Fault not fixed - what's an acceptable outcome?

[kiethton]

Just to get a few opinions on "reasonableness" a little help would be appreciated before I take it up with the garage in the morning, they're good guys who have done a lot of work (£2.8k worth on a £4k car) in the last 3 months.

Facts summarised below:

Garage - Marque specialist
Fault - Intermittent battery drain
Time Period - Had car for investigation for 1 week and another week to fit parts and service, collected less than 2 weeks ago/200 miles
Car - 10y.o barge

After testing battery and other known weak spots diagnosed alternator, fitted replacement etc. final bill <£1k

Car has died again - battery drain

I now think that the alternator wasn't the cause (RAC confirmed it was ok when i had them called out) but garage said it was after testing etc.
With the time it's obviously not possible to fit my old one as its likely been sent off for reconditioning/binned
Paid on a CC so have that backstop

Ideally the new part will be faulty and they can swap it over but it did come back with a PDC fault (not there previously) and is a known weak spot for battery drains I fore-warned them of.

So as per the question, what's a reasonable outcome?

[Mr Daytona]

Can't answer your specific question, but do feel your pain in having to invest £2800 in a car worth £4000 in just 3 months. Ouch.

Time to cut your losses and bail out and let someone else have a go at it perhaps ?

[t400ble]

2.8k on a 4k car?

[DuraAce]

£1k for an alternator? Mental.

Take it to someone else ASAP.

you need the battery drain measuring and whichever circuit is causing it to be identified before you spend more money you don't need to.

[mclwanB]

Sounds about par to me I'm afraid!

6.3k for a new engine (BXE 1.9 TDI) in a 2.5yo/62.5k Skoda worth 7.5k (out of warranty by 2.5k!)

3k for a new gearbox, flywheel and clutch for 3.5yo/105k Skoda worth 4.5k (presumably caused by engine detonation)

1 week after gearbox fixed stranded with clutch on floor, RAC managed to fix (washer not replaced properly)

More recently rear window wiper required 3 trips 1k to garage to.. not fix (now only blows fuses every few weeks- the garage have obviously left a loose wire somewhere. Seemed to get a new problem everytime it went in though so not keen to take it back. Was trapped with garage as only one locally that has a loan car of a size I could work out of.

Clutch then went soft again, 2 attempts to fix unsuccessfully, found a different garage that had a small van I could work out of, another £750 in total to fix a problem that they claim was caused by damage to the slave cylinder probably caused when the gearbox when the other garage replaced it (but of course non-provable!).

Still better than the 1 yo work Mk1 Focus I had as a work car previously. Went through 5 alternators after that garage left undertray off after a service/ repair, job at time I often drove through sh***y farm yards and that car was truly electrically screwed (also fuel pump and electronic management went). Probably all related. Was told 9k in repairs in 18months/ 60k miles (turbo went after 1k of use/ 17k miles, suspension failed twice behind and once in front).

Honda had 1 alternator in 100k (and 2 driveshafts in 120k). Driveshafts so expensive got rid of car though!

Have drifted off the point a bit- just hate running a work car! However in my experience getting anything out of a garage when they screw up is near impossible unless they REALLY screw it up (like the AA connecting jump leads up incorrectly to my friend's RAV4 and frying the ECU)!

[isetta]

i am a bit out of touch with modern cars, but i do recall on occasion in past alternators draining batteries as the diodes in the rectifier pack went faulty. The rectifier converts the AC current that the alternator creates into DC current . The rectifier is built into the alternator.
A simple test with a multimeter to see if current would flow backwards into the alternator (with all car wires disconnected from alternator) was the test.
I don't know if things have got more complicated with modern alternators.

[kiethton]

It was £800 for this job inc. oil service, expensive as its a water cooled alternator

What's the normal procedure where a garage has done work that was incorrect?

[405dogvan]

I'm afraid that garages operates on the basis that you authorize work with no guarantee of a result beyond the work itself (e.g. a new alternator is a new alternator - not a problem solved). I believe this even has some case law behind it tho IANAL...

Basically, garages offer you the OPTION of having work done which they BELIEVE may fix a given problem - unless they give you a guarantee in-writing (and they never would) you have to pay for the work regardless of it's usefulness.

I've seen people spend £1000s on a car trying to resolve a fault - some parts are non-returnable (ECUs, injectors etc. which are 'coded' to a vehicle) and you won't know if they fix the problem without doing that so it's entirely based on guesswork.

