Low value dispite and the small claims court

[sugerbear]

I am currently in the process of attempting to get a refund of money I paid to a franchised dealer ( just over £70) for a diagnosis of a problem with my car.

They reset the warning without telling me what the problem was (in their words, they said they couldn't see anything) and the warning light/error message re-appeared the following week. I found someone that could connect to the pollution ecu and they diagnosed the problem instantly.

They dealer is reluctant to offer a full refund because they have (in their words) done nothing wrong. Though they have offered me a free MOT. For obvious reasons I have no intention of using them ever again. I have asked for the logs from their diagnostic machine to prove/disprove their claim of no fault being present.

But for seventy quid it seems a rather low amount to go chasing through the small claims court.

Are there any alternatives?

[sugerbear]

JustinP1 said:

sugerbear said:

I am currently in the process of attempting to get a refund of money I paid to a franchised dealer ( just over £70) for a diagnosis of a problem with my car.

They reset the warning without telling me what the problem was (in their words, they said they couldn't see anything) and the warning light/error message re-appeared the following week. I found someone that could connect to the pollution ecu and they diagnosed the problem instantly.

They dealer is reluctant to offer a full refund because they have (in their words) done nothing wrong. Though they have offered me a free MOT. For obvious reasons I have no intention of using them ever again. I have asked for the logs from their diagnostic machine to prove/disprove their claim of no fault being present.

But for seventy quid it seems a rather low amount to go chasing through the small claims court.

Are there any alternatives?

Did you specifically agree that if they were not able to diagnose the problem that you would not have to pay?

No, not at all. They told me that there were no problems and they had reset the warning light. The same warning message appeared on the pollution system the week after. The exact same message that had appeared before I took the car in. Took it to someone else who then told me the exact problem. The long and short is that one of the glow plugs is duff and that is used during the dpf regen, hence the warning message.

I don't live in the location of the garage ( near to parents) so returning for a second diagnostic wasn't an option.

The garage have told me that the hard drive was changed in September so they can't provide a printout. Convenient eh.

[sugerbear]

Quite simple. I took the car to the garage to have the problem diagnosed, I was very specific about that.

The garage didn't diagnose the problem they reset the warning and the fault remained.

Or do you think on the balances of probability the warning light problem wasn't registered in the ecu and that the fault that occurred a week later was unconnected?

[sugerbear]

I can see the point that you are both making.

It rankles with me but ultimately the garage are the losers as you have pointed out, I "lost" £70, and I know that the garage had the right equipment to diagnose, my usual garage didn't have the pollution diagnosis computer, hence why it had to go a main dealer.

They also missed another issue (engine was blowing past the injector and causing a smell inside the car) which they admitted as a common problem, but they did find that one of the rear springs was corroded.

Both those issues would have cost in the region of £300-£600 to fix at a main dealer, money they have lost to another garage.