Poor workmanship? Advice please
Discussion
Hi Guys. Just looking for a bit of advice.
My clutch went on the cerb about a year and a half ago. As my car is an early model I couldn't get the correct clutch so had to send the bell housing, flywheel etc down to a specialist ( that I won't name for obvious reasons ) to be re-machined in order for a later clutch to fit.
I was pretty happy with the result and the price wasn't too bad, that was until yesterday.
I've just taken my engine out for a full rebuild and when the clutch has come out we have noticed damage caused, I am assuming, by poor workmanship.
The eight flywheel bolt heads have been scrapping against the six springs on the clutch. This has taken about 2mm of metal off the springs and the bolt heads are obviously damaged aswell.
I've done about 6 k miles since the clutch was fitted.
I've not contacted the specialist yet but just thought I would get a couple of opinions first.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
My clutch went on the cerb about a year and a half ago. As my car is an early model I couldn't get the correct clutch so had to send the bell housing, flywheel etc down to a specialist ( that I won't name for obvious reasons ) to be re-machined in order for a later clutch to fit.
I was pretty happy with the result and the price wasn't too bad, that was until yesterday.
I've just taken my engine out for a full rebuild and when the clutch has come out we have noticed damage caused, I am assuming, by poor workmanship.
The eight flywheel bolt heads have been scrapping against the six springs on the clutch. This has taken about 2mm of metal off the springs and the bolt heads are obviously damaged aswell.
I've done about 6 k miles since the clutch was fitted.
I've not contacted the specialist yet but just thought I would get a couple of opinions first.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Difficult one and not really a 'cerbera' topic. You cant mention the garage here I'm afaid.
Are you absolutely sure it is their workmanship?
I would recommend you give them a call and ask them politely to comment and ask what they propose to do about it.
I would then put everything in writing, take lots of pics and get something in writing from the garage that found the poor workmanship.
What however do you want from this?
Do you want the 1st garage to put it right?
Do you want them to refund the 1st set of work?
Do you want them to fund another garages remediation work?
I think however you could be on a hiding to nothing and sometimes you are best to just move on......
Are you absolutely sure it is their workmanship?
I would recommend you give them a call and ask them politely to comment and ask what they propose to do about it.
I would then put everything in writing, take lots of pics and get something in writing from the garage that found the poor workmanship.
What however do you want from this?
Do you want the 1st garage to put it right?
Do you want them to refund the 1st set of work?
Do you want them to fund another garages remediation work?
I think however you could be on a hiding to nothing and sometimes you are best to just move on......
I wouldn't have thought the bolts would cost much to replace and is the clutch servicable? If it is then I'd fit new bolts and get on with life. Also, I think when you ask people to make 'modifications' as a one off you should expect a little extra risk and we are talking quite some time ago when the work was carried out. Out of interest how much would a replacement clutch cost of the type you have compared to a genuine item of the sort you used to have? I think lifes to short to get upset over a clutch.
It's a custom job. TBH, I don't think you can complain.
If this was a standard procedure, perhaps, but how many people will have had this modification done?
You say yourself you had to take the thing apart to find the problem.
Perhaps the fault lies with you?
Perhaps you should have taken it apart sooner to spot potential problems that were developing.
Like all engineering, you bought the tool time and the expertise, but it's about more than that. If you develop something you're constantly critical, constantly refining.
To do it properly, you should now go back to the guy who did the work, explain what happened, and work with him to solve the problem. You should expect to pay him for his additional time. Perhaps he'll sort it gratis.
Unless you do that, your modification is still as non-standard as it ever was, and you've done nothing to carry "the knowledge" forward.
If he's withholding the knowledge, and you're paying, you have a case, but that's it IMO.
Bad workmanship, is much more the territory of him making the job useless, at the time he did it. So, I'd say that's things like making a brand new clutch unusable, or breaking your existing bell-housing in half.
In technical parlance, it has to warrant an expletive related to the whole job.
This is just a detail issue.
If this was a standard procedure, perhaps, but how many people will have had this modification done?
You say yourself you had to take the thing apart to find the problem.
Perhaps the fault lies with you?
Perhaps you should have taken it apart sooner to spot potential problems that were developing.
Like all engineering, you bought the tool time and the expertise, but it's about more than that. If you develop something you're constantly critical, constantly refining.
To do it properly, you should now go back to the guy who did the work, explain what happened, and work with him to solve the problem. You should expect to pay him for his additional time. Perhaps he'll sort it gratis.
