Car broken down 15 minutes after car servicing

Turners

I took my car in for a full service which was free with my finance package. They told me everything was fine and I was good to go.

About 15 minutes later my car started juddering and eventually cut out. I called my grandad who looked at the car and said my water coolant had no water in and my oil was like ‘mayonnaise’. I rang the garage and got the car towed back. It has been in the garage 2 weeks now is to Christmas the service has been very slow. I have been given a courtesy car in the mean time.

The garage have told me that my head gasket has failed and they need to remove the head gasket to diagnose for any more damage. I have been quoted £500 so far just for the removal and diagnosis, this does not includ fixing the head gasket.

Prior to sending my car in, there were no faults or anything I had noticed. Should the garage have noticed any of these faults? Does this mean they didn’t check the oil or drain it properly? Can my water leak into my oil within 15 minutes? As a young girl I am clueless about cars and want a second opinion whether it is worth the fight or whether this is the fault of the garage.

Any advice is appreciated.

Turners

Just to add, the car is a Peugeot 208, 2012 reg and has done roughly 55,000 miles on the clock.

Muscle750

Head gasket can go anytime The garage arent to blame unless they drained the coolant for any reason and didnt re fill it etc or had air lock in it. However i would have thought that the temp gauge would of been a indicator that something was wrong etc.

shaun_from_Africa

Muscle750 wrote: »

However i would have thought that the temp gauge would of been a indicator that something was wrong etc.

If the coolant had been drained and not refilled then the temp gauge wouldn't initially show up anything wrong as no coolant means nothing for the sensor to measure the temperature of so the gauge would stay at zero.
It's only after driving until such a time that you would have normally expected the indication to rise that something would be noticed as the temp would still be at zero.

Kernel_Sanders

Turners wrote: »

Just to add, the car is a Peugeot 208, 2012 reg and has done roughly 55,000 miles on the clock.

Welcome to the board. If you have something to add to your post then just use the Edit facility.
£500 is an outrageous sum for doing little more than removing the cylinder head.

edde

Based on what you've said I'd get a written statement from the dealership as to what service the car has had and what they have done for diagnostic (tell them you need it to claim from finance etc. Then get car towed elsewhere for a check.

500 is a bit pricy depends where you are. What annoys me is you can get a second hand engine for 400 on ebay so why find what's wrong with your engine.

debtdebt

It takes a while for mayonnaise to develop in the oil. It usually shows itself on the filler cap. It can't have been the garage who caused the head gasket failure however they should reported on it as they would have seen it when changing and refilling the oil.

jimbo6977

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It takes a while for mayonnaise to develop in the oil. It usually shows itself on the filler cap. It can't have been the garage who caused the head gasket failure however they should reported on it as they would have seen it when changing and refilling the oil.

assuming they even changed the oil....

what does the oil look like on the dipper? nice and clear or black as night?

Richard53

Hate to be the one who says it, but ... if you had been checking your oil every week like you should, you would have noticed the 'mayonnaise' long ago and been able to do something before the car broke down. When you get this issue sorted, come back and ask here for a weekly checklist. Literally five minutes once a week and a tiny bit of knowledge can save you no end of grief.

fred246

I am afraid Turners that you are finding out the hard way that the garage servicing industry is a complete joke. All you are guaranteed to get is a stamp (sometimes you even have to ask for that!). That's all people really want. Survey after survey has shown that it's random what the garage do (if anything). Every service should change the oil and check the coolant. It's possible that may have drained the coolant and forgot to refill it but the most likely thing is that they haven't serviced it at all. Pretty normal for garages. If you find they haven't serviced it properly and go to trading standards they will tell you to take it back and ask for a service. No penalty for the garage. They're not bothered.

Turners

Sorry for the late reply.

The oil previously looked very clear. I always check my oil as each time I started my car up, it would flash “oil level low” on my dashboard but on my touch screen it would say “oil ok”. Very frequently I would get my grandad to help me ensure that my oil was fine and it had previously been to the same dealership garage a year ago to ensure there was no fault as this message has appeared since I got the car.