Urgent help with wheel bearing/garage fitting problem

pulliptears

Hi all,
we bought a wheel bearing for our 2004 PT Cruiser CRD from a motor accessory shop 3 weeks ago and had it fitted by a local independent garage (our usual friend's garage was fully booked so we used a garage we don't normally go to).

We recently noticed the same knocking/banging noise as before the wheel bearing was replaced so took the car into a friends garage for a quick check up. Friend took a look and told us that the securing nut for the wheel bearing was slightly loose. He went on to say that it could be that the bearing has either failed or was faulty to begin with, or could have been damaged by the fact it wasn't correctly tightened.

As things stand we are leaning towards the bearing being faulty as they are not that difficult to fit, but how do we stand with getting it replaced? I appreciate that the accessory shop will probably just swap the bearing for a new one, but that is costing £55 fitting and to be honest if they sold us a faulty one in the first place why should we be out of pocket again?

What is the best way to approach this? Do we go back to the garage that fitted it first or straight back to the accessory shop?

Any advice appreciated!

jeannieblue

If the part is faulty, it won't be the garages fault and therefore why should they fit another one for nothing?

You could try claiming the labour back from the company that made the bearing, but don't hold your breath.

We replace parts under warranty and quite often have to swallow the labour costs - depends how big a job and even then, we never ever get paid our hourly rate.

goldspanners

this is why some garages wnt fit parts you supply them.
to avoid this you could have paid an inflated price to the garage to supply and fit the part.
at best i would be looking for the bearing to be replaced,but i doubt the bearing was faulty, its more likely to have been fitted wrongly or as your friend says the hub nut might not have been tightened to the correct torque setting. or on some cars the nuts are disposable so when it comes off you should fit a new nut.

pulliptears

goldspanners wrote: »

this is why some garages wnt fit parts you supply them.
to avoid this you could have paid an inflated price to the garage to supply and fit the part.
at best i would be looking for the bearing to be replaced,but i doubt the bearing was faulty, its more likely to have been fitted wrongly or as your friend says the hub nut might not have been tightened to the correct torque setting. or on some cars the nuts are disposable so when it comes off you should fit a new nut.

So the garage is going to be the first port of call then. I imagine they will go down the "faulty bearing" route and not admit any responsibility.
Looks like we will have to swallow the costs either way.