2nd hand car parts problem

Strider590

jase1 wrote: »

I'd wager your car didn't have a 3.5L V6 engine...

That said, £191 for a SECOND HAND clutch? When the new one is £300? That's the bit I don't understand.

Glad it's not just me that was thinking that......

mikey72

ThyJones wrote: »

................And yeah I received the part on Friday the 10th. What should this letter state? I have an email for them, is that suitable?...................

Send it by letter as well, special delivery so you have proof of receipt.
Just by email isn't good enough.

s_b

ThyJones wrote: »

again, irrelevant to the problem, the 2nd hand clutch had done less than 5k miles, and was assessed before hand by the people putting in, enough for them to be happy fitting the part. If a part was "crap" they would not fit it.. so discussing this point is infact a waste of time, and makes no difference to the questions I had originally asked.. It was only afterwards the problem occured when the parts did not match.

It really does make no difference on the car this is being fitted to or what so ever, that wasn't related to the question and concerns asked, it was related to the legalities behind selling a 2nd hand part that was infact incorrect, and not giving a refund on said part.

it might be irrelevent to yourself and the garage willing to fit such unknown quantities but i would love to know how they can look at a second hand clutch and diaphragm and say they are alright because even brand new clutches can sometimes look alright but not work satisfactorily when fitted,this is why you fit new not reconditioned especially on a car such as you own
however i cant let the statement pass because some other poor soul might read this thread and think it acceptable to buy a s/h clutch

its not
for the reasons i stated further up the thread and as someone else pointed out is the equivalent of fitting part worn brake pads/shoes to another car

SteveJW

Many years ago whilst serving my motor vehicle apprenticeship a friend found me some weekend work for a second hand car dealer. He was a typical bomb site spiv from the 50s, he traded in a Hillman Minx that had a knock from the bottom end, dropped the sump the big ends were shot. He went to scrap yard and persuaded them to sell him the shells out of a scrapper, brought them to me all mixed up in a carrier bag. Told him it wouldn't work, he persuaded me to fit them. Ran as sweet as a nut

pendulum

You were literally asking for trouble by fitting a second hand clutch, and trouble you got.

You're still in time for a DSR rejection and refund though. Send the email today if you haven't already.

Notmyrealname

ThyJones wrote: »

again, irrelevant to the problem, the 2nd hand clutch had done less than 5k miles, and was assessed before hand by the people putting in, enough for them to be happy fitting the part.

Firstly, how do you know it had done less than 5000 miles? How did the breakers yard know it had done less than 5000 miles?
Also the mileage is irrelevant. I've seen a clutch explode after 50ft after a hard launch. The people assessing it would not have tested the springs.

If a part was "crap" they would not fit it.. so discussing this point is infact a waste of time, and makes no difference to the questions I had originally asked.. It was only afterwards the problem occured when the parts did not match.

So they wouldn't fit a crap part but they did try to fit a part that was the wrong one?

ThyJones

Notmyrealname wrote: »

Firstly, how do you know it had done less than 5000 miles? How did the breakers yard know it had done less than 5000 miles?
Also the mileage is irrelevant. I've seen a clutch explode after 50ft after a hard launch. The people assessing it would not have tested the springs.


So they wouldn't fit a crap part but they did try to fit a part that was the wrong one?

erm, no, thats why they phoned and said its the incorrect part, they didnt try and fit it, and could clearly see it was incorrect. You would be hard pushed to find many garages who can judge a part being incorrect(when it comes down to things such as diameter) without being able to compare it against the one they are replacing; at this stage is when I got the call.

ThyJones

pendulum wrote: »

You were literally asking for trouble by fitting a second hand clutch, and trouble you got.

You're still in time for a DSR rejection and refund though. Send the email today if you haven't already.

Ok, lets for arguments sake replace the clutch part with a wing mirror. Something millions of people do and buy 2nd hand every year.

lets say my car is a fiesta, i give them the spec for the fiesta, and they send me out a wing mirror which is for an audi. Its an incorrect part, and therefore I should be able to legally have a refund. The trouble is not infact down to the part, but the company and their shoddy way of selling/refunding and the bully tactics they try and use.

I'm going down the trading standards/CAB route, have written recorded letters and at the same time have been in touch with my bank, so something should be sorted soon.

Anyway, problem pretty much solve. No need for any more replies as 90% of them have been as i've said, irrelevant.

Whatever part, whatever car, whatever the *goods* does not mean people should be ripped off.
{end}

s_b

if your garage thought that a s/h clutch was a good idea what else would they fit?
and what is the point of stripping a car down and then finding its the wrong component?
if garage had rung round a factors they would have been advised that possibly so and so clutch should fit or sometimes the factor will send more than one size
you do not seem to grasp that a clutch plate is not a wing mirror in terms of what is expected

one final thought for you
why was the car broken up for spare parts when it had recently had a new £300 clutch fitted plus labour?
was it because when the car crashed into the wall the plate was still trying to spin at 50mph but the impact stopped it quickly so no damage was done to either plate or diaphragm (ha ha)

Notmyrealname

ThyJones wrote: »

lets say my car is a fiesta, i give them the spec for the fiesta, and they send me out a wing mirror which is for an audi. Its an incorrect part, and therefore I should be able to legally have a refund. The trouble is not infact down to the part, but the company and their shoddy way of selling/refunding and the bully tactics they try and use.

Unfortunately, thats not the situation you're in.

You are in the situation where you say you have a MK4 Mondeo with a faulty Sony 6CD DAB head unit. So you order one second hand from a breakers or off Ebay. As far as you and he are concerned, as they look the same across all the current Ford models from the Focus to the Kuga, to the Mondeo to the Transit, it'll fit and work but when you get it back and install it you find it doesn't because even though they look the same and it all bolts in, they actually aren't and you need to get the specific part number for the MK4 Mondeo variant.

Now with things like interior and exterior trim/body panels it is blatantly obvious and staring you in the face so these mistakes don't happen much on items like that which is why your example is an asinine one. But when it comes to the oily bits its not so simple. On lots and lots of cars there are things that are changed periodically on a model run. For example in the MK3 Mondeo, they changed the gearbox they used with the TDCi engine during its run and the only way to be certain which it had was to supply the chassis number so they could check against the manufacturing date - a date which is more important than the registration date. In the MK1/2 Mondeo it was even worse as there was OTTOMH four or five variants even for the same engine, some of which could be interchanged with others, some which couldn't and the only way to ensure you got the right one was to get the code off the metal tag on the end of the gearbox if it was still there. The differences were quite pronounced with entire different gearchange linkages, different clutch mechanisms and different speedo senders - they weren't just a minor difference. So were you very specific as that for example supplying the chassis number as is asked for by most dealerships/motor factors to make sure its the right part, or did you just say the equivalent of ""I've got a 1998 MK2 Mondeo 1.8, got a gearbox for it?" which would have given you a 20% chance of getting the right one?

The problem is that whilst the garage and a decent motor factors would know things like this, Average Joe is completely oblivious (and your average breaker only slightly less). So Average Joe would order part A whereas the garage would know part A had been superceded with part A1 and your car needed that instead. And it is for this reason garages hate punters supplying their own parts because the punter 8/10 will buy the wrong part but the garage is the one who gets the blame with the punter expecting the garage to sort out the problem for free.

My garage don't mind me supplying my own parts because they know I used to be a mechanic and that if I do supply the wrong part I understand that I have to pay them not only for the time to fit the right part but the time they spent fitting the wrong one.