Garage

Madmadmad14

Thanks, we all get wound up and angry and have oversights of current situations! Thanks for the decent replies though.

Madmadmad14

Sorry, to add: what I want to get from complaining other then letting them know they're rubbish, is get my money back for the re gas in May this year. It was a waste of time and money... It's like painting a fence that's about to fall down (sorry rubbish comparison, anyone think of anything better?!)

sinizterguy

I don't think you're going to have much luck.

The regas was done in May, it worked until recently, so about 2-3 months. Now there are holes from stones, etc and it is not working.

This may well have happened to any make of car, any age, regassed by any garage.

Move on and get the work done somewhere else.

If you continue to make their life miserable, they may offer to regas for free or reduce the price for the work a little. They are NOT going to give your money from May back.

As you don't trust them to do more work, the above option is pointless.

So move on.

Madmadmad14

sinizterguy wrote: »

I don't think you're going to have much luck.

The regas was done in May, it worked until recently, so about 2-3 months. Now there are holes from stones, etc and it is not working.

This may well have happened to any make of car, any age, regassed by any garage.

Move on and get the work done somewhere else.

If you continue to make their life miserable, they may offer to regas for free or reduce the price for the work a little. They are NOT going to give your money from May back.

As you don't trust them to do more work, the above option is pointless.

So move on.

Thanks, you are right, it's good to hear it from someone else... I wouldn't want them to touch the car again!

Can I name and shame on here?

Geodark

Name and shame them for what? did you actually read what the guy above wrote????? you seem to have read something that he didnt say!

arcon5

So what do you actually want?
And why are you so angry?

cajef

The holes in the condenser by stones could have happened anytime since they re-gassed the system, if a condenser is holed the gas will leak out pretty quickly and not take two or three months, if it was just a leak it would take time to find but any garage that knows what it is doing should diagnose a holed condenser within half an hour or so, how could they check and test the rest of the system if there is no gas in it?

forgotmyname

They said they needed it all day just in case its one of those elusive leaks or wiring issues that only happens after running it for so long.

But it was an obvious fault so they found it quickly. Would you prefer a bill for 4 hours of fault finding then be told what the fault is?

Joe_Horner

Madmadmad14 wrote: »

Can I name and shame on here?

Really not recommended, especially seeing as there honestly doesn't seem to be anything definite that they've done wrong.

Aircon systems can leak very slowly, which won't be picked up on a leak check but does leave many (though certainly not all, or even most) needing regassing every year or so.

The absolutely correct thing to do in that case is to find and fix the leak bu, when faced with the time that would take and a possible bill for a new compressor or worse, most owners of such cars either let the aircon die or allow for paying £50 or so a year in the summer.

Any "real" leaks will, as he said, be picked up by the machine when they attempt to regas because oherwise they'd be potentially pumping refigerant straight into the air - which is a BIG no-no. So, if the machine doesn't indicate a leak when evacuating the system, there's really no point in "looking over" the system because any leaks will be too small to see by eye.

In this case, they've asked for the car for a day, which is perfecly reasonable to try and trace a very slight seep.

But you've picked up holes in the condenser - which happened after the regas in May or they wouldn't have been able to do it - so, as they tried to gas it to start the diagnosis the machine will have idenified a major leak and the condenser is the first place to look. So they found the stone holes and stopped there.

To have any chance of finding the "old" slow leak they'd have replace the condenser first in order to pressurise the system. Which you obviously wouldn't have thanked them for when you got an unexpected bill for a condenser rather than just a quote!

DaveTheMus

Madmadmad14 wrote: »

Hello

First time posting but I always read these forums!

I need some advice please if anyone can help... Here's the story:

- I bought a used car in August 2012. It came with a 6 month warranty.

Things can go wrong with a used car? I never knew...

- In June 2013 the air con started blowing hot and making funny noises, concerned I went to a local air con specialist garage. They said they'd checked it over and it just needed re gassing, so I agreed and this did fix the problem.

Problem was fixed, next.

