# Cat 287c troubles



## keenan993 (Oct 7, 2010)

just had this issue with my cat 287c this week:
started with hydraulic oil leak, we found it coming from one of the test plugs (allen key) on the pump. -lots of oil loss.
at around the same time, or a little before we discovered the leak, the warning light started to go off. we topped the machine off with hydraulic oil, the light went out for a little, then we discovered the leak and tightened down on the plug. 
the next day the light went off again consistently, so I took the machine over to cat. 
they hooked it to the lab top when I was there, and was showing a code for the right hand drive motor sensor, they tried a new sensor. this turned out not to be the issue.
they proceeded to go over their procedures for no less than 10 hours, checking all harnesses, and anything else that would throw the code. 
they didn't come up with anything, and could not get the alarm to reset, so they proceeded to re-flash the ECM with the latest software ($150) to stop the warning light. 
Now I have to pay a $1900 bill! and I think it may be just for an oil leak that I found on site.?????? 
any suggestions?


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## tgeb (Feb 9, 2006)

> any suggestions?


Holy shirt...

Sorry to hear, but sounds like you owe Cat a bunch of money for crawling all over your crawler.

Maybe you could have a discussion with the service manager and see if they'll lower the bill.

I would use the argument that if there was a known issue with the software, they should have flashed the ECM first not pissed away a bunch of time = $$ trying to diagnose a non-problem.

Good luck.


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## keenan993 (Oct 7, 2010)

There is no question they had the time in crawling all over the machine. 
the all ready short handed head tech, even dropped some other work to jump on it.
I wonder now that this has happened to mine, would they just try to re-flash the ECM if they don't find something within the first few hours in a similar case. I think I may try to use this as an argument, not dealing with the tech, but the main billing department for service. 
thanks for the advise!


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