I have a long story without a happy ending (for me) but the summary is that Brandon and Allpro really went out of his way woking on my car. The story starts about 3.5 years ago when I took my car ('02 WRX - WRB Wagon)in (for the leaking fuel lines in cold) to a local Subaru dealer. I decided I wasn't up for doing the repair myself so I left it to the experts at Subaru (local dealer). During the repair while the intake was off a nut got dropped down the intake and apparently ended up in the cylinder. I don't really know if he didn't know it had happend or if he did and decided to start it to see if it really had dropped down there, but it was started. To the dealers credit, they told me and took responsibility to remove the engine and heads to get the nut out. At the time I spend the money to replace the clutch, timing belt, water pump, and I thought the other tensioners / pulleys associated with the timing belt. The dealer assured me that the head and block were not damaged, got it put back together and it ran fine until 130K. A month or so ago I started to hear a little bit of a bearing whine, but the car was running fine. I thougth it was the AC idler pulley or maybe PS pump or alternator and didn't immediately address it. It got progressively worse so I decided to pull the AC belt to see if it went away. It didn't. Over the period of a couple of days the noise came and went, but soon got really bad - the car was running OK until it got really bad. After pulling the alternator / PS pump belt and it didn't get better I knew I had a problem. I also noticed that the engine wasn't running smoothly anymore. I had the car towed to Allpro to get checked out. The bearing for one of the cam shaft belt pulleys and gone and caused the belt to "jump teeth". Result - bent valves. Brandon went above and beoynd in diagnosing severity of the problem (reassembling after replacing the pulley and doing leak down). The dealer should have replaced this part when the other work was done, but they did not. Brandon said we could have the heads cleaned up, replace valves, and all should be good. That was until he got it apart and saw the damage the dropped nut had done to the piston / head. The piston had been working but wasn't a good idea to reassemble as is. At that point the repair went from pretty expensive to really expensive (ideally replacing the SB) A side note I was going to have him take care of a leaking shift rod seal while it was there. When he pulled the rear cover off, there were issues in the back end of the tranny including the center diff. Now I am looking at a repair bill well over the value of the car. Brandon made me a very fair offer (conisdering what it would cost me to get it running again) to buy me out including the work that had been done. I am not happy about losing a car I loved, Brandon made it a little less painful for me and hopefully he can get it running and find it a good home (maybe his for awhile). I am now driving a '08 Civic that isn't nearly as fun as the WRX, but does get much better gas mileage! I am not happy about the dealer causing all of this by dropping the nut in the engine, starting it, and then not replacing parts that should have been replaced when it was apart. However it was over 3 years ago, and I don't really have any recourse. I have moved on. Thanks again to Allpro and Brandon. He went above and beyond in investigating and diagnosing my car. I would recommend him to anyone who asks!
Sorry to hear about this. AllPro is where it's at period. Which stealership did you have the work done at? I had a pretty bad experience at SOG a few years ago and refuse to bring both of my Subarus anywhere but AllPro.
Man that is a crappy story man but props to AllPro as always. Ever since I took my LGT to SOG and the guy at the time asked if I had the turboed model... Hmm.. Interesting. AllPro or King are definitely the way to go and have always been my choice. Hope this mishap somehow opens an even better door for you soon!