Dealer bent AC lines

Is it a pain to get out? Maybe. Does that mean the only way to remove the cover is by bending AC lines? NO.

I knew they wouldn't do a perfect job. That's why I took pictures of the engine bay. I knew there were things that could go wrong such as:

Breaking a Nylon PCV hose,
Cracking the AIR check valve hose,
Breaking a stud on the AIR check valve,
Losing some bolts.

But they're a Cadillac dealer with all the resources to do this job properly. And this is not an uncommon repair. Let's say they followed the official service guide on how to do this job, Nowhere does it say "bend High pressure AC line"

There are several youtube videos of people doing this job themselves and NONE of them bend the AC lines. One person even removes the rear valvetrain and STILL doesn't bend the AC line there.

If I'm bringing it to a dealer, they're supposed to do the job right. They have a high labor rate, all these expensive resources and technical documentation, yet choose to do the job worse than a "shade tree mechanic". What the dealer did was a hack job.

I would have done it myself, But I paid for a GM extended warranty that covers this and the warranty would expire soon. If I'd known they'd disturb these lines, I would have never brought my car there.
 
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That's what I hate about somebody else working on my vehicles, they are playing beat the clock and don't worry about details that don't interfere with normal operation. Sometimes you have no choice but to let them do it, but these types of details bug the heck out of me. I'd probably at least ask about it.
 
Like the other poster mentioned , take it back to the dealer and have this noted, BUT DO NOT LET THEM TOUCH IT! Make sure you do NOT let the car out of sight as they look at it and watch closely. As long as it doesn't affect performance or shorten the lifespan of the parts leave it alone.
If something develops then you take it back and have the replace the lines they damaged.

That's PATHETIC workmanship.
 
So here's the update.

I went back to the dealer. I met my service manager and showed him the bent lines. He acted indifferently but said they'll take care of it. ~20 Minutes later he brings over the mechanic who worked on my car.

I show the mechanic the bent lines and the pictures of the engine bay before the car was worked on. He didn't seem to care about what happened, just acted aloof with a "whatever" expression.

My SA and the mechanic go back to do other things and I went towards the outside waiting area.

On the way, I plugged my dashcam into a powerbank and left it recording to see what they would do. When I watched the footage after, I was "disappointed"

My service advisor drives my car towards the service bays. A few minutes later a different mechanic walks over to my car with him and my SA explains the bent AC line to him. They start fumbling under the hood. Since the hood is up, I can't see exactly what's going on. But a few minutes later I hear my SA say "Oh, That's it!" and close the hood.

I then see my SA holding this long prybar. So it seems my SA bent back the lines with a prybar. Not the "gentle" approach I was expecting.
I thought the original mechanic would bend the lines back by hand, but I guess not.

Here's a picture of the line now. It still looks bent, but at least it's snapped back to its original bracket. Depending on the angle it doesn't look too bad. But it's deformed to me

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Yea so I'm never coming back to this dealer again. ~14 years ago, Our family took our car to this dealer and they also "messed up" some things. I thought they would have gotten better by now but I was wrong.
 
There is a distinct possibility they used a pry bar because it was required to do that particular task. If the lines could not be bent back without it, they don’t have much choice on whether or not to use it.

Ultimately they would have to be the ones that took that position though. I won’t speak for them; I’m merely offering up a possible explanation for what transpired.
 
Knowing that many here are fuss budgets about our cars, I am sure that many relate to your experience. It is extremely easy to play arm chair quarterback and say to let it pass. But, when stuff like this actually happens to us, we know about getting riled up and the difficulty of putting it aside. This too will pass. It doesn't show from the outside and it's functionality is probably not compromised. Try to let this leave your worry list.

You might be able to gently work it back a bit more if you understand the basic principles of straightening things out. Be very careful because some metals tend to work harden after bending a few times (not sure about the metallurgy of your line). Make sure you make notes on your service bill so that you have a record in case anything else happens.

My perfectionism usually results in making these things livable, but occasionally I create a calamity, LOL. Wisdom has tempered my need to make a crooked world straight!

Best wishes for an enjoyable holidays.
 
This thread is very familiar-my experience at pretty much every Ford dealer I've ever taken a company van is exactly the same. First (Ford Premium Care) oil change on the 2018 Transit 250 in my sig, they broke the plastic radiator core support where the hood prop rod was attached because they couldn't snap it back in place. I took it back and showed them what they did (found it the first time I ever checked the oil level), and their comment was "Ford doesn't cover customer abuse"! My comment was-you guys are the POSTER CHILD for customer abuse!! Those SOBs wouldn't touch anything of mine even if I was too invalid to slide under it on a creeper! Merry Christmas to all stealership stooges, especially lying "service advisors"-hope you choke on your eggnog! Apologies to any honest ones on this board...
 
