Citroen Berlingo Garage Repairs Escalating

passatrider

I took my 2007 Citroen Berlingo 1.6 HDI multispace in to have a suspected EGR valve replaced after it broke down at the weekend. I'd had a quote done at another garage and it was about £250. I'd budgeted for £500 so asked for full service too.
Later in the day on Monday I was phoned to say that the car required discs n pads on the front which I agreed to be fitted. I was then called again at the end of the day to say that they had replaced the EGR valve but it had not cured the rough engine running. He suspected a timing issue so would have to keep the car to look into it further.
Tuesday I got a call to say that they had found a Valve spring in the engine which had broke and said as a precaution to replace the whole set. He said the parts would not be here until Friday.
I asked him to give me a price for all this work and was told it would come in at between 1500- 2000 pounds:eek:.

Now, call me a pessimist but this seems a heck of a lot of money for the work to be done. The break down is :
EGR Vave replacement
Full service/Front discs n pads
Full Set Valve springs(remove head do cam belt, tensioner) - 17 hours labour

People I have spoken too say I'm being ripped off here and that I should not pay the full amount when I get the bill. The car is only worth £1800 as it is and I could buy another car for £2000 and better too.

What should I do?

forgotmyname

Pay them for the work done and get the car towed away for scrap or elsewhere.

You could tell them to replace one spring and save 10 minutes labour, but they may have to purchase a full set anyway.

Did the people that said you were being ripped off, offer to do the job for you cheaper? Using the same new parts?

jobdone1

Sounds like a trusted garage NOT. So they are so called machanics that change a part that did not need changing as this was not the fault don't pay for that for starters If they was proffesional that would have been much more thorough in finding the original fault in the first place. Also not they should not be ordering parts and attempting to carry out work without speaking to you first.

redux

I'd suggest ask them to change just the one valve, and see if they can find a way to do it without taking everything apart.

Years ago I and a mechanic friend replaced a single valve spring on my Rover SD1 V8 engine, taking under an hour..

I removed the rocker cover and so on while he made up a customised lever from a price of angle iron, drilling a couple of holes, then he bolted that at the edge and used to it to compress the one spring, remove the collet, swap the spring and so on, all without dissembly of too much else.

I'm not saying it would be easy on a different modern engine, but there might be a way.

But if you let them do all of the work, that was a fair price for it, depending on their labour rate, and the people saying only pay part are being unfair.

The value of the car before and after is a consideration, but either you are going to do this or not, and if done it will last a period of time afterwards. If you decide to stop here, then pay the price for what they've done anyway. You can't refuse to pay anything; the garage aren't responsible for causing the problem and the consequent loss of value or cost of work, only finding the problem.

peter12345678910

I think the normal process with diesels for rough handling is first change the fuel filter, these have to be changed more regularly than petrol cars, then clean air sensor MAS OR MAP, could they not have cleaned the EGR valve? You start with cheaper fixes and not the other way round!

gilbert_and_sullivan

Redux.
i too was wondering about replacing a valve spring in situ, a petrol engine with a bit of ingenuity you could usually stick something in the plug hole to hold the valve closed whilst you changed the spring using a Heath Robinson spring compressor of some sort.

I wonder if access to do this on the Diesel could be gained by removing the inlet or exhaust manifold, they have to come off for head removal as i suspect does the camshaft for access to valve springs (unless its on lever rockers?), and by the time you've got the cam out the way, removed the manifolds (there's hardly going to be a quick guide in Haynes about changing a single valve spring) it's only going to be another half hour to remove the head, in which case it seems daft not to swap the lot, another of the original set could break in short order.

I'm inclined to Forgetmyname's solution, tell them to stop now and get the naysayers to do the job at a more realistic price, at which point it's guaranteed they'll disappear into the ether.

It's unfortunate that diagnosing Diesel problems is such a time consuming job, but that's part of Diesel ownership unfortunately.
Car comes in with running trouble, usually including lack of power, first thing you do is check the air filter and change the fuel filter, both quite reasonable first steps, but if no change where do you go next?
With a petrol you might whip the plugs out and give it a quick compression test, probably 1 hour tops, that's hours of work on a modern Diesel and if the compressions are alright at starter motor speed where do you go next? after ''wasting'' (in the customers eyes) money doing unecessary diagnostics.
And to be fair to the garage, a single broken valve spring is most unusual and would not be prime suspect on a mechanic's radar, maybe the nasayers could have loaned one of their crystal balls to the garage.

Discs and pads are nothing to do with this really, but hopefully you, OP, can stop those being fitted if the car's future is now in question.
You can't always judge repair costs on a cars value, yes you might be able to buy another for that price but it might be even more neglected than the present one and need several £hundred of repairs in short order.

Seeing as this is the 1.6 Diesel, an engine that will not stand neglect, you should consider if the cars service history is good enough for the investment here, these engines need far better servicing (oil changes especially) than the car maker suggests, if it hasn't had servicing above and beyond then think carefully, there is enough reading on the net about this engine to keep you busy all weekend, most of it not good.

DonnySaver

EGR valve probably didn't need replacing at all. A good soak in some petrol and good scrub with an old toothbrush would probably have sufficed.

AdrianC

DonnySaver wrote: »

EGR valve probably didn't need replacing at all. A good soak in some petrol and good scrub with an old toothbrush would probably have sufficed.

Which will almost certainly cost damn near as much as replacing it, once the labour for the time taken is compared to the cost of the replacement part. The time is in the labour to get to it.

As for the labour to replace the broken valve spring - 17hrs... Yep, not terribly surprised. Let's say £50+vat/hr - that's a grand, straight off.

gilbert_and_sullivan

Hmm, thinking about the quote.

New cambelt and tensioner whilst its apart (should have a new water pump too).
Discs and pads.
EGR valve.
Presumably oil and filter change for it would be lunacy not to, and seeing as the coolant's out that probably needs changing.
Full set of valve springs, full head gasket set.
Price including labour for all of the above sounds quite reasonable @ £2k.

passatrider

Thank you for the mixed response so far. Just to add I'm not looking to getting out of paying the final bill, if I gave that impression I appogise.
In hindsight it does seem a lot of money for such an old vehicle but I think the work carried out is about right price wise. I guess it was the shock of being told the total bill as I only expected to pay around £500 with a full service & EGR valve. The joys of owning a diesel car I guess ��

BeenThroughItAll

passatrider wrote: »

Thank you for the mixed response so far. Just to add I'm not looking to getting out of paying the final bill, if I gave that impression I appogise.
In hindsight it does seem a lot of money for such an old vehicle but I think the work carried out is about right price wise. I guess it was the shock of being told the total bill as I only expected to pay around £500 with a full service & EGR valve. The joys of owning a diesel car I guess ��

More specifically, the joys of owning a 1.6PSA engine equipped diesel car. Can't say any of my diesels have suffered 2K repair bills... regardless of engine, the diesels that cost their owners big bucks are almost always either a) neglected or b) bought for the wrong driving profile