Paying for diagnotiscs on a car still covered by a warranty?
Discussion
oniznorb said:
Aberdeenloon said:
If the light was on and there wasn't a fault then the light was faulty so they turned it off therefore fixing the fault.
if the light was on and there wasn't a fault then the light was faulty - it is still warranty eldar said:
I took my car into the dealer as the odometer read KM rather than Miles. A fault unknown to the dealer and the manufacturer that took 5 days, 2 ECUs and a steering column to rectify. Happily they didn't try and charge me. Thats what the warranty is for. It wasn't working properly, they fixed it so it did.
A steering column?! 
I think ive seen it all now, so a warning light coming on is not a fault? therefore its meant to come on? and a FORD dealer wants to charge £48 to turn the non faulty light out on a car that is under a FORD waranty is it just me or is something wrong here?. As said before point FORD gb to the power of tinternet, think i would have told the service managerthat i was not paying and walked out.
He would then have a problem to deal with
He would then have a problem to deal with
robsco said:
eldar said:
I took my car into the dealer as the odometer read KM rather than Miles. A fault unknown to the dealer and the manufacturer that took 5 days, 2 ECUs and a steering column to rectify. Happily they didn't try and charge me. Thats what the warranty is for. It wasn't working properly, they fixed it so it did.
I'm happy they did too, but they weren't required to diagnose a fault as they could see what the issue was straight away without having to hook it up to diagnostic machinery. I'm not saying its right, in fact its utterly wrong. Its just a very easy source of revenue for a dealer without having to do any work or use any resources.A lot of aftermarket warranties cover the repair but not any diagnosis time, mostly because this is not quantifiable in advance so it would be a blank cheque for the workshop (together with the fact that it's an insurance policy so they will always avoid paying wherever possible).
I haven't heard of it from a dealer before but then I also didn't know that Fords three year warranty wasn't a full warranty for the full three years. Still, with a light on there was clearly something wrong with the car at some stage and even if the code wasn't giving enough information to carry out a repair it's pretty poor to try to charge.
robsco said:
Well no, the car didn't have a hard fault at all, it was the EML light. They diagnosed the vehicle to find there was nothing wrong with the car, so turned off the light. Regardless of whether there turned out to be a fault or not, the vehicle still needed to be diagnosed to determine this.
That's just wrong isn't it. A diagnosis would say 'this is what caused the light to go on, and this is how we've repaired it' otherwise they should be saying: 'It was an erroneous fault code, we've interrogated the cars systems and everything appears to be functioning correctly, and since it was an erroneous code there's no charge'.Bottom line is the handbook tells you to take it to the dealer for repair as soon as the light goes on. If the light is wrong, they are wasting your valuable time, and to charge you as well is ridiculous.
The person concerned should make a complaint and make damned sure they get their money back, plus some sort of goodwill gesture. The service manager kidnapping the car for £48 which shouldn't be charged anyway is just insane.
What they actually did was plug a connector into the ECU, wait 60 seconds for the messages to come up on their laptop / screen, say "Dunno what that means", then press "Clear Codes". For that process, which would have taken about 3 minutes tops and didn't address the fault, they charged £48. Whilst under warranty. Not a particularly good deal.
hora said:
A lad who operates from a unit on an industrial estate charged me £70 to do the exact samething. I asked why it was soo much (equipment costs money).
Right.
You can get a fault code reader that plugs into the OBD socket for less than 100 quid.Right.
Anyway, on the original topic, I'd fight that one to the end. What a joke. BMW have tried that one with me: told them what the symptoms where and sent it in for an £125 diagnostic session. Went to get it at the end of the day, and they said "well sir, it look like your car <insert list of symptoms I told them about>".
I told the chap to go and get the job card that was filled in when I dropped the car off, and then read out what was written on it. Cue embarrassed looks followed by "sorry sir, we won't charge you for that".
If he had tried to charge me and stuck to his guns there would've been lawsuits
Don't buy a ford I guess!