Knowing that many here are fuss budgets about our cars, I am sure that many relate to your experience. It is extremely easy to play arm chair quarterback and say to let it pass. But, when stuff like this actually happens to us, we know about getting riled up and the difficulty of putting it aside. This too will pass. It doesn't show from the outside and it's functionality is probably not compromised. Try to let this leave your worry list.

You might be able to gently work it back a bit more if you understand the basic principles of straightening things out. Be very careful because some metals tend to work harden after bending a few times (not sure about the metallurgy of your line). Make sure you make notes on your service bill so that you have a record in case anything else happens.

My perfectionism usually results in making these things livable, but occasionally I create a calamity, LOL. Wisdom has tempered my need to make a crooked world straight!

Best wishes for an enjoyable holidays.
I agree with trying to fix it yourself, shame a media "customer reports" person couldn't get involved with the OP's issue, GM & Cadillac would go nuts over a story like this, Caddy is supposed to be better than that!
 
This thread is very familiar-my experience at pretty much every Ford dealer I've ever taken a company van is exactly the same. First (Ford Premium Care) oil change on the 2018 Transit 250 in my sig, they broke the plastic radiator core support where the hood prop rod was attached because they couldn't snap it back in place. I took it back and showed them what they did (found it the first time I ever checked the oil level), and their comment was "Ford doesn't cover customer abuse"! My comment was-you guys are the POSTER CHILD for customer abuse!! Those SOBs wouldn't touch anything of mine even if I was too invalid to slide under it on a creeper! Merry Christmas to all stealership stooges, especially lying "service advisors"-hope you choke on your eggnog! Apologies to any honest ones on this board...
Those SOBs wouldn't touch anything of mine even if I was too invalid to slide under it on a creeper
This.
The repair industry deserves all the criticism it gets and more. Disgraceful!
 
I hope you get everything sorted out. It’s shop like this that give us a bad rap which I hate. They could have been honest about it like I always am and just fixed it.
In the perfect world they'd all be honest. Unfortunately for every honest tech there are probably ten who are dishonest, suck at what they do, or don't care. I worked at five different dealerships over a three year period of selling cars, and I was in the shop quite often. If they had twenty mechanics on the payroll, eighteen of them were hacks. It basically proved to me what I knew long before working at dealerships, but seeing it first hand was truly an eye opener. I think about 90% of the good techs in the country reside on this site.

Management is partially to blame, pushing them to work fast and hiring people who really aren't that good at their craft. Many times the good techs end up leaving and going into business for themselves because they get treated like **** too many times.
 
Those SOBs wouldn't touch anything of mine even if I was too invalid to slide under it on a creeper
This.
The repair industry deserves all the criticism it gets and more. Disgraceful!

This is a thread about bent lines that in all likelihood won't affect operation what so ever. Yeah-you can argue poor workmanship but nothing is broken here....nothing. BITOGers are so paranoid they take under hood pictures on the car in question before sending it out to the dealer. You know what...if you are that period fix it yourself.

AGAIN...NOTHING WAS BROKEN!
 
This is a thread about bent lines that in all likelihood won't affect operation what so ever. Yeah-you can argue poor workmanship but nothing is broken here....nothing. BITOGers are so paranoid they take under hood pictures on the car in question before sending it out to the dealer. You know what...if you are that period fix it yourself.

AGAIN...NOTHING WAS BROKEN!
It wasn't ? I consider a bent line to be damaged and broken.
Like another poster mentioned if it remained outside of the securing bracket it eventually would have vibrated enough to shorten the life of the part and destroy it.

This is exactly the kind of response I would expect from the repair industry, there is ALWAYS an excuse for shoddy, and incompetent work.
 
It wasn't ? I consider a bent line to be damaged and broken.
Like another poster mentioned if it remained outside of the securing bracket it eventually would have vibrated enough to shorten the life of the part and destroy it.

This is exactly the kind of response I would expect from the repair industry, there is ALWAYS an excuse for shoddy, and incompetent work.
And another poster in the same situation said it has lasted 10 years...and still counting.
 
And another poster in the same situation said it has lasted 10 years...and still counting.
Lucky them, the next guy might not be so lucky, there's a reason why the engineers placed a securing bracket there, I don't care what some random poorly trained, sloppy, and incompetent mechanic might say.
Look at it this way, if you were the customer and your line was bent left that way and you never knew the piping vibrated and wore out years earlier and costs you a thousand dollars to replace would YOU be OK with that? I think not.
 
This is a thread about bent lines that in all likelihood won't affect operation what so ever. Yeah-you can argue poor workmanship but nothing is broken here....nothing. BITOGers are so paranoid they take under hood pictures on the car in question before sending it out to the dealer. You know what...if you are that period fix it yourself.

AGAIN...NOTHING WAS BROKEN!
Hmm, looks broken to me.
 
More than likely a valve cover gasket job was handed off to an intern/trainee. The attitude is generally that the customer never knows what sort of heavy handed tactics are taken for repairs. Dealer technicians are paid on commission so the quick ways are what they are after. That doesn’t always result in a neat repair unfortunately.
 
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