Clutch replacement - made worse by garage, advice needed

AG0607

I'm wondering if anybody could offer any advice or guidance?

Last week I was unable to put my car into gear, I called the AA out who told me I would need a new clutch. They towed me to my local garage and a couple of days later the garage told me the car was ready and it wasn't the clutch but it was actually just the clutch master cylinder than needed replacing. I asked them if they are sure I don't need a new clutch fitting and they said they are 100% sure and they charged me £250.

Two days later the car broke down again with exactly the same problem. I called the AA out who again told me the clutch had gone and needed replacing - he said the garage I had taken it to should have spotted this straight away as it was very obvious. However, due to the type of AA membership I have he was only able to take me to a local garage, at this point I was about 15 miles away from home so the car is now with a different garage who have confirmed it is the clutch and this will cost around £400 all in.

My issue is with the first garage - the AA confirmed that the work they did wasn't necessary and if anything made it worse, but because the car isn't with them they are not accepting any responsibility for it and are basically saying it's my problem not theirs.

Do I have any rights to demand that they cover the costs of the new clutch or at least reimburse me the £250 I paid them for a botched job? This is going to leave me out of pocket for the remainder of the month and whilst I accept that you have to budget for car maintenance and repairs, I feel that this could have been resolved at a much lower cost, whilst saving me a lot off stress and hassle, had it not been for the incompetence of the first garage I went to.

Any help will be appreciated.

Many thanks in advance.

Andy

DUTR

£250 for a master cylinder replacement seems steep.

AG0607

They said the part itself isn't expensive, but I was paying for the labour as it's a long job that required them to get under the bonnet and remove a lot of parts to get to the master cylinder.

Joe_Horner

"Can't get into gear" is more likely to be an actuation fault (master cylinder, slave cylinder or cable depending on set-up) than the clutch itself. Faulty clutches tend to either make lots of noise or slip under load. That's not cast in stone, but it's a good guide, which makes the AA diagnosis (without dismantling half the car to check) dubious.

The fact that replacing the master cylinder cured it, even if very temporarily, supports that because replacing the cylinder if the clutch itself was faulty would have had no effect at all.

It's far more likely that it was a master cylinder fault - that the first garage diagnosed correctly - but that there's been a problem. Air in the system would be my guess, or if they resealed the old cylinder (cheaper parts but more labour) then it could be the bore itself is damaged beyond resealing.

Of course, the new garage will change the clutch (nice profitable job for them) and bleed the system while they're at it. That might appear to confirm that it was the clutch when, in fact, it was a (relatively simple and cheap) bleeding that was needed.

For that reason, you really need to try and let the first place see it again before jumping to conclusions.

Joe_Horner

DUTR wrote: »

£250 for a master cylinder replacement seems steep.

As always, depends on the car.

Some can be absolute pigs to do, including dismantling half the under-dash trim - or even the pedal box - to remove and bleeding afterwards can also be a right PITA with some pipe layouts. They're often worse than brake masters to change even tough it's a simpler system overall.

AG0607

Ideally, I would have taken it straight back to the first garage, but apparently the AA membership I get through my bank account is only the basic package, meaning to tow the car anywhere but the nearest garage to the location of the breakdown would have cost me around an extra £100. I can't move the car as I can't get it into gear, so it looks like I'm just going to have to leave it where it is and pay the £400.

You live and learn I suppose!

Cheers for the reply.

forgotmyname

Upgrade your breakdown cover.

colino

If the first garage isolated the fault to the hydraulics and it worked for two days, the fault is in the hydraulic side of the system; clutch plates, covers and release bearing are either worn out or not, they don't self-heal for a couple of days.
You really should phone the original repairing garage to come and collect or get it back to them or you are going to end up very much out of pocket with two garage bills for what could be a simple fix.