Equity 'going back into property'

dopester

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

I also once had a sump plug that had become galled. The car service manager tried to insist it would cost me a whole new sump. I assured him that the car was only serviced by their company and the damage must have been caused by them. the manager tried to tell me that these things just happen and he had 22 years of experience and unfortunately it was something I would have to pay for.
Long story short, after explaining that I knew about threads, cross threading, lubrication of threads, over torquing etcand having to take it up with his boss, the car was repaired fully at their costs.
How many people would have just accepted the few hundred pound costs?

Good points made there ISTL.

As for the sump-plug, I've read of the same problem occurring to others quite a few times. Over-torquing the plug, and the thread being stripped. Well done for gunning it out and getting them to pay for it. Can be difficult to prove for some people, and who only find out about it on the next service.

Dealer "goodwill" to repair such items at their own cost might be harder to come by in these economic times - perhaps.

A friend of mine has a sump-plug which is bonded in (won't turn out even with a breaker bar), so he uses a Pela for oil changes, and as the oil filter is reachable up from the top, he can do oil change, oil filter change and air-filter change himself pretty quickly and easily.

After finding out how tightly my sump plug had been fitted by a dealer, requiring a breaker bar to remove, and probably close to damage - I fitted my car with a Futomo valve years ago. Just requires you push up the lever and then turn across for full oil-drain. Easy, safe and clean and no more risk from over-tightened sump plugs.