Oil leak after new clutch fitted.

Lammy22

Hi All, Had a new clutch fitted two days ago, on a Citroen Xsara, and then the next day I noticed a oil leak coming from the drive shaft, there was a patch of oil about the size of a football on the ground.
So I took it back to the garage and they said it was the diff seal had failed, and said see how it is in a few days, if still leaking bring it back and we will put a new seal in it, and just charge me for the labour, and they will pay for the seal (Seal cost about a fiver)

My question is, is the oil leak down to them? Should it be done free of charge? Just managed to pay for the clutch to be fixed, now faced with another bill, or a car that's leaks oil.

Advice please thank you.

facade

They had the driveshafts out when they removed the gearbox.

Sometimes a worn seal will give up when this happens.


Offer to supply the seal if they fit it for free, they will charge you an hours labour.

Get one from Citroen, probably £8-£10.

arcon5

|I| suspect they see it as if the seal couldn't withstand reasonable force to remove the drive shaft then it was already excessively worn.

EdGasket

I suspect they damaged the seal prising out the driveshaft. If you do it properly then no damage occurs as the driveshaft is a gentle slide fit in the seal. But if you lever around with a screwdriver in a ham-fisted way to remove the driveshaft then you may tear the seal. I've had driveshafts in and out with no bother at all. It could also be that the driveshaft has not been clipped back in fully on its retaining spring; in which case it just needs pushing back into the differential more positively.

Marktheshark

See how it is in a few days ?
I can answer that, a new gearbox will be required.
It needs to go back before it loses any more oil, the oil is there for a reason.
It stops the gearbox breaking.
Once the oil is gone, even a short journey and you will need a full new gearbox.

AdrianC

You always replace the seal when you fit the shaft. But some seals are poor quality, and it's easy to mis-fit them.

As has been said, it's not a big job. Split the balljoint, pull the shaft, new seal, back together. Job jobbed.

Marktheshark

It will be a big job if he lets it continue leaking and tries to drive the car back.
A very big one, it needs to go back now before it drops any more.
Better still on a loader.

tedted

they may have overfilled the gearbox which is easy to do on these,if it is the seal leaking it will not lose the oil that quickly because of height of the drive shaft over the diff unit

Lammy22

So should the garage fix the leak free of charge, by installing a new oil seal.

arcon5

It's not as simply as a yes or no. Depends if they was negligent in damaging it. When doing jobs on a car things can happen that are caused through no fault of the mechanic.

Air your thoughts to them, that you are confused why they are charging you if they've damaged it taking the drive shaft out and see what they say. Or at the very least tell them you are annoyed it's been damaged and only willing to pay half the labour, since the new seal will be potentially replacing an old damaged seal.

Lammy22

They have offered to pay for the seal, and I need to pay for the labour, which is £38 per hour, and I cannot afford to pay any more, couldn't use car as the clutch failed pay a garage to fix it, still cannot use the car due to the oil its losing.
Frustrating on what to do!