bad service car repairs that cost more than cars value?!?!

pepita

HI all,

Hope if anyone can help.
Car didn't start, call AA, they somehow make it start to move it to the garage for full diagnose.
- Garage says the fault is 2 fuel injectors and all will be sorted! Injectors got changed (and paid, if not they wouldn't proceed) when I go to pick up the car, I am being told that the ECU had faults and take car to Vauxhall garage as the only one they can check/repair the ECU.

- Recovered the car from 1st garage, taken to Vauxhall and to my surprise, it has the Fuse box melted as a cable was pulled trough to try to start the car (sorry Im not really technical, but hope it make sense) which cause the fuse box to melt.
The replacement of the fuse box is £800+ and they can't check out if anything else is wrong unless fuse is changed. Also being told that in most cases needs to check all cables ECU changed and a 3rd big thing which can't remember name! All of it we are talking about £2500+

My question... AA didn't see this "cable" issue, when they come to recover, and being told by Vauxhall that the car wouldn't start if this was already the situation.

What can I do to make 1st garage pay for full repair, which It can be more than car value (almost certain it was them) or give me the value of the car.

Checked and garage which is MOT tester, it's not registered with Motor Ombudsman! What a surprise....
Any advice.???

Thank you very much, and sorry for this long post!

Ectophile

If it went to court, you would have to persuade the judge that the first garage probably caused all the damage. Do you have any evidence to back that up?

You might have more luck claiming a refund for the work that didn't fix the problem.

forgotmyname

The AA guy would only check the basics, whats this cable you claim he pulled through?

A fusebox is not £800+

You say it cause A fuse to melt, so not the whole fusebox?

How did this one wire affect every wire in the fusebox?

System

forgotmyname wrote: »

The AA guy would only check the basics, whats this cable you claim he pulled through?

A fusebox is not £800+

You say it cause A fuse to melt, so not the whole fusebox?

How did this one wire affect every wire in the fusebox?

Oh I've seen this before when a recovery mechanic instead of taking note of what is going on decides to bodge electrics to get things going......

Basically there'll have been a short somewhere which has most likely blown one of the main fuses. Muppet recovery mechanic who knows nothing about electrics and shouldn't be let loose with tools uses some wire to bridge from the battery to the fuse box or some point in the loom. The original fault exists which blew the fuse but now there's no longer a fuse to protect it so the wiring gets hot and it starts to melt the wiring loom. That in turn creates more shorts and because of the current available to the main feeds in the fuse box it can cause the fuse box to melt. The injectors appearing faulty and the ECU appearing faulty could be because of the fault in the wiring loom.

The fix is most likely dashboard out and a new main wiring loom plus repairing any damage to any ECUs.

AdrianC

forgotmyname wrote: »

A fusebox is not £800+

Could easily be, at main dealer prices.


The fuse box will have melted not because "a cable" was "pulled through" - all cables should be properly restrained, so all "pulling through" will do is move a bit of slack - but because of a poor connection, probably corroded, causing high resistance. That may well be what caused the problem to start with.


The cost of repairs is totally unrelated to the value of a car.

markudman

First of calm down every one, We need more facts before we start a remote Diagnoses, and start blaming everyone.
First we need to know age of the car,
What model it is,
Petrol or Diesel?
Engine size,

I have never replaced a fuse box on a petrol Vauxhall,
but have replaced loads on a Diesel Vauxhall (BCM)
The BCM (Body Control Module) on a diesel have loads of faults,inc Non start, depending on the year, there was a recall on them, as well as the Cim module, which would also stop it from starting,

The petrol car depending on engine size, had loads of ECU Problem(engine control unit)
these also can stop a car from starting,
The fault are normally
P0201- Injector circuit 1
P0202- Injector circuit 2
P0203- Injector circuit 3
P0204- Injector circuit 4
P1600- Replace electronic control module
U2103- CAN BUS circuit malfunction no communication with can bus
U2104- CAN BUS reset counter overrun
U2108- Anti lock brake system no communication with CAN BUS
U2139- CAN BUS no communication with steering column module

This is why I think your car is Petrol, and the first Garage mis-diagnosed your car,
But before we all get excited, lets confirm the car details first.

Also do you have pictures of this wire pulled though? so I can see for sure what Vauxhall are saying.