Major problem with 11,000 mile nearly 2 year old Ka UPDATE POST 71

MrsE_2

bigjl wrote: »

If for example you had a car that was only used once a week, then did a 50 mile trip to the country on quiet dual carraigways at a steady speed, then after two years the oil wouldn't be degraded badly, also the owner checked the fluids before every journey. The car would be almost certainly fine.

If however the car did 5 or 6 3 mile journeys everyday, never got properly warmed up, then add on never checking the fluids and some stop start city driving, lots of cold starts and you get the situation 11k later that the car is knackered.

I think the OP is talking about the second scenario in all honesty.

I have done this for years, I would rather know it had done high miles and been maintained than buy a low miler and hope it had been maintained and not hammered round London.

She doesn't like driving, hence until he BF got rid of his car recently (when they aquired the mortgage) they usually used his car.

Its only ever once been to London, & yes it did Dual carriageways & B roads.

You have assumed much.

I am surprised this major fault wasn't picked up at the service a couple of weeks ago.

MrsE_2

thescouselander wrote: »

To be honest I dont think the lack of service at 12 months has anything to do with the failure. Even if the car had been serviced at 12 months Ford would have most likely just wiped an oily rag over the engine and maybe pumped the tyres up - it might be worth checking if they would have actually changed the oil at the 12 month service.

Notwitshanding that - at 11,000 miles the oil should still be in reasonable condition (even at 2 years old) and I don't see why the OP should have suffered a piston ring / bore failure at such a low milage.

It is possible to get an engineers report on why the engine has failed. A quick look with an endoscope should reveal if the piston bore is scored or failing that any manufacturing defects in the piston rings could be identified if they were removed from the engine (although you're half way to fixing it by this point).

Thank you.

Is it a new engine & a couple of grand repair?

MrsE_2

Strider590 wrote: »

I don't know what everyone else is going on about, but it sounds to me like it was overfilled with oil..... This can do enormous damage of the type you have described!

And don't let that garage buy the car from you, they'll make a really nice profit on that.

Inactive wrote: »

I agree with this, it seems like the garage that serviced it, overfilled it.

So how would we go about proving this, if it was the case?

MrsE_2

bigjl wrote: »

Hope she invested the £100 she saved in not servicing the car well, it needs to have preformed well to cover the costs of the current problem.......

Thank you for your kind thoughts.

My DD is pregnant, has a large mortgage (because of living in the SE), works for the NHS & is under threat of redundancy.

Your sarcasm would probably make her burst into tears if she read this:(

MrsE_2

bigjl wrote: »

Nope, sod them, they are on their own.

It is an unfortunate postion for anybody to find themselves, but self inflicted.

Or do you think we should pay extra so that those that don't insure their cars can be covered when the worst happens so that they can have their car fixed for free.

Warranty invalid, next case please.

Because she spent 11k on a brand new car & its reasonable to expect it to do more than 11k miles

MrsE_2

thescouselander wrote: »

At the end of the day Ford have a legal responsibility to provide a warranty to the OP. Ford may claim the actions of the OP have invalidated the warranty but if the OP was to take Ford to court Ford would have to demonstrate this was actually the case.

I belive that the OP could potentially demonstrate (on the balance of probability) that the fault was not caused by missing the 12 month service and it might be possible to demonstrate that Ford would not have identified the problem during the 12 month service.

Of course proving all this may be irrelevant if the problem was caused by overfilling the oil.

Perhaps the best soultion is the get the engine repaired by a third garage and get an experts report as to the cause of the failure. The OP could then decide whether to pursue the party responsible in the small claims court.

The garage that did the 21 month service, didn't pick up any problems.

MrsE_2

petrolhead69 wrote: »

If the oil was overfilled to the point of breaking a ring the car would have been very smokey, the op never mentioned this. I would hope it wasn't that because that would mean this girl has been driving a few weeks without checking the mirror and seeing plumes of blue smoke. Hopefully not but if that is the case take the car keys away for the safety of your grandchild to be.

No smoking.

MrsE_2

thescouselander wrote: »

I would be very surprised if the company being sued didn't try to defend themselves. In a civil case the judgement is made on the balance of probabilities so if the defendant doesn't try to prove their case they could be significantly disadvantaged.


Something else that just occurred to me. Why is it that only one cylinder is affected? If the problem was down to dodgy (old) oil all cylinders should have been affected by wear equally - I'd at least expect to see a reduction in compression on the other 3 cylinders. Same with over filled oil - there would have been other evidence like oil gushing out of the crank case breather.

I reckon its either a manufacturing fault or something has been ingested into the engine.

Its def only one, I know nothing about cars, but what you suggest makes sense to me.
Ford aren't going to do an unbiased diagnosis though are they........

thescouselander

MrsE wrote: »

Thank you.

Is it a new engine & a couple of grand repair?

I wouldn't have thought things would be that bad. Basically the piston needs to be removed which involves removing the cylinder head and sump and extracting the piston through the top of the engine.

At that point the piston rings will probably need to be replaced and if there is any damage to the bore that will need to be repaired (there are a few ways of doing this). Since the engine has very few miles on it its probably worth fixing but it will involve quite a bit of labour. The main dealer will probably charge a fortune but I would have thought an independent garage would charge around £1000.

Perhaps someone else might come along with a more accurate estimate though.

MrsE_2

Just asked my daughter to explain some more.

Just over 2 weeks outside Tesco the car started chugging & a engine warning light came on. Her BF checked the dipstick (among other things) & a hiss of pressure was released when he opened it. The oil was nearly empty so they bought some & put it in.
HOWEVER this surprised him as he had done its monthly check & top up about 3 weeks before.
After the oil was put in the light remained on for that night but went off on the drive to the service the next day, but the chugging stopped instantly.

They booked it in for a service the next day & explained what happened. They hooked it up to a diagnostics & could find no fault & did a service & said its fine.

Then the chugging happened again yesterday. They returned it to the service garage & they thought it was a coil pack, but realised it wasn't & that it was the oily spark plug.