HALFORDS - £500 spent and still not fixed

black_wings

AdrianC wrote: »

It's rarely that simple, though. Sure, the plugs and coil pack are bad. But the EGR may well have been SO bad that it was masking them. The plugs and coil pack are NOT £300-worth of work, though... Not in a million years. I don't know how big a job the EGR is on these, but the part is £120-ish.
http://www.mister-auto.co.uk/en/egr-valve/pierburg-7-22875-13-0_g1145_a0057.22875.13.0.html

Basically, regardless of whether there's misdiagnosis or not, they're taking your trousers down over the price of the work...

Thanks for your advice
I think will just take this as a lesson for the future.
1. don't use halfords
2. always get our car serviced on time!

stator

Find another garage and then write a letter of complaint to head office about the crap service you've received and ask for a partial refund, including the diagnostic fee which was botched.

System

AdrianC wrote: »

. The plugs and coil pack are NOT £300-worth of work, though... Not in a million years.

Basically, regardless of whether there's misdiagnosis or not, they're taking your trousers down over the price of the work...

Not really.

£60 for spark plugs, £110-£130 for a coil pack so you're at £170-£190 just for parts. Two hours labour for fault diagnosis and repair at £50+VAT per hour and you're at £300.

System

black_wings wrote: »

That's my issue with them atm. Because we specifically told them we want to know all of the issues causing the car to have the juddering issue.

But sometimes it isn't that simple if there are multiple faults.

So we could make an informed decision if it was worth it to spend ££ or just get rid and buy a new car.

Unless the car has massive rust holes in IT IS ALWAYS MORE ECONOMICAL TO REPAIR THAN REPLACE even if the repairs cost far more than the car is worth.

If they'd said right from the start 'x y and z needs doing and it'll cost 600' then we would have bought a new car.

But that was impossible to do with multiple faults when you're not told the whole story by the owner. And is spending £3000+ to save a £600 repair bill really that good a way to save money?

But instead they said 'only x needs doing' so we thought okay just do it and run the car for a while longer.

Because they weren't aware of the possiblity of a secondary fault caused by lack of servicing.

They are trying to say the plug and the coil were a non issue during the first diagnostic and it's only come up since re-testing. It's frustrating because even people on a forum with a brief description could come up knowing what it was yet a 'mechanic' didnt know even from looking at it twice.

They are correct, 100% correct. I knew what it was because you told us the full story eventually which I doubt you told the garage. I doubt very much that you told them it hadn't had a full service for many thousands of miles and was well overdue for having the plugs replaced, information that was massively critical in diagnosing the problems. If you've got two faults that produce similar symptoms then without the very important bit of information you revealed on here then how they handled it is how I would expect it to have gone in most garages. They found a fault with the EGR and repaired it. It was only then that the second fault with the same symptoms showed itself. Had you told them about the poor service history then they would have looked at that as well. But given that changing an EGR valve and clearing fault codes could have meant it running without showing up a fault for a short time after I don't find that they have been failing in this situation.

Oh and BTW I used to be a mechanic at Halfords in the early 90s.....

takman

Tarambor wrote: »

Not really.

£60 for spark plugs, £110-£130 for a coil pack so you're at £170-£190 just for parts. Two hours labour for fault diagnosis and repair at £50+VAT per hour and you're at £300.

Where are you getting those prices from??????

£15 tops for a set of decent spark plugs.
Here's some good ones for less than £10:
4x-Vauxhall-Corsa-MK1-1-2i-Eng-Code-C12NZ-Genuine-NGK-Yellow-Box-Spark-Plugs

Around £70 for a decent coil pack:
Here's one for £50:
VAUXHALL-CORSA-1-2-2001-IGNITION-COIL-PACK-RAIL-COIL-BRAND-NEW

n217970

Tarambor wrote: »

Oh and BTW I used to be a mechanic at Halfords in the early 90s.....

Explains the mental parts prices....

System

takman wrote: »

Where are you getting those prices from??????

Coil pack was from Euro Car Parts. Didn't look up the spark plugs so was working on a worst case scenario of the £15 a plug job like one of my cars is. If its on the £10 for four then that explains why it was running like a dog given you need to change those quite frequently and they haven't been for many a year.

AdrianC

Tarambor wrote: »

Coil pack was from Euro Car Parts.

I posted prices up there, which were taken from Mister Auto.

Valeo or Bosch coil pack - just under £90. Own-brand coil pack - £65.

That £25 saving would be a false economy, in my book.

firefox1956

Its a sturdy little car & worth finding a decent recommended local independent garage to give you a price to fix it up.
Better than spending £1000's on a car you know nothing about.
HTH