Unless you do that, your modification is still as non-standard as it ever was, and you've done nothing to carry "the knowledge" forward.
If he's withholding the knowledge, and you're paying, you have a case, but that's it IMO.
Bad workmanship, is much more the territory of him making the job useless, at the time he did it. So, I'd say that's things like making a brand new clutch unusable, or breaking your existing bell-housing in half.
In technical parlance, it has to warrant an expletive related to the whole job.
This is just a detail issue.
Edited by dilbert on Saturday 12th June 15:50
If this had happened to me I'd be pissed off. The fact that it's a custom job doesn't excuse bad workmanshp and making a cock up. As advised previously, contact the garage and see what they say. But I'm afraid you'll probably end up with nothing, just like I did when I was ripped off by a so called specialist with my chassis, there is nothing you can do (legally).
dilbert said:
It's a custom job. TBH, I don't think you can complain.
If this was a standard procedure, perhaps, but how many people will have had this modification done?
You say yourself you had to take the thing apart to find the problem.
Perhaps the fault lies with you?
Perhaps you should have taken it apart sooner to spot potential problems that were developing.
Like all engineering, you bought the tool time and the expertise, but it's about more than that. If you develop something you're constantly critical, constantly refining.
To do it properly, you should now go back to the guy who did the work, explain what happened, and work with him to solve the problem. You should expect to pay him for his additional time. Perhaps he'll sort it gratis.
Unless you do that, your modification is still as non-standard as it ever was, and you've done nothing to carry "the knowledge" forward.
If he's withholding the knowledge, and you're paying, you have a case, but that's it IMO.
Bad workmanship, is much more the territory of him making the job useless, at the time he did it. So, I'd say that's things like making a brand new clutch unusable, or breaking your existing bell-housing in half.
In technical parlance, it has to warrant an expletive related to the whole job.
This is just a detail issue.
Im with this all the way. Knowing specialists and garages as I do, they are grumpy bIf this was a standard procedure, perhaps, but how many people will have had this modification done?
You say yourself you had to take the thing apart to find the problem.
Perhaps the fault lies with you?
Perhaps you should have taken it apart sooner to spot potential problems that were developing.
Like all engineering, you bought the tool time and the expertise, but it's about more than that. If you develop something you're constantly critical, constantly refining.
To do it properly, you should now go back to the guy who did the work, explain what happened, and work with him to solve the problem. You should expect to pay him for his additional time. Perhaps he'll sort it gratis.
Unless you do that, your modification is still as non-standard as it ever was, and you've done nothing to carry "the knowledge" forward.
If he's withholding the knowledge, and you're paying, you have a case, but that's it IMO.
Bad workmanship, is much more the territory of him making the job useless, at the time he did it. So, I'd say that's things like making a brand new clutch unusable, or breaking your existing bell-housing in half.
In technical parlance, it has to warrant an expletive related to the whole job.
This is just a detail issue.
Edited by dilbert on Saturday 12th June 15:50
ds at the best of times and being understanding is the only way you will get anywhereI had a similar problem with an insurance repair. At the next service the garage found something that should have been repaired, but wasn't. I managed to get them to fix that because it was totally obvious it was their fault and they could load the cost back on the insurance company. However, months later something else needed work that should have been spotted, but it was just too far down the road to even contemplate complaining. This was a standard repair on a Honda using a Honda dealer and not bespoke work like yours. I would have a good swear and then move on.
Thanks for the input guys.
I understand fully that its not a clear cut case of their liabilty if any. That's why I posted the topic before talking to them, mainly to see if anyone else might have had the same or a similar situation.
When the work was done they recommended the modification and made it clear that this was something that they had done many times before.
My only worry was that obviously if left as is down the line it may cause problems, or that if i wanted to replace the clutch or any of the damaged components that the same thing will happen again.
I will give them a call and explain the situation and see if they can advise.
Thanks again, Barry
I understand fully that its not a clear cut case of their liabilty if any. That's why I posted the topic before talking to them, mainly to see if anyone else might have had the same or a similar situation.
When the work was done they recommended the modification and made it clear that this was something that they had done many times before.
My only worry was that obviously if left as is down the line it may cause problems, or that if i wanted to replace the clutch or any of the damaged components that the same thing will happen again.
I will give them a call and explain the situation and see if they can advise.
Thanks again, Barry
Gassing Station | Cerbera | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff