Incorrect diagnosis and charge

guyt1978

Hi there, looking for advice, my wife took her car to the dealership garage due to a light on the dashboard. She was told diagnostics would be £115 and agreed to pay this and have the diagnostics carried out.
The garage then phoned my wife and told her to resolve the issue would cost £605, at no point (and the garage themselves have listened back to the calls and agree with this) was my wife told there was a possibility this wouldn't resolve the issue, or that it may cost more than initially expected, instead she was told it would cost £605 to fix the problem, not to try and fix it, or hopefully fix it, but to actually fix it.
The garage have then called back and said it would be another £600 to fix the problem. What legal options do I have? The service manager has said that maybe they could knock some money off this, but neither my wife or myself would have agreed to work that would have cost more than £600, that's the absolute limit of what we could afford, so we would have got the work done at an independent garage.
I am happy to pay the £605 as my wife agreed to this amount, or have the car returned to me in its original condition with no charge, however the garage will not agree to either of these reasonable options. They say the only way this can be resolved and get the car back is if we pay the full amount. I feel as we were not informed of any possible further charges (which the garage agree happened) and that the problem would be fixed for £605 we should not have to pay more than this. Please advise. Thank you

Tokk

Is this a local independent garage or a main dealer?

If you have it in their words that £600 would fix it (not "attempt to") then it's not unreasonable that you should be unprepared to pay more to fix it or to pay £600 for it to be not-fixed.

Legally I'm not sure how you stand on this, though...

force_ten

sorry cant help on where you stand but this sounds like another case of repair by trial and error

lets just change expensive parts until we find the one that actually cures the fault and then charge the owner hundreds and hundreds of pounds for parts that were not actually required

reddwarf2002

Unfortunately the motor industry hasn't yet come up with a diagnosis system that can reliably pinpoint faults that ordinary mechanics can use without having extensive technical skillset about every single car and the design of parts, operation and diagnosis of it.
Having more sophisticated parts also mean that we are also moving away from removal and visual inspection of parts. Instead it is just a case of just going off fault codes and having educated guesses at it.


I think the motor industry needs to come up with something to address this issue as taking a car to a dealership and not having an accurate diagnosis is just plain wrong.

foxy-stoat

And what was the fault that it cost £115 to diagnose and £605 to fix but another £600 to fix?

I would ask for the fault codes before and after they spent £605 - what car is it?

Dont say its one that you can buy a £5 OBD reader for.

System

reddwarf2002 wrote: »

Unfortunately the motor industry hasn't yet come up with a diagnosis system that can reliably pinpoint faults that ordinary mechanics can use without having extensive technical skillset about every single car and the design of parts, operation and diagnosis of it.
Having more sophisticated parts also mean that we are also moving away from removal and visual inspection of parts. Instead it is just a case of just going off fault codes and having educated guesses at it.

The diagnosis system used to exist and still does, the march of technology hasn't altered that much. What has happened is over the years is mechanics have transitioned into fitters, just fitting the part the onboard diagnostics tells them is broken. They are over-reliant on the onboard diagnostics telling them what the fault is and no longer seem to possess basic fault finding skills that don't involve using a fault code reader.

Sure the parts are more sophisticated but fault finding still follows the same basic principles and these seem to be ones that mechanics lack knowledge of. If the car turns over and won't start and what the computer said doesn't solve the issue they're stuffed. They're incapable of going "What does an engine need to run? Fuel, air, spark, compression, timing." and then going through each of those in turn to find out what isn't happening and then investigate that system.

guyt1978

Thanks to those who replied, but just looking if someone else had had the same issue and if they knew where they stood legally. Thanks all the same though.

reddwarf2002

Tarambor wrote: »

The diagnosis system used to exist and still does, the march of technology hasn't altered that much. What has happened is over the years is mechanics have transitioned into fitters, just fitting the part the onboard diagnostics tells them is broken. They are over-reliant on the onboard diagnostics telling them what the fault is and no longer seem to possess basic fault finding skills that don't involve using a fault code reader.

Sure the parts are more sophisticated but fault finding still follows the same basic principles and these seem to be ones that mechanics lack knowledge of. If the car turns over and won't start and what the computer said doesn't solve the issue they're stuffed. They're incapable of going "What does an engine need to run? Fuel, air, spark, compression, timing." and then going through each of those in turn to find out what isn't happening and then investigate that system.

Sometimes it also comes down to whether a customer would be willing to pay for having the car stripped to test these components you have mentioned. And so, it is cheaper in most cases to try to swap out parts than to dismantle a heavily crammed engine bay just to get at the parts.

[Deleted User]

How old is the car? Might be worth mentioning Consumer Act and all that, manufacturer contributions etc. Sometimes encourages them to sort the problem out.

guyt1978

for what it's worth, in case others find themselves in the same situation, i read up on the misrepresentation act of 1967, where it states:

"A misrepresentation is a statement of fact (not opinion) which is made by a seller before a contract is made. If you relied on that statement when deciding whether or not to go ahead with your purchase, and this then turns out to be wrong, you may be able to claim compensation.

The general remedy for misrepresentation is cancelling or unwinding the contract so that both parties are put back in the position they were in before they made the contract. Damages will also be available in some circumstances, either in addition to or as an alternative to unwinding the contract."

they still didn't want to do anything about it and i think they design their complaints procedures to make people want to give up, however i persisted as at no point had the possibility of it costing more than the £605 to fix it had been spoken about. As such once i'd made it clear i was prepared to make a freedom of information request for the recorded phone calls and that i would take this to court if needed, they reluctantly offered to return the car in the original condition without charge. It would have been really easy to give up and just pay t, but i hate big companies trying to bully people, if you find yourself in the same situation fight it.

reddwarf2002

That's a really good outcome OP, I'm glad you persisted and got a result.

A friend of mine was in a very similar position with Peugeot not so long ago. He paid close to what you paid without the issue being addressed...the fault was back on the drive home but unfortnately the dealership had closed.

He went back the next day and the dealership were asking for another £900 to fix it. Unfortunately he didn't have the patience to argue the toss due to his lack of mechanical knowledge and gave up and got rid of the car for £400 as a non runner (a £1300 loss on value + £500 repairs). OUCHH!