Garage blew up my engine!

fox2319

I put my car in for a service & MOT this morning, got a call a little later pointing out some MOT failures that needed sorting, pushing the bill from £160 to around £330. Anyway, grinned and bearing it until later this afternoon.

I got a call from the garage saying there had been some sort of snafu with the spark plugs, wrong ones fitted, which they discovered when they turned it on and blew something in the engine! Anyway, they've taken that on the chin and have arranged a hire car for me while they fix the problem (probably into middle of next week).

My question is, would I be being reasonable if I asked for a discount on my bill for the extra hassle I've had to go through (1.5 hrs to get the car today and something similar on return as well as a lingering doubt over any permanent damage.

Any thoughts?

Ta

Jeff

Astaroth

Hmmm.... legally you would be entitled to have any out of pocket expenses covered however it does seem they have been very up front about it and have done the reasonable thing of arranging a hire car for you. They could have just as easily claimed it was a fault with your car that they discovered and not owned up to causing the damage.

I would wait and see what they do about the bill anyway before getting ready for a fight

fox2319

Astaroth wrote:

Hmmm.... legally you would be entitled to have any out of pocket expenses covered however it does seem they have been very up front about it and have done the reasonable thing of arranging a hire car for you. They could have just as easily claimed it was a fault with your car that they discovered and not owned up to causing the damage.

I would wait and see what they do about the bill anyway before getting ready for a fight

Thanks for that, all true. The only 'out of pocket' expenses are really the 3 hrs I'll need to spend (2 extra than anticipated) which will come out of my monthly overtime through an extended lunch etc.

Will wait and see what happens, ta for the reply though.

Jeff

Dave_T_UK

I would imagine that the damage caused by fitting wrong spark plugs is that the section that screws into the engine block were too long, causing the pistons to collide with them, hence dammaging the pistons. They would have to replace the pistons for new ones, if this is what has happened and they replace the pistons, there shouldn't be any long term effect on the engine, other than giving you a more efficient one.
Dave T

peterbaker

Did this all turn out ok in the end? Sorry, but I have only just read the thread.

MOT garages can often fix simple faults much more cheaply than dealers but IMHO, they do not often employ engine rebuilders.

Are you sure that if they can't even fit the right plugs that they will source the correct pistons and put the engine back together properly? I wouldn't want to find the engine burning and leaking oil at some stage in the future and wonder about how well they fixed it.

My car is 7 years old but if I had got that call, I think I'd say "STOP!!" and have got it taken to dealer, not out of spite, but in order to remove further max possible uncertainty from the equation. It would cost the MOT garage a packet, and they would inevitably charge you for all the other work as a quid pro quo, and you might not be able to face gong back again another time.

On the other hand, if you are savvy enough to see eye to eye with this particular crew and end up with an overall ok result at a price less than what you might have paid without the blow-up, then fair enough. As another poster said, they seem to have come clean in the best possible way so far.

Your call obviously and I guess you made it. How did it go?

fox2319

All seems to be sorted now, they said the spark plug was holding open a valve which was stopping the engine getting compression. I've driven round for a few days and it seems to be keeping the temperature ok but I'll be getting it checked before the weekend as I'm about to drive around 1000 miles over xmas (hence why I wanted it checked over in the first place.

I went for the half way house with the garage. It's a nationwide chain but not main dealer. Might need to reconsider next time though.

Cheers

Jeff

peterbaker

fox2319 wrote:

...they said the spark plug was holding open a valve which was stopping the engine getting compression.

Jeff I don't want to worry you unduly, but does this mean they didn't bother to take the engine apart to see what damage they did? If so, better start wearing a six-gun 'cos they are your local cowboys.

Anything fouling the valves is wholly bad.

What they told you is a bit like them saying "yes well we took your bike and inadvertently a broom handle got stuck in the spokes while we were testing it - we removed the broom handle and the wheel still goes round so it's probably ok. Let us know if it isn't."

Multiply that by four at least for a four wheel bike or in this case I assume a four cylinder engine! If the extra long plug in each cylinder was capable of fouling more than one valve then you could be talking not four, but eight damaged valves!!!

Putting completely the wrong spark plugs in in the first place was a ridiculously dumb thing for them to have done. Are you even sure they have put the right ones in now? I don't really understand why talk of engine temperature has crept in ... there are plugs which look the same as the correct ones to an untrained eye but could be still completely the wrong specification and cause the engine to run hot or cold. That's why they have numbers on them which if you are eny sort of motor engineer you look up carefully against the car make model and engine before you leave the stock room...doh!

Irrespective of what you have agreed so far, and because they are a national chain, I would write to their head office explaining the whole experience and explaining how you have just learned how serious the damage might be, and asking what action exactly they took to rectify the mistake and if they did not dismantle the top of the engine and replace the valves and thoroughly inspect the valve guides, what long term guarantee are they giving that the engine will not truly blow up later?

They will have changed all the plugs and then started the engine so all the cylinders would have been affected in the exactly the same way.

Assume this is a four cylinder four stroke engine. I am not sure how many times an exhaust or inlet valve opens per rpm of the engine but even if you assume it is only once and that the engineer didn't rev the engine much above idle it means the valve may have hit the spark plug 1000 times in a minute! If he revved the engine even half way then thats maybe 3000 times each valve hit in a minute! How fast did he switch it off? Or did he say to his mates "Come and listen to this - can you hear a funny noise? Shall I rev it some more?...."

The valves in all cylinders could have been chipped and/or cracked and/or bent making them leak slightly or worse, and to burn and fail possibly catastrophically later.

On the other hand Jeff - it might be ok.

Too late of course for you to do much about it before Christmas now...

I feel for you.