Is there no 'self-test' thing you can do with Fords - on my Astra's its:
...press brake and accelerator down as far as possible keep pressed down put key in ignition turn it till lights come on (dont start engine) in mileage display a code will come up.
This can be checked against lists found on the net.
...press brake and accelerator down as far as possible keep pressed down put key in ignition turn it till lights come on (dont start engine) in mileage display a code will come up.
This can be checked against lists found on the net.
BMWBen said:
You can get a fault code reader that plugs into the OBD socket for less than 100 quid.
You can get them for a lot less than that, and if you have a laptop that is 10 years old or less then you can get an interface and software for single figure sums that'll read and clear fault codes.eldar said:
I took my car into the dealer as the odometer read KM rather than Miles. A fault unknown to the dealer and the manufacturer that took 5 days, 2 ECUs and a steering column to rectify. Happily they didn't try and charge me. Thats what the warranty is for. It wasn't working properly, they fixed it so it did.
My cars' odometer was showing KM instead of Miles too, so I pressed a button and it went back to Miles.MJK 24 said:
A friend has a 59 reg Focus 1.6 diesel. About 26,000 miles on the clock. The engine management lamp came one. He took it to his local Ford dealer. They ran a diagnostics check, couldn't find a fault, turned off the lamp. When he went to collect the car, he was presented with a bill for £48 for half an hours labour.
Am I away with the fairies in thinking that as the car is well within its three year warranty, this should not have been charged?
Std for Ford I'm afraid ....and a lot of other manufacturers main dealers especially if you don't go to the supplying main agent.Am I away with the fairies in thinking that as the car is well within its three year warranty, this should not have been charged?
We had an '07 Tdci Fucus (30k on the odo) for a year until a month ago with similar 'engine management' issues. Got through £200 in diagnostics in all (to be fair the first garage was not the original supplier and I now find out are renowned locally for being carp). We then went to the original supplier who pulled most of their hair out trying to find out WTF the fault was.
The dealers charge for diagnosing the fault then claim the costs etc. back from the Ford warranty policy when they 'believe' they know the cause. The problem with this is, as your friend found, they haven't a clue what the fault is! Out of 12 months of ownership our car was back with the dealers for 3-4 months and had a new alternator with Smartcharge replaced, section of wiring loom, then the BCM. As soon as it came back from the BCM swap it was PX'd for a new Civic
Oh, and the diagnosis cost. We did manage to get half of it back and that was it. The rest was taken by the carp dealer to reset the codes because they could not locate the fault - muppets!
PM me if you want more in depth info.
Edited by Marlin45 on Monday 16th May 16:52
Edited by Marlin45 on Monday 16th May 16:56
Edited by Marlin45 on Monday 16th May 16:57
Edited by Marlin45 on Monday 16th May 16:58
cheadle hulme said:
Unless you really need a Ford for some reason, you may as well buy a Kia with its 7 year warranty. 1 year plus 2 years dealer really does show how s
t they know their products are.
Most makes are one year manufacturer and two year dealer aren't they?t they know their products are.I remember when there were loads of Europeanimports and one of the downsides was that many only had a years manufacturers warranty and as it was bought outside of the UK there were no years twoand three.
Definitely the case with Audi, and I'm sure others.
Could be that the dealer is being an arse??
I had the ABS light come on so off to the dealer it went. They couldn't find a fault so they just reset the thing via the diagnostic thingy. Never a hint that I would have to pay - they just billed Ford UK. This was in the 3rd year of the warrenty.
Mind you the light came on a few weeks later but was fixed properly this time.
Might be worth a call to Ford HQ.
I had the ABS light come on so off to the dealer it went. They couldn't find a fault so they just reset the thing via the diagnostic thingy. Never a hint that I would have to pay - they just billed Ford UK. This was in the 3rd year of the warrenty.
Mind you the light came on a few weeks later but was fixed properly this time.
Might be worth a call to Ford HQ.
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