Mechanic Help! - Cambelt slip caused by fuel quality?

rosalyn129

Hi all,

Any help would be much appreciated. I bought a second hand car over 6 months ago, and after 6 weeks of minimal driving, the timing belt slipped and ruined 3 valves. I spoke to the garage I had purchased from and they offered to source and purchase a new engine on the basis I paid to have it fitted. Seemed fair enough, but after 3 months of waiting for any sort of resolution or any call back on my chasing up, I decided to send a letter formally asking for the repair to be done or my money back. CAB had advised me to do so on the basis of not a reasonable time frame for repair, item purchased not of a satisfactory quality to work for a satisfatory time period, and also because they had signs up stating no warranties or guarantees under £1000 so taking away my consumer rights.
No reply to any of my letters asking for a resolution. So now we are at small claims court process and they are supplying the defence that either the wrong fuel was put in (it wasn't I have a receipt clarifying the correct was used), or that the fuel quality was bad, and one of these situations caused the belt to slip. (and obviously they have 2 expert witnesses that say this is so, because they are pals with the guy who im assuming put a dodgy MOT on it, and also their in house freelance mechanic.) They are also now counter claiming £5 a day for having my vehicle over at the garage whilst it's waited for repairs.

What I'm really trying to find out is can fuel quality/ wrong fuel cause cambelt failure? I really dont want to lose and have to pay £1000 for them storing the car when all Ive really been doing is waiting for the repair they promised.

bsod

no........

marlot

rosalyn129 wrote: »

What I'm really trying to find out is can fuel quality/ wrong fuel cause cambelt failure?

In a word - No!

Some decent descriptions of Petrol and diesel and vice versa here: http://www.autofuelfix.com/blog/

Undervalued

rosalyn129 wrote: »

Hi all,

Any help would be much appreciated. I bought a second hand car over 6 months ago, and after 6 weeks of minimal driving, the timing belt slipped and ruined 3 valves. I spoke to the garage I had purchased from and they offered to source and purchase a new engine on the basis I paid to have it fitted. Seemed fair enough, but after 3 months of waiting for any sort of resolution or any call back on my chasing up, I decided to send a letter formally asking for the repair to be done or my money back. CAB had advised me to do so on the basis of not a reasonable time frame for repair, item purchased not of a satisfactory quality to work for a satisfatory time period, and also because they had signs up stating no warranties or guarantees under £1000 so taking away my consumer rights.
No reply to any of my letters asking for a resolution. So now we are at small claims court process and they are supplying the defence that either the wrong fuel was put in (it wasn't I have a receipt clarifying the correct was used), or that the fuel quality was bad, and one of these situations caused the belt to slip. (and obviously they have 2 expert witnesses that say this is so, because they are pals with the guy who im assuming put a dodgy MOT on it, and also their in house freelance mechanic.) They are also now counter claiming £5 a day for having my vehicle over at the garage whilst it's waited for repairs.

What I'm really trying to find out is can fuel quality/ wrong fuel cause cambelt failure? I really dont want to lose and have to pay £1000 for them storing the car when all Ive really been doing is waiting for the repair they promised.

No "signs up" can remove your statutory rights when buying from a trader.

jobdone1

And they say they have witness reports presume a mechanic? They are no mechanic I have never heard of wrong fuel causing Campbeltown failure utter rubbish

prowla

What on earth in the fuel could cause a cam-belt to fail?

As an aside, I was having a conversation with someone yesterday who said that you can get a build-up of deposits in the fuel filter which could cause a loss of power over time.

hollydays

Are you saying you've received their written defence with statements from said mechanics?

steampowered

You can't use expert evidence in small claims track unless you have the court's permission, which is requested on the directions questionnaire which comes later.

If an expert is necessary in small claims track, it would normally be ordered that there should be joint expert appointed by both sides.

Evidence/statements from their mates generally won't be admissible. I suppose they could use their in-house mechanic as a (non-expert) witness of what he saw when he inspected the car but not more than that.

philatio

"Fuel quality" seems to be the mechanics answer to anything they can't solve these days.

XenonXR

Fuel can cause your cam belt to be damaged...

If you pour it on the engine and set it on fire.

So no, they are feeding you rubbish

DoaM

Going by the OP's forum name ... can we assume that the garage folk are sexist and think they're "only dealing with a dumb woman, she'll believe what we tell her"? (That's the impression I'm getting).

I'd call the garage folk Neanderthals, but that's disrespectful to Neanderthals.