Ford focus from arnold clarkhI, i

Clair3

Hi I'm just looking for advice. I bought a 13 plate ford focus, 1.6 diesel october last year from arnold Clark. They told me it just had a service and it was due again october 2019.

3 months after I bought it, it had a brake fluid fault which they fixed when it was a week out of warranty.

Last week it started making a clunking sound so I put it in to a mechanic who told me there was no oil in the gear box, it was bone dry, which has broke the gear box and shatter the clutch. I still have 4 years on finance for this car. I have the finance through oodle.

The mechanic said that the gear box oil should have been checked at the last service and if it was, then it wouldn't be empty now, he can find no leaks.

Can I take this back to arnold Clark and ask how it has happened if it didn indeed, recieve a full service in october? I use the car for work and I have done 8k since october.

tberry6686

I had a look for the service schedules online. Only mention of gearbox fluid is at 150K miles so not part of the routine 5 year service.

Where does your mechanic think it has gone if there is no leak ?

wgl2014

I don't think that gearbox oil would be routinely checked during a service unless there was an apparent issue.

Do Arnold Clarke specify any kind of pre-sale inspection? If so this may (allegedly) include this check.

tacpot12

Because of how long you have had the car, you need some evidence that the car was sold to you with the fault. The fault is almost certainly a gearbox leak - as tberry6686 suggests, there are few explanations for the gearbox having no oil.

Proving that the car was sold with the fault could be difficult. You could discuss with Arnold Clark what sort of evidence they will accept, but bear in mind that they might ask for an unreasonable level of proof. A lack of oil on your driveway might work as proof - if the gearbox had oil when your took delivery of the car, and you park your car on your driveway the majority of the time, you would expect some oil to have leaked out onto your drive. (Most cars are only driven for a couple of hours a day)

owen_money

It must have had oil in it when it left AC, you couldn't do 8k miles with a dry transmission. I would be very surprised if there wasnt any evidence of a leak though, it must have leaked from somewhere? Is there an oil stain on your drive where you normally park?

I also agree checking the oil level isnt part of a normal service.
What does AC's service comprise of? Oil and filter change I would think

By all means go back to AC, but I doubt they be fitting a new transmission any time soon

Clair3

I park on a monoblock driveway and there was definitely no leaks on it. My last car was a zafira which had a gearbox oil leak and I noticed the leak and stopped parking on the driveway due to it, so I definitely would have noticed.