Garage havent fixed problem with car and now want to charge more to take another look

mr_fishbulb

Hope someone can offer some advice here. We have a Seat and the EPC light has come on. We took it to a local independent garage who replaced a part. The light went out for the next 30 miles but then came back on.

We then took it to a Seat garage assuming that they would be able to identify the problem. They called back saying it had been fixed. Because we couldn't get to the garage until after they had closed, we paid by credit card over the phone (£130) and picked it up from the garage forecourt after work.

As soon as we turned the ignition on, the light was on. So we called back the garage the next day who said it would take a whole day further to fix, but would only charge us £270 (half of the cost apparently).

We said we weren't happy with this because as far as we were concerned, we had already spent £130 and the light was in the same condition as it was when we took the car in. They said they had done other work such as re-wiring but, whatever they did still didn't fix the light. The guy was going to check with the garage owner to see if there was a better deal they could give.

The garage called back saying the new offer would be we only pay for half the work done to fix it. This is a WORSE offer as it has no upper limit like the £270 they had already said. Also no mention of a refund or reduction of the £130 we've already spent.

The guy said he would get the garage owner to call back yesterday to see if he could come up with a better offer, he didn't. I'm now going to call him on Monday.

What would be an amicable solution for this? We'd like a partial refund for the £130 and a guaranteed max cost for future work to fix the light.

What legal right do we have to pursue a refund for the £130 when we are not happy with the work done?

Thanks

Sssssss

ask for a full refund of money paid to date, if they refuse get credit card company involved. As for further work find another garage.

tomstickland

Sometimes it will require some trial and error to locate the source of a problem.

withabix

tomstickland wrote: »

Sometimes it will require some trial and error to locate the source of a problem.

True, but if you take it to a Main Stealer, you should only pay a fixed price for the repair, not for their crap 'expert technicians' to aimlessly tinker with your car because they haven't a clue what's wrong.

They haven't repaired the car, so they should refund the £130.

vikingaero

withabix wrote: »

True, but if you take it to a Main Stealer, you should only pay a fixed price for the repair, not for their crap 'expert technicians' to aimlessly tinker with your car because they haven't a clue what's wrong.

They haven't repaired the car, so they should refund the £130.

I can't see many main dealers offering a fixed price for a repair. Some faults are intermittent and may not show when at a dealer. Other faults have multiple triggers and false triggers.

In a perfect world we'd have fixed prices for faults but some elude even the best trained and equipped mechanics whether at a dealership or at an independent garage.

Fixed prices work for things like servicing or else you're asking everyone whose cars go in for simple repairs to subsidise those with complex repairs.

Premier_2

vikingaero wrote: »

I can't see many main dealers offering a fixed price for a repair. Some faults are intermittent and may not show when at a dealer. Other faults have multiple triggers and false triggers.

In a perfect world we'd have fixed prices for faults but some elude even the best trained and equipped mechanics whether at a dealership or at an independent garage.

Fixed prices work for things like servicing or else you're asking everyone whose cars go in for simple repairs to subsidise those with complex repairs.

In this instance, I think it's unlikely a dealer would offer a fixed price repair until they have examined the vehicle to diagnose the cause.

However, they should be able to offer a fixed price to examine the car to diagnose the fault. At that point they should be able to provide a fixed price to go on and repair it.

... and in this case they've already conned the customer out of £130 so presumably they've examined the vehicle.

As the £130 was presumably invoiced as a repair the fault and it clearly wasn't repaired I'd follow the advice of Sssssss and others above.

mr_fishbulb

I appreciate that it is not easy to diagnose and fix some problems (I used to work on an IT helpdesk!) but they shouldn't charge until they have found a solution.

When we first took it to the Seat dealer, we were hoping that they would have more of an idea how to fix it than the independent dealer. Now it's obvious that this isn't true. I'd rather get the rest of the repairs done by the local independent garage as it is cheaper and the guy is a lot more helpful than the Seat dealer. But I've already spent £130 on the Seat garage with nothing to show for it. The £130 may be useful in negotiations for futer work (although it hasn't so far).