If I were you now I'd be considering 2 possible routes

1 - returning to the garage, highlighting that you've paid a lot of money and they've failed to resolve the problem - see if you can get some goodwill work done
2 - selling the car on

Also - electrical faults you take to a specialist auto electrician - most dealers and even specialists don't have the skills and often subcontract the work anyway (tho they may "do the obvious stuff" like a battery, alternator, CUs etc. first just to make sure they score some cash from you!)

Edited by 405dogvan on Friday 29th August 23:42

[V8forweekends]

More German engineering eh?

[405dogvan]

pmjg66 said:

http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/england/consumer_e/c...

Utterly crucial point is the 'quality of the work' - if the alternator is fitted and working then the quality of work is 100% and you have nothing to complain about.

That it didn't fix another fault is not their problem - consumer law does not cover that at all.

The service they offered was an alternator replacement and NOT guaranteed fault resolution

[Sheepshanks]

mclwanB said:

Sounds about par to me I'm afraid!

6.3k for a new engine (BXE 1.9 TDI) in a 2.5yo/62.5k Skoda worth 7.5k (out of warranty by 2.5k!)

If the service history was proper then surely Skoda would have fixed that?

[V8forweekends]

Sheepshanks said:

If the service history was proper then surely Skoda would have fixed that?

Google BXE - not much joy from any VAG companies despite the fact there seems to be a known issue.

[Sheepshanks]

V8forweekends said:

Sheepshanks said:

If the service history was proper then surely Skoda would have fixed that?

Google BXE - not much joy from any VAG companies despite the fact there seems to be a known issue.

OK, found his thread on here now - it was serviced at an indie. Tough one - might have been worth a punt in the small claims court - Vauxhall was settling out of court on Corsa camshaft claims even though they're strictly not legally liable.

Having said that, I read about Honda replacing the engine on a 5yr old CRV that threw a rod and had had its last service at an indie.

[mclwanB]

Sheepshanks said:

mclwanB said:

Sounds about par to me I'm afraid!

6.3k for a new engine (BXE 1.9 TDI) in a 2.5yo/62.5k Skoda worth 7.5k (out of warranty by 2.5k!)

If the service history was proper then surely Skoda would have fixed that?

Ha bl**dy ha! Search for bxe 1.9 tdi engine codes on here or Google. Not aware of a SINGLE instance where they have even offered a contribution to a fault whichis a KNOWN issue with the BXE and BLS engine codes. Their excuse with mine was that the local indie garage had used an engine flush product (~8k before failure), full service (non vag) history. Colleague s car went with 50k/3.5yrs/ no engine flush but no joy with vw (his was a golf).

[mclwanB]

Sheepshanks said:

OK, found his thread on here now - it was serviced at an indie. Tough one - might have been worth a punt in the small claims court - Vauxhall was settling out of court on Corsa camshaft claims even though they're strictly not legally liable.

Having said that, I read about Honda replacing the engine on a 5yr old CRV that threw a rod and had had its last service at an indie.

It's why honda has such a good reputation. Problems v rarely happen and when they do they stand by their product rather than the VAG attitude of.. well fe*k off!

[mclwanB]

Going back to original problem despite all the issues caused by leaving undertray off on the focus my old job never got anywhere with consequential damage.

[Bill]

405dogvan said:

1 - returning to the garage, highlighting that you've paid a lot of money and they've failed to resolve the problem - see if you can get some goodwill work done
2 - selling the car on

Coming back on thread... This. With option 1 being the preferred choice. Try to be calm and reasonable about it because going all guns blazing will only get their backs up. It could be that the new alternator is faulty, it could be that what ever was the issue has stuffed the new one or it could have been something else all along.

[TheAngryDog]

Is this the 540? If so, if the battery isnt original then its possible that the ignition switch is faulty. When they go faulty they do things like drain batteries among other funny things.

[kiethton]

Thanks, spoke to them this morning, as it was over a longer time it seems like it was a smaller drain my thinking was the phone module, but the ignition is a fair shout - battery was fitted OEM 12 months ago

Going to disconnect the thing this weekend and go from there

[TheAngryDog]

no worries! Good luck and I hope you find the fault! You can get a new ignition switch from BMW - With discount they're around £60 iirc.