‘Total Scam Job’ Chevy Colorado Owner Visits Missouri Car Dealer With Engine Issues, Gets ‘Robbed’
A Chevy Colorado owner was having engine issues, so he visited a car dealer in Missouri to get it fixed. He ended up getting scammed.
The owner of the 2022 Colorado Z71, which had over 119,000 miles on it, said he was traveling through the Kansas City area on a road trip when the truck would stall. In some cases, the Chevy wouldn’t start back up. So they took the truck to a local dealership to have it looked at and hopefully fixed.
According to David Long, known as Car Wizard on YouTube, the Chevy Colorado owner lost a lot of money due to an incompetent technician. (Wait, was it a technician or a mechanic? Perhaps that’s a discussion for another day.) His exact words were “they stopped at a shop in the Kansas City area and got robbed. They basically got robbed.”
Long said in a video about the case that the tech ended up replacing unnecessary parts. Bonus: they didn’t even fix the problem.
After a quick tour of the vehicle and some warnings about the engines in various model years of the Colorado (which he called “junk”), he got to the heart of the issue.
The Colorado owner was told by the dealership technician that the alternator wires had melted and that the alternator was faulty. So they replaced all of that. Unfortunately, that didn’t stop the Colorado from stalling.
So what was causing the Chevy Colorado to repeatedly stall?
Knowing the issues aren’t with the alternator, Long narrowed it down to three possibilities: the fuel system, the mass airflow sensor, or the ECM (electronic control module). Using a Launch CP 123 tester, he discovers an issue with the low-pressure fuel pump. The fuel pump has nothing to do with the alternator.
So, he said, the Colorado owner “bought parts that were unnecessary to get them back on the road. And it didn’t even fix anything.”
Now, Long will order a new fuel pump and get it installed. Once that is done, he said, “the stalling and the cranking no start issue will be gone.”
If you find a good repair shop, stick with them; they are rare
His final piece of advice concerned the lack of truly qualified, certified, knowledgeable technicians in the United States.
“When you take your car to get it worked on, keep that in mind,” he said. “Out of the five, six, seven people they have working there, how many of them are really knowledgeable and know exactly what they’re doing?”
He added, “I’ve heard a lot of people say mechanics today are just computer readers, part changers. They don’t know what they’re doing. They’re just reading computers and replacing parts. Whoever worked on this last couldn’t even do that, right?”
So, “once you find that trusted shop… make sure you stick with them.” Don’t always go to the cheapest one available.