Can I despute the full £130? What are my chances of getting any of this back? Disputing a service seems a lot less black & white than, say, taking something back to the shop becuase it doesn't work.

mr_fishbulb

Premier wrote: »

As the £130 was presumably invoiced as a repair the fault and it clearly wasn't repaired I'd follow the advice of Sssssss and others above.

The invoice says:

WORK REQUESTED: Investigate EPC warning light on.

WORK COMPLETED: Carried out diagnostic ckeck & carried out wiring repair.

**** ATTENTION **** Warning light may come on if constant braking (ie if in traffic but only an indicated fault)

To me that suggests that a wiring issue was the reason the light was on, which they repaired, thus the light would be off. This was not the case when we started the car after they had done the work (light was still on).

gilbert_and_sullivan

To be fair it's not easy for mechanics anymore, it never was but a skilled mechanic would trace a fault on older vehicles by a process of elimination until he (usually in those days) found he was on the right track and eventually pinned the problem down.

Modern cars just don't allow such systematic fault finding.
If the onboard fault recording doesn't list the problem then it's often only down to the mechanic's knowledge of usual faults to seek a solution.

I've got no answers for you Mr Fishbulb, other than to suggest finding a competent VW group specialist of umpteen years experience.

I am lucky enough to have such an indy for my ageing Benz, if i were left to the tender mercies of the main dealer i would have been Benzless years ago...he saved me £1500 in one nasty episode alone about 3 years ago.

Maybe a post on a make specific forum might elicit suggestions for a cure and certainly a competent indy.

Premier_2

mr_fishbulb wrote: »

The invoice says:

WORK REQUESTED: Investigate EPC warning light on.

WORK COMPLETED: Carried out diagnostic ckeck & carried out wiring repair.

**** ATTENTION **** Warning light may come on if constant braking (ie if in traffic but only an indicated fault)

To me that suggests that a wiring issue was the reason the light was on, which they repaired, thus the light would be off. This was not the case when we started the car after they had done the work (light was still on).

Personally I think you should demand the full £130 back.

I don't think the garage can reasonably expect to keep any whatever their point of view.

The work requested was to diagnose the EPC warning light on.

Even if I took the side of the garage, if that is all they literally agreed to do, where is the diagnosis you paid for? And why can't they give a fixed price for the repair now?


If I take your side I would suggest the garage wrongly diagnosed the fault as a wiring issue and have repaired the wiring. But that didn't fix the initial fault so you shouldn't expect to pay.


Btw, don't expect main dealers to be experts in your vehicle. I discovered that the hard way too :mad:

I once took my car to a main dealer for diagnosis. (Actually I took it there becuase another very small garage I took it to looked at it and said they didn't know how to fix it, but at least they didn't charge me anything).
Anyway the main dealer had it for a day, for which they charged me £50 and claimed it was simply solved by repacking the UJs with grease which they say they had done. (despite them being the sealed for life design)
But I still identified the original fault when the vehicle was still in their car park after it had been 'repaired'. So I went into complain and they said the fault would disappear with time/mileage and they eventually agreed 100 miles would be reasonable. So I took it 100 miles and the fault still existed. Another day spent in their garage apparently according to them "being inspected by their two very best technicians" still failed to diagnose the fault and all they could suggest was to start replacing parts in the hope they would discover the fault. Their first quote was £1000 for new driveshafts and no guarantee that would rectify the fault.
(The first garage I took it to had already confirmed to me it definitely wasn't a driveshaft issue, something I suspected may have been the issue, else they would have offered to fix it themselves)
So I left the main dealer and went to another independant garage. Within less than 2 minutes on a test drive, (free of charge) their mechanic diagnosed the fault, told me the required repair (and fixed cost once he had checked the parts prices), and promised it would definitely fix the fault (which it did) ... it was not the driveshafts and the repair cost a lost less than £1000.

Sssssss

tomstickland wrote: »

Sometimes it will require some trial and error to locate the source of a problem.

agreed, but that is no excuse for the garage charging the customer more and more money whilst they fiddle around to try and find the fault.

Added to the fact the customer service is non existant as the owner / manager failed to keep his promise to call the customer.