I'd be interested to hear opinions from both pro mechanics and laymen.

History: I took my 2000 Ranger 3.0 Flex, 76K miles, to an ASE mechanic for an unrelated problem and needed the engine pulled. While the engine was out, I asked him to replace the rear main seal. Not long afterwards, the truck began leaking at what we both believed to be the new RMS. The warranty was almost up, but he honored it (sort of), and said that he would drop the transmission to replace the seal. After the installation of the second RMS, the leak started again. All of this occurred within a year and no more than 6,000 miles.

Yesterday, I climbed underneath and saw that instead of unbolting and removing the front exhaust pipe, he cut it twice on either side of the transmission and sloppily welded it back together.

There were other serious problems with the job that I won't bother describing, but based only on what I described above, would you expect work like that from an ASE mechanic, especially without first discussing it with the customer? Is it common to cut rather than taking time to unbolt exhausts in order to drop a transmission?

My first reaction is anger and at this point I plan to demand a new Y pipe to be replaced by another mechanic, but before I react that way, I'd like to hear opinions.

 

Yea I'd be livid as well. Every time I've taken my trans down, I've unbolted the Y pipe. It's not hard, and it takes less time than booger welding. Also, although I've seen worse welds, those are still pretty awful. At least he didn't grind them down to try and hide it.

Only excuse for this would maybe be if the studs or nuts holding the Y-pipe to the exhaust manifolds were in bad shape, or if the studs for the intermediate pipe were in bad shape. But a good mechanic would fix those problems as well, so still not a good reason.

 

Yes I would be beyond words with that, even if they were CLEAN welds, lol