Unexpected diagnostic bill after recall work

FiatDriver22

I recently had to take our car into the dealership for some work under recall. After having the car back we kept having a warning light illuminate on the dash. It wasn't doing this BEFORE having the recall done. Took it back to Fiat who after 3 weeks told me what the problem was, hit me with a just shy of £200 bill for the courtesy car and a whooping £1700 bill for diagnostic....... Oh, and then to further insult me quoted me for the repair of the affected part as well.

I questioned this and was told that the fault was found out to be unrelated to the recall and it was just a coincidence that the warning light came on after having the initial recall done. The recall was something to do with a sensor calibration on the engine and the light illuminating was the check engine light.

Naturally one would assume that after having work done on the engine and then an engine light coming on the very same day, the two would be connected. I never signed any paper work or anything like that, I didn't even have a quote or anything before they did this "diagnostic"

One week into the diagnostic I was told that they don't believe the two were related but they would keep investigating. At no point was I told anything along the lines of "We don't think the recall and the check engine light are related. Due to these findings, if we continue to investigate you may incur a diagnostic charge. Do you want us to keep investigating?"

Surely this isn't legal? They can't just continue to do work on a car without actually asking you if you want the work to continue! Obviously the fact I wasn't quoted for a diagnostic or anything leads me to believe at first they also thought the same, that the recall had somehow gone wrong and created a problem.

As far as I'm concerned, I was told that the recall and the check engine light MIGHT not have been connected. As soon as they were absolutely certain the two were not connected, I should have been informed and told that all work from here onwards would be chargeable.

Do I have any legal rights or anything in regards to this? Nothing was signed before or after, nothing was verbally agreed on (I.E. There may be a charge) so surely they won't have a leg to stand on?

AdrianC

You're going to need to give more detail for any kind of sensible answer.

What was the recall?
What warning light was illuminating?
What did the issue actually turn out to be?

m0bov

Diags should only be a few hundred at most. Need more details.

unholyangel

Ask them what basis they are going to found their claim on

Jumblebumble

FiatDriver22 wrote: »

