Coolant leak day after Cambelt Change

Pocketslight

Hi, I have just paid Audi £799 + £90 technician charge for a cambelt and water pump change, got it home and the coolant tank completely emptied the following day.
After filling with water, I take it into audi straight away, they tell me pipe at back of engine has broken and I need to pay another £150+ for them to rectify.
Could this be coincidence or have they not pressure checked etc properly. They refuse to pay for the repair, they say it's no where near the cambelt or water pump so not their fault. They don't know when the new pipe they say needs replacing will arrive
There was no leak when I took it in.
This is all on top of me paying a £90 'technician charge' because when they snapped two bolt and could not remove without calling in outside help! They refused to cover this cost too
Any ideas welcome!

bigjl

What would a pipe behind the engine have to do with a cambelt and water pump?

It would have been handy for them to spot it when doing the work.

But the pipe failed when it failed.

So no, nothing to do with what had been done unless you think they damaged it deliberately

In which case report it to the Police as suspected criminal damage.

And what bolts did they not have the tools to remove?

I wonder why Audi owners always seem to have these kind of problems.

Then choose to sign up to and post on a Money Saving Website for assistance.

All very strange.

Pocketslight

Ok, thanks for replying!
I don't know, must just be bad luck then. Thought it could have been something to do with them not pressure checking system or something.
They also did a diagnostics which flagged up no issues with this.

londonTiger

can I ask, how old is the car?

Factory garage aren't ususally good with old cars, they tend to have a young crew who are trained on the most recent cars and tend not to be experienced with older cars.

It's nigh on impossible for these pipes to break by themselves or disconnect on their own. The person who last worked on the car is usually the culprit. If the cambelt was a messy job and requires engine mount removal and the engine by support with a jack or overhead crane then it's entirely possible that the pipe was broke while handling the engine.

This is complete bogus and you should push for free repair as it was THEM that caused it and a £50 voucher for servicing.

londonTiger

Oh and VAG/AUDI are realy difficult to work on. Audi are notorious for cramming everything in and making the engine bay as small as possible.

Mishaps are expected on big clutch/cambelt jobs.

Strider590

I would say the issue was air locks in the cooling system, it can be VERY hard to refill the coolant on modern cars...... Assuming of course they didn't just forget to refill it.

Pocketslight

Hi,
londonTiger Really helpful to get your opinion and the info on the support jack etc. Thank you!
I did ask for a photo of pipe in question but they said the Audi cam could not get footage of pipe in question.

It's a 2001 S6, so it is pretty old but was really well maintained
Husband needs a car with electric seats etc as got a disability so we are stuck with buying old but high spec cars.This is first time using Audi dealership because our small garage who we really trust didn't have the tools get cambelt off unfortunately.

They said the bolts at top of water pump had snapped and there was a risk of them falling into engine so had to get a specialist technician. They said we could either drive it away without replacing water pump (with cracked bolts) or get this guy in.

Will try pushing harder for free repair

Pocketslight

Hi
Strider90 There was definitely a leak as it was soaking underneath car, when I poured some water in to just get us to the garage it bubbled up a lot so may it was airlock or this could have been the heat from engine maybe. Thanks for the suggestion, something else to put to them

Strider590

Pocketslight wrote: »

Hi
Strider90 There was definitely a leak as it was soaking underneath car, when I poured some water in to just get us to the garage it bubbled up a lot so may it was airlock or this could have been the heat from engine maybe. Thanks for the suggestion, something else to put to them

Oh god, I hope you didn't pour cold water into a hot engine?

If so you could easily be looking at a cracked engine block and that basically means a new engine.........

Pocketslight

Err well car was running for 3/4mins but with no coolant not sure how hot but I hope I've gotten away with it
Ok won't be doing that ever again!! Thanks for that advice which I hope isn't too late in coming to me

s_b

if car came in to me i would pressure test after job done to ascertain no leaks,however if a pipe is going to fail due to corrosion this is the time it goes, just like core plugs,its the equivalent of running engine at maximum temp before fans kick in
they have done nothing wrong in my opinion and to be honest 15 years for a car this complicated used every day is beyond the call of duty:)