Faulty head gasket

TwistedAngel

Hi all - seeking some advice.

My brother's car developed a fault and as my uncle is a mechanic, he looked at it and discovered the fault to be a faulty head gasket. He carried out the work, new parts etc and charged £450. This was at the start of May 2013. Only a few weeks after this, my brother starting finding the engine losing water again and having my uncle look at it again it is the SAME head gasket fault. Now my brother didn't take receipts for the original work but is now being told by my uncle he will keep the costs to do the work again to a minimum. I'm not convinced my brother should be paying anything since the work was previously only carried out a few weeks earlier - and not to a satisfactory level. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Valli

What a mess...your brother has paid out, has no receipts and it's a family member who did the work.
To fail within three months suggests that the initial repair was ineffective/sloppily done.
Maybe somebody should have a word with the Uncle...IMO the Uncle should be doing this free of charge - your brother has already paid for parts and labour.

Lomast

Unless the new gasket was faulty in which case the supplier should be footing the repair costs or was fitted incorrectly (uncle should repair for free) then i suspect its more likely that the head needs skimming

TwistedAngel

Thanks - I'm sure I heard my brother mention something about skimming it off - to be frank the whole job sounds totally cacked! I use a very reputable garage which has never ripped me off and have advised my brother to go there time and time again. I'll see what he has been told but will pass on the advice. :-)

arcon5

Do you know what's caused the issue? A new HG failing 3 months later doesn't sound right.... could there be a fault with another component? Has the car been overheating?

Hintza

This is a no win situation and not really a consumer rights issue (although technically it is). This is a FAMILY issue and should be treated as such and dealt with by the family.

If it can't then this will cause a lot of problems which could become irreconcilable. Proceed with extreme caution.