Help needed urgently please!

carlymummy

Hi
Our car (Vauxhall Zafira 03)broke down a few weeks ago we had the AA out she thought it was possibly the ECU (?) so we had it towed to a local garage where further diagnostics could be run, he couldn't find the problem so sent it to a local diesel specialist (£££) it took them nearly a week to diagnose the problem but they weren't 100% so it had to then be towed to the main dealership (Vauxhall) they ran their diagnostics it took again nearly a week for them to find the problem - they decided its the fuel pump and we got the quote yesterday - £2500!!!!!!!!!! They tell us that only a main dealer can fix it as the part is specialist and needs re-coding We know nothing about cars at all!
We bought the car in July this year (3mth warranty we didn't take the extended warranty - I know how stupid ) from a reputable garage we only paid £4695 - put our car down at the time against the cost. The car has now been towed back home as we simply cannot afford to have it fixed!
My question to you that may know is - can we perhaps make a claim against our insurance as the repairs are going to cost over 50% of purchase price
Any help/advice very much appreciated
Thanks
Carly

hartcjhart

have a look here and see if there are any similar things

http://www.carsurvey.org/reviews/vauxhall/zafira/r23373/comments/

and here

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/watchdog/2009/01/vauxhall_cars_that_suddenly_lo.html

hewhoisnotintheknow

common on vauxhalls, i would find a vauxhall specialist by joining some vauxhall forums

vikingaero

Contact these people to see if they can remanufacture/refurbish the fuel pump:

http://www.bba-reman.com/catalogue/Products.aspx?category=231

If the can fix it they should be able to give you a price to do so. As an example my Dads old Merc A-Class had a faulty air mass meter. Because an ECU is combined with the meter, Merc wanted £1,200. We had a garage dismantle the meter, store the car whilst the meter was being refurbed, and refit the meter for £120. BBA reman charged £300 for refurbishing the meter.

hewhoisnotintheknow

I've only ever heard good things about his company, i was thinking about sending my golf to them to be fixed, after i had only driven it once in 30 days because of continuous problems, but i wasnt prepared to waste any money on the VW heap

vikingaero wrote: »

Contact these people to see if they can remanufacture/refurbish the fuel pump:

http://www.bba-reman.com/catalogue/Products.aspx?category=231

If the can fix it they should be able to give you a price to do so. As an example my Dads old Merc A-Class had a faulty air mass meter. Because an ECU is combined with the meter, Merc wanted £1,200. We had a garage dismantle the meter, store the car whilst the meter was being refurbed, and refit the meter for £120. BBA reman charged £300 for refurbishing the meter.

bosseyed

I'd query why they're saying only the main dealer can fix it - theres plenty of independant specialist garages out there who are more than capable of re-coding ECU's etc and have all the required kit, and who often will be a fraction of the cost of a main dealer. Have a google, or run through yellow pages for independant specialists.

This is the problem with the whole 'diagnostic' culture of main dealers these days - if a fault code doesn't pop up on the laptop, more often than not they genuinely don't know how to fix it. I had all kinds of issues with Blade VW in Gloucester a few years back where they essentially ended up guessing everytime the car (a complete lemon) went wrong because their software was unable to diagnose correctly and their mechanics didn't have enough mechanical knowledge to form any theories.

hewhoisnotintheknow

bosseyed wrote: »

I'd query why they're saying only the main dealer can fix it - theres plenty of independant specialist garages out there who are more than capable of re-coding ECU's etc and have all the required kit, and who often will be a fraction of the cost of a main dealer. Have a google, or run through yellow pages for independant specialists.

This is the problem with the whole 'diagnostic' culture of main dealers these days - if a fault code doesn't pop up on the laptop, more often than not they genuinely don't know how to fix it. I had all kinds of issues with Blade VW in Gloucester a few years back where they essentially ended up guessing everytime the car (a complete lemon) went wrong because their software was unable to diagnose correctly and their mechanics didn't have enough mechanical knowledge to form any theories.

Another happy VW customer, still they hold their value well (after youve spent 1000's on em) :rotfl:

bosseyed

hewhoisnotintheknow wrote: »

Another happy VW customer, still they hold their value well (after youve spent 1000's on em) :rotfl:

:rotfl: Incredible it was. Mark IV Gti, I bought it and everybody said "Oooooh, you won't go wrong with VW, lovely solid cars" etc etc, and it was far and away the worst car I've ever been near. After a flawless test drive and then a couple of weeks happy trundling, it went wrong, and continued to go wrong every month. I lost track of the amount of oil sensors, lambda probes, radiators, water pumps, ECU tweaks, spark plugs and various oil and fluid changes I had, all carried out by a bunch of laptop toting nancy boys in lovely clean branded VW overalls, but without any clue what the issue was or how to fix it.Even the brake light switch failed, which was fantastic. At one point when it started misfiring YET AGAIN, I was getting 7mpg on the motorway with fuel spewing out the exhaust.

Eventually I tried to MOT it and it had just started playing up and the chap couldn't even keep the engine running long enough to do the emissions test, so it failed spectacularly and I limped it round to the dodgy garage next door and flogged it for £1k, about half its theoretical value. I've never been so glad to see the back of a car, I shudder to think how much time and money I spent just trying to get it to work.

Lemon.

hewhoisnotintheknow

bosseyed wrote: »

:rotfl: Incredible it was. Mark IV Gti, I bought it and everybody said "Oooooh, you won't go wrong with VW, lovely solid cars" etc etc, and it was far and away the worst car I've ever been near. After a flawless test drive and then a couple of weeks happy trundling, it went wrong, and continued to go wrong every month. I lost track of the amount of oil sensors, lambda probes, radiators, water pumps, ECU tweaks, spark plugs and various oil and fluid changes I had, all carried out by a bunch of laptop toting nancy boys in lovely clean branded VW overalls, but without any clue what the issue was or how to fix it.Even the brake light switch failed, which was fantastic. At one point when it started misfiring YET AGAIN, I was getting 7mpg on the motorway with fuel spewing out the exhaust.

Eventually I tried to MOT it and it had just started playing up and the chap couldn't even keep the engine running long enough to do the emissions test, so it failed spectacularly and I limped it round to the dodgy garage next door and flogged it for £1k, about half its theoretical value. I've never been so glad to see the back of a car, I shudder to think how much time and money I spent just trying to get it to work.

Lemon.

But its still reliable, just tell your friends this

carlymummy

Thanks everyone! Have contacted a site that refrubs fuel pumps etc so got to wait and see now! Also joined a vauxhall owners forum so will hopefully get some specialised advice from there too.

Anihilator

SOGA

As its less than 6 months since purchase it will be up to the garage to prove the fault wasnt inherent when you purchased it.

Might not be sucessful but worth a try,