Took my car for repairs, got it back in a worse state

Pound

I took my car for some repairs so that I could sell it. The next day they called me to say that the repairs had been done but another problem had been identified.

Apparently they rolled my driver window down. When they did it rolled all the way down so they took my door apart to manually get the window back up and they found that the regulator was faulty and wanted to know if I would like to pay them £350 to get that repaired!

Some points with this:

• The electric window has always worked since I've had it, it worked on the day I took it in. The fault has happened whilst in the garage. Obviously it could have been about to go and it just happened there.
• If you firmly press the window button then it will by design roll all the way down. I really hope the mechanics didn't take my door apart and disable the window mechanism for that.
• The big point is that a regulator only costs £70, yet they want to charge me £350!

There's even a how-to guide on the Internet that looks about as simple as instructions that come with flat packed furniture. I may have a go over the weekend.

There's no question, more of a rant but comments welcome.

goldspanners

i recently fitted a window regulator to my focus passenger door,easy enough to do and it cost £65 delivered on ebay,brand new after market unit.

Pound

I had a look at buying on online. How do I know which one is right for my focus?

BLT_2

Pound wrote: »

I took my car for some repairs so that I could sell it. The next day they called me to say that the repairs had been done but another problem had been identified.

Apparently they rolled my driver window down. When they did it rolled all the way down so they took my door apart to manually get the window back up and they found that the regulator was faulty and wanted to know if I would like to pay them £350 to get that repaired!

Some points with this:

• The electric window has always worked since I've had it, it worked on the day I took it in. The fault has happened whilst in the garage. Obviously it could have been about to go and it just happened there.
• If you firmly press the window button then it will by design roll all the way down. I really hope the mechanics didn't take my door apart and disable the window mechanism for that.
• The big point is that a regulator only costs £70, yet they want to charge me £350!

There's even a how-to guide on the Internet that looks about as simple as instructions that come with flat packed furniture. I may have a go over the weekend.

There's no question, more of a rant but comments welcome.

Tell them to go poke, repair it yourself, then write a letter to your local paper complaining, and if it gets published send them a copy , garages just love bad publicity and being advertised as rip off merchants

Or even better post the garages number on here and we will all ring up and ask if they can recommend a good garage as we understand they rip people off themselves :rotfl:

skiddlydiddly

Check owner sites or just ring them up and ask to confirm it fits your model.

blue_haddock

Pound wrote: »

I had a look at buying on online. How do I know which one is right for my focus?

i sell these for a living so know a fair bit. They are also quite a common failure on the focus

If it is for a focus then as long as you need the mechanism only then they are all the same. If you need a motor as well then there is the standard type (press and hold the button to go down) or the comfort function type (press button once to go all the way down).

The aftermarket ones only come as the standard type, only ford do the comfort version and its not cheap. It sounds like you could get away with the regulator on its own though - as long as you can hear the motor whirring away trying to work your ok.

All you need to do then is make sure you get the right one for the window your require so driver or passenger, front or rear. its not a massively difficult job, more fiddly than anything.

Pound

blue_haddock wrote: »

i sell these for a living so know a fair bit. They are also quite a common failure on the focus

If it is for a focus then as long as you need the mechanism only then they are all the same. If you need a motor as well then there is the standard type (press and hold the button to go down) or the comfort function type (press button once to go all the way down).

The aftermarket ones only come as the standard type, only ford do the comfort version and its not cheap. It sounds like you could get away with the regulator on its own though - as long as you can hear the motor whirring away trying to work your ok.

All you need to do then is make sure you get the right one for the window your require so driver or passenger, front or rear. its not a massively difficult job, more fiddly than anything.

Thanks, I've sent you a PM about the part.

It is the comfort version. I can hear the motor whirring but it makes a horrible noise when I use, like a scraping noise it but I'm hoping it's just the regulator that noise is coming from.

I've just taken my door cover off following a how-to guide on the Internet. But now I've gotten it off the whole door is covered in foam which seems to be glued to the metal part of the door. It looks at first glance like it's going to be messy to get the foam off to get access to the regulator and even messier getting it back on. Is this bit as difficult as it looks?

thescouselander

If its just the cable that has snapped you can get a kit to fix it off ebay for £10 - I did a similar job on OH's Megane, it worked perfectly.

Pound

BLT wrote: »

Tell them to go poke, repair it yourself, then write a letter to your local paper complaining, and if it gets published send them a copy , garages just love bad publicity and being advertised as rip off merchants

Or even better post the garages number on here and we will all ring up and ask if they can recommend a good garage as we understand they rip people off themselves :rotfl:

It was a Ford garage. I send them an email asking why they were charging £350 when the part was available elsewhere for <£90.

Their reply was that I would be getting a genuine Ford part which they think would be of higher quality and the price quoted is the same as every other Ford garage.

I guess the moral is to not go to dealer garages unless you really need to or can make a claim under warranty.

I eventually got the Window fixed using a £15 replacement cable from eBay!

Hammyman

Pound wrote: »

I guess the moral is to not go to dealer garages unless you really need to or can make a claim under warranty.

My dealer service is £2 cheaper than the independants. A genuine brand new Ford alternator for my Mondeo TDCi with 12 month guarantee was £40 cheaper from my Ford dealer than from the cheapest motor-factors and they were only recons with a 6 month guarantee.

mikey72

Hammyman wrote: »

My dealer service is £2 cheaper than the independants. A genuine brand new Ford alternator for my Mondeo TDCi with 12 month guarantee was £40 cheaper from my Ford dealer than from the cheapest motor-factors and they were only recons with a 6 month guarantee.

The vauxhall trade price is about the same as a good independant.
The trade price isn't a bad discount, but even without it most bits can be haggled down.