- In late May 2014 the air con started doing the same funny noises and blowing hot. I took it back to the same garage and told them they'd refilled the gas less then a year ago and I was now having the same problem. They ran the car through their machine and said everything's fine and it just needs re gassing.... As you can imagine I was a little miffed and did argue the point that a car with no problems should not lose all it's air con gas in under a year, even if it's been used a lot! I reluctantly agreed for to pay again (£50) for the re gas (they had already put it in and would have still charged me all be it not as much to have it removed (£20)).

I have my aircon re-gassed every year because I use it alot.

- Skip to last week... Guess what? The air con starting making noises and blowing hot again! I phoned up the garage again, explained everything and they said they would have a full check over the car for no charge but they would need the car for a whole day. I need my car to get to work and about during lunch etc so it was difficult for me to lose it for a day and arrange other travel, but fortunately my mum helped me out and I booked it in for today.

Must be difficult living in an area with no public transport and being unable to make your own lunch for work.
- I dropped the car off at the earliest time I could (8.20am) this morning after being told they'll need the car all day, and so I was excepting to pick it up after work around 5.45pm. As you can imagine, I was surprised when I revived a call at 8.50am, just over 30mins after dropping the car off, in the call they told me that they'd checked the car over and have found small holes from stone chips in the condenser. They told me it will cost £275 to fix. I told them 'wow' and I'll think about it.

Excellent work by the garage. They looked at your car straight away and identified the problem very quickly. They don't have a crystal ball however and have no way of knowing that the problem is easy to spot./COLOR]

- I go to pick up the car at 5.45pm this evening and told them how I'm not happy for the following reasons:
:::: They me they would need the car for the whole day, yet it took only 30mins. Which not only seems way to quick to diagnose a problem but is incompetent at time assessing! I would like to think they found the stone holes and then continued to check that everything else is ok, but I doubt they did.
:::: Since they found the problem so quickly and they've also had the car previously knowing the same problem has occurred twice, I would have thought they would do a visual check of the system first, before putting it on the machine and telling me it only needs more gas and charging me for it.

When did you get your City & Guilds in Car Mechanics?

The guy at the garage was useless and rude to be honest. He never once apologised just kept telling me that I was wrong and that the machine "never lies, it wouldn't let then put gas in if there was a leak". When they refilled it in May it took them less then an hour, so I really don't think they looked at the car before just filling it up.

Why would he when the machine used to detect leaks said 'NO LEAK'?!?

The car in question is a MINI Cooper S, I've had a MINi One before this car (very similar age) and I never had any problems with the air con running out after a year as this garage have told me many cars do. Between my family, friends, boyfriend and his family we have one of almost every make of car and a range of car ages and no one else has had to re gas the air con in theses cars 'every year or two'!!

Well that means it never ever ever happens then...

I'm so angry, had to storm out of the garage before I started swearing from frustration!!

Very classy.....And it was the mechanic who was rude?

Is there anything I can do?!? Apart from complain again?!?
I'm going to type up and send a hard copy letter of complaint tomorrow.

You could go to another garage and get a second opinion

All help is appreciated thanks people!

You're welcome

TrickyWicky

I think the op is a bit of a moron to be honest.

So the thing was regased and it had a very slow leak. Thats the seals shot then and thats a comon fault on many AC systems on many cars. Nothing to blame the garage for there as the machine almost certainly won't pick this up. Slow leaking punctures are a pain to find too but I guess i should try to pin that on someone..

As for the condensor, yes these can get damaged and then leak the gas right out. They can also rust away naturally and then bye bye gas there too.

A day to investigate a leaky AC system is reasonable. As another poster has said, a bill for 30mins investigation is far better than several hours (which no doubt the op would moan about too!). There is no way the garage could know it would be such a quick diagnosis so the op needs to stop whining.

Does the op even realise that the seals and condensor leaks are two seperate issues? - I very much doubt it! Just rant and rave at the poor mechanic as it's obviously all his fault and he should be named and shamed as a rip off merchant. Op = idiot.

If you ask me, the op is simply miffed at a £275 repair cost and wants to pin blame on the garage to get the bill reduced and is looking for people to say "Yeah you're right" so they can print it out and take it to the mechie as support.

Bonkers.