RAC Vehicle Inspection - Waste of money and extremely misleading

jmajithia108

Aylesbury_Duck wrote: »

Fascinating, and advice I will ignore since it's obviously an unreasonable rant.

No worries - thanks that is ultimately your choice

Car_54

If the RAC had done the same tests as your mechanic, then he would have found a different result. Otherwise, the car would not have started. As several people have already said, a battery can fail at any time. Any test can only show its condition at the time: for its condition in two weeks’ time, you need a crystal ball.

custardy

Simply put,you didnt understand what you bought.
The list battery/charging system on their checks. If its start and the ignition lights go out then the system works.
Battery's fail. It worked when you bought it.

Our car we had for 2 years had the battery fail (im no mechanical novice).
Drove the gym and upon the leaving the gym the battery was dead.
No warning and up to the that ponit the battery was performing fine.

fred246

I remember someone telling me about a healthcheck BUPA used to do. They may still do it. Part of the check was an ECG which is simple and cheap and can be very useful. If everything was normal the doctor re-assured them and they went off happy. Unfortunately an ECG can't tell you when you are going to have a heart attack. So people had heart attacks soon after their healthcheck and weren't happy. The explanation is the complex part. Healthchecks and RAC visual inspections are useful but neither can guarantee there won't be a problem.

shaun_from_Africa

jmajithia108 wrote: »

Strange that because my mechanic was able to test the battery within 5 minutes and told me that there wasnt enough voltage/crank power so i am not sure if these basic tests are done by my mechanic, what the RAC inspection did?

You are still missing the point that your mechanic did these tests when you had the problem which was two weeks after you purchased the vehicle.
If the battery was fully charged when the RAC did their inspection then there wouldn't have been a problem with starting and if your mechanic had carried out his test at this time, then in all likelihood, he would have thought that the battery was fine.

Takmon

jmajithia108 wrote: »

Thanks Matty and your kind response is respected. Strange that because my mechanic was able to test the battery within 5 minutes and told me that there wasnt enough voltage/crank power so i am not sure if these basic tests are done by my mechanic, what the RAC inspection did? Because if you are telling me they stood there, looked inside to see if there was a battery present and stop and started the vehicle. Well then an "unskilled" person like myself could have done that to be honest. And so yes the complaint to both trading standards and the financial ombudsman continue as the RAC cant exactly answer why they ticked this as working rather than just respond with not having the right equipment to perform the test at the time (i.e. leave it with a check to say they cant verify the battery). This is about the RAC mis-selling and additionally mis-reporting their findings incorrectly and in this instance they have been caught out. The battery fault was diagnosed a week after i bought the car - very unlikely the battery goes from being perfectly fine to not having the correct power in one week. RAC admitted all they did was stop/started the car and checked the battery was correct connected.

The RAC ticked the box to say the battery was working because it was working when they tested it by starting the car. The fact they never used a bit of equipment to test the output amps is irrelevant because they never said they would use such a piece of equipment. It's not mis-selling because you got the exact thing you paid for which was a visual inspection of the car.

How far do you expect them to go? When they visually checked if the lights were working did you complain that they didn't use a Luminance Meter to check the brightness of each bulb and removed each bulb to check the resistance of the filament to see if each one was close to failure?
When they visually checked the oil did you complain they didn't send a sample away for a full lab report to check for metal particles water content of the oil and how effective it still was?.

There are so many checks that could be done but if they didn't say they would then you can't complain.

This is a good lesson for you to read up on what you paying for before you part money and maybe spend a bit of time to learn things so you can do these checks yourself.

Hermione_Granger

jmajithia108 wrote: »

RAC had failed to check that if there was sufficient voltage and crank power coming from the battery.

Why would they check that as it's not on the check sheet:
https://www.rac.co.uk/pdfs/vehicle-inspections/advanced-report.pdf

They check that the battery charging system is operating correctly but not the battery itself. This is because as already mentioned by many other posters (and ignored by you as it's not what you want to read), if the battery was fully charged at the time, a test wouldn't show that the battery could fail shortly afterwards.

foxy-stoat

Battery is not a major part of the car - what car is it by the way that would cost hundred's of pounds to replace the battery, is it an electric vehicle?

DoaM

For clarity .. did they check that the charging system was working correctly? If yes, how? (Relying on lights on the dash would be sub-optimal ... the proper way would be to measure the voltage at the battery with the engine off and then the engine running).

missile

RAC admitted all they did was stop/started the car and checked the battery was correct connected.

and what else did you expect them to do?

I had the converse from BMW. Put my wife's 3 year old Mini in for service & MOT. They phoned to tell me it needed a new battery, we recommend replacement. I told them battery was low on charge because she had left lights on and I had to jump start it. We recommend battery replacement every 5 years. It is only 3 years old!! When she went to collect it they gave her the same speil.

Took the car home and charged the battery, never had a problem since.