioned she had filled up before driving to work, so I figured out how to jumper the fuel pump and pumped out this piss-colored junk. Feels oily like diesel, doesn't burn explosively like you'd expect with straight gas.
Fresh fuel and some Seafoam snake oil to maybe clean injectors. Since I didn't drop the tank to clean it perfectly, she's going to put small amounts in for a few fills and burn it off completely between fills because the solution to pollution is dilution.
Her receipt showed she uses the gas pump, not the diesel, so I'm wondering how many people got to deal with this bullshit since I'm guessing the station got an entire compartment contaminated. Haven't bothered to talk to the company, since I did the work myself and they certainly aren't going to reimburse me for my time.
Ah well, it's an excuse to do a pile of other maintenance I'd planned anyway and had parts for.
Wife is happy she isn't buying a new car. Happy wife, happy life.
Yah, I get that, but it's done now. They aren't going to reimburse me my time, and the tow was on CMA membership so it was covered. All I'll probably end up with is a tank of gas that I don't want to redeem anyway.
Reimbursement doesn't matter much but if you got the receipt, that's something you should report to your local/state ordinance enforcement so other people don't continue to get screwed. Gas stations and pumps have to be certified for a reason.
And I would still call and bill for the labor, especially since it will be insurance getting involved anyway, and they'll bill it so long as you have an address and proof of work done (literally a 2 minute word doc).
Good to have especially when something else inevitability breaks down the line and you're spending another afternoon cursing at the engineer responsible for placing a bolt in an impossible position for what should have been a 10 minutes job lol.
No, you're a freelance mechanic and send them the bills for the repairs. Make those fuckers pay you back.
I see what you mean; sometimes it's easier to just deal with it than jump through the hoops. In my case they also gave me something like 10000 of their customer loyalty points, which I had absolutely no interest in using.