Help...garage problem..."urgent"

GotToChange

I'll try not to be too long-winded - but do hope that someone can tell me the best way to go about things with this.

I use a small local garage - where my car is known and has been serviced, CAM belt change and some parts fitted over the last year. It was with them for nearly two weeks at the start of Dec whilst they attempted to diagnose a problem. This was very frustrating - and inconvenient (I live in a village with one bus per hour and no bus at all to the next village where I keep my horse so need to go there daily....). In the end, they fitted a new water pump and various other doodads and gave me a bill of £475 - BUT with the "problem" only half-fixed as the car then had (or this was revealed by fixing the w/pump) a loud diesel knock, performance (previously acceptable) affected and fuel consumption increased (less mpg).

It has now gone back to them and they had it tested by a diesel mechanic (but not one who can actually fix it) who again started with the head-scratching/sighing routine but came up with two possibilities that would THEN need to be looked at by an ACTUAL (i.e. "can" fix it) specialist - but who is 20 miles away.

The main chap that I have dealt with at the garage left the premises at lunchtime yesterday and when I called them, I was told that he was out until Friday and that "XX is dealing with it, can't help you, here's his mobile number".

It had been reluctantly agreed that they (the garage - don't know or care which actual person...) would get the car to the specialist who would then fix whichever of the problems it actually turned out to be (one of which would be £240 - the other £650). But they had not confirmed to me that or when this would be done and as ^, "my" man was not available unless I rang him when away from the business on his mobile.

Now knowing - a little - the questions to ask - I rang other diesel specialists within my area (no-one close enough for it not be an absolute pain in the a** to figure out the logistics) and felt somewhat reassured by them (as opposed to the one who my garage were planning to take the car to, who snapped at me and wouldn't let me get a word in, saying that he had agreed to nothing and would look at the car when they brought it to him), making tentative plans to take it to one or the other of these places when I got it back.

WHICH I planned - and agreed with the garage - to do yesterday at (almost) close of business.

Getting a taxi to them - another pain in the rear end as I am in the sticks a little - I was simply directed to the car by the main mechanic. It was out the back, with a bonfire burning merrily alongside it (irrelevant I know, but still.....).
And for the first time in the five years I have had the car, it wouldn't **** ing start.
Neither of the men still on the premises seemed inclined to want to help me as I turned the engine over and over (doing goodness knows what harm) until it finally and splutteringly started. I asked them if they knew why this was and they shrugged, "we didn't deal with it...." and carried on Swarfega-ing their hands.
I drove it away but it only got me as far as Tesco car park where, upon coming to a halt, it cut out and took many many tries to start again.

Whilst doing this, I DID ring "my" garage man on his mobile - and he told me to try to get the car back to their premises. He came back the garage, from his sickbed apparently. I cannot help but wonder - and said this to him actually - 1) Why they let me come and pick up a car which must have been misbehaving (it CANNOT just have happened when I tried it) - an 2) Why they - given how poor it was sounding - they actually let me drive it away?

I then had to leave the car with them - and the plan is now for them to get a low-loader (they don't have a towing vehicle - and besides woul not have needed one before they "worked" on it yeseterday) and take it to the diesel specialist twenty miles away.

Even though it is horrendously inconvenient for me, I cannot help but think that I should ask that they restore the car to the driveable condition it was in when they started looking at it yesterday, and let me have it back to sort out the other issues myself (trust me, I do not want to have to do that but I have lost all faith).

I hope someone knowledgeable can advise me urgently on this as the window of time - to tell them to cancel low-loader/their specialist/"fix" (yeah, right) my car - that I have may start closing soon, so please please pretty please anyone, tell me what to do?

pendulum

The suggestion the garage have made the car worse is based on speculation. Ultimately you took a faulty car in, and it's still faulty. The symptoms may be a little worse now, but how do you know their negligence is responsible for that? Problems can get worse without human intervention, and you know the car had something wrong with it.

You've got no proof they did anything wrong, so either pay them for what they've done and have the car moved somewhere else, or relax and start trusting them. Maybe the mechanic who worked on the car didn't expect you to collect it, so something was left off.

GotToChange

I am not accusing them of negligence. Incompetence, maybe.
(And I do wonder if every car they work on is brought neatly and handily to them - do NONE of their customers have a car that needs fetching I wonder...)
I took a faulty - BUT RUNNING - car to them.
They knew that I was collecting it - and this was OK'd.
I still believe that they should have said SOMETHING - ANYTHING - when it wouldn't start.

