IMS Replacement Gone Bad - at my dealer!

[Jake Raby]

This is why you won't find a single dealership listed as Certified Installers of the IMS Retrofit products. Dealers are the last places that started doing these retrofits, and two years after we started selling the products, many dealers still maintained that the bearing was impossible to remove and replace.

This is way out there, and there's no telling what they actually did to create this mess. The most common issue is not checking timing first (HELLO thats part of our pre- evaluation process) and since the timing was out, it easily jumped during the procedure. They probably don;t even have the proper LN tools to lock the cams, and they are trying to use the factory tools, which increases difficulty. They may not have pulled the tensioners either.

All that said, why didn't they notice the cam timing was out before the engine was started? Its clear that they didn't, because it bent valves when it started up after the procedure.

Did the tech not check his work after completion? If he would have rolled the engine over to check cam timing, you'd not be where you are right now, and he wouldn't be looking like a fool.

Negligent techs piss me off. Please PM me the name of this dealer, and the tech. Its imperative that their accounts, and the database be updated with this bit of information, because I guarantee that if he screwed yours up, that he's done the same to others. Those might try to be turned in as warranty jobs to LN, so this is a big deal.

That said, I'd not trust anything that he did, and you better hope that he isn't the one repairing the damage/ reassembling the engine! I certainly hope that someone checked his IMS work before it went back together.

Hate to hear that this happened to you. All the "PCA members say this guy is good" talk doesn't go too far with me. Plain and simple that shop needs a QA tech thats checking cam timing before the engine is completed. Here at least 3 pair of eyes look at everything before it goes back together, and even if I am doing a job, my own employee checks MY work...(and I trained him). Thats the difference; when you treat cars like they have wings, instead of tires.