Needing to get home for tea I guess.

colino

You need a decent indie to have a look and if you have no personal recommendations resort to the Yellow Pages. This initially sounded like the timing was out, but sounds like a lot of ham-fisted tinkering has gone on since and someone has to clean up the mess.
Hopefully it will be a matter of retiming and adjusting the pump, but it sounds like Tweedle De and Tweedle Dum regularly swap around jobs that they have no clue on.

vaio

yep, another vote for pump timing

GotToChange

colino wrote: »

You need a decent indie to have a look and if you have no personal recommendations resort to the Yellow Pages. This initially sounded like the timing was out, but sounds like a lot of ham-fisted tinkering has gone on since and someone has to clean up the mess.
Hopefully it will be a matter of retiming and adjusting the pump, but it sounds like Tweedle De and Tweedle Dum regularly swap around jobs that they have no clue on.

vaio wrote: »

yep, another vote for pump timing

Thank you thank you.
I see that you have logged off now but I shall continue in case you return.

I did speak to two other Diesel Specialists yesterday and had I been able to get my car (started/) back, would have probably gone to them as they sounded so much friendlier than the one my garage was - IS - using. Both mentioned timing - as indeed did "my" garage when I limped it back to them yesterday evening.

I would have thought that one (not the best...) solution would have been to fix whatever they "broke" yesterday and return it to driveability to take it to their specialist - but - as it happens -
by 9:00am, it was "on it's way". Sure.

So now, I am stuck with them, their choice of (nasty-sounding man) specialist and I'm willing to bet, the higher of the two quotes if not more now that they have involved a low-loader (seriously, w.t.h.?)


Both of the others that I spoke to said that it COULD (yes, I know better than to hold anyone to anything...) be a timing issue - BUT - the report from the guy who checked it yesterday, gave me this report:

"Checked static timing - OK
Dynamic timing is out -
Upper limit 77ATDC
Actual reading 40 deg - 255 deg fluctuating
Target value 57 deg
Lower limit 37 BTDC
This suggests either the monitored injector is faulty
or the injector pump valve is worn.
Both need specialist injector engineer to check."
"Advice -
Injector range from £240 - £360 [I wonder if this is reconditioned/also note the car is old enough to have mechanical injectors but I think that he is referring to the one electronic one...?] - around an hour or just over
Injector pump value would be £625 ."

The man who is now looking at the car snapped that - and bearing in mind it was booked in with him and has been there for several hours now, so I should possibly have heard something (especially as he said he wouldn't so anything without authorisation ....) - he may need to order parts so he could. not. possibly. give me ANY indication of anything- at all - whatosever. (Grumpy person.)

I have queries re. some of this - but it is only from speaking to the other diesel places so now I feel like Little Weed in between the Flower Pot Men (one said that the temp readings were "unusual" - and also my research suggests that an injector [of the four?] failing means engine dies altogether - not this weird power stuff that means my car sometimes sets off like the DeLorean in Back to the Future...):)

A lot of this is moot now though - as it is out of my hands - but more of the good sense and Tweedledum/dee references and humour would be gratefully received.

Additional thought -
ESPECIALLY wondering if any of this could be connected with cam belt change?
*Back to youtube now. I really think that I could give changing the fuel filter a go - hee hee.

Why am I laughing.

Notmyrealname

GotToChange wrote: »

(And I do wonder if every car they work on is brought neatly and handily to them - do NONE of their customers have a car that needs fetching I wonder...)

I've worked in main dealers and very few cars were collected from customers - they virtually all brought them to the garage. And that included the Range Rover dealership I worked at.

Notmyrealname

Take it to a main dealer and get a proper diagnosis by people who have been on the manufacturers training courses and using the manufacturers diagnostic equipment.

GotToChange

Notmyrealname wrote: »

Take it to a main dealer and get a proper diagnosis by people who have been on the manufacturers training courses and using the manufacturers diagnostic equipment.

Oh that I could (yes, and should have - diagnostics being fairly budget friendly at the main dealer - but their labour charges would make up for that I'm sure.....). The fact is, the car doesn't go - now (even though it did).

A further development is that I called the specialists to whom it was delievered to be told by them that it was not booked in, not expected and couldn't be looked at until tomorrow.

So - having a lightbulb moment -I called my Breakdwon (attached to Insurance) and they have agreed to pick it up from the place it is at (west of me) and take it to the other - more friendly - injection specialist (with whom I had a conversation yesterday) who is about 10 miles east. This means that I have to pay some £££s but it still feels more "streamlined" than any other scenario*.

HowEVER, when I called them to advise and authorise release of it, they tell me that they have the cover off and are looking at it (!!!!!!)!!!! So now, I have it expected at the other place and the place that has it were shouting to one another when I called that I was "complaining" - which I wasn't, I was letting them know it would be collected, nothing more (which had been a suggestion of theirs earlier when I spoke to them and found out that they hadn't been expecting it/couldn't look at it until tomorrow).

I gave up smoking years ago, drinking last year - but I am hitting the caffeine hard today!


*I know, other than leaving it where it is....

Destination_..._?

@ GotToChange .


I read your post in there you mentioned they did a cambelt change a year ago prior to them replacing the cambelt did your car have a similar problem already before they did it or did they make it worse .

Apart from the waterpump they replaced they did other aswell you mentioned what was it ?

mikey72

What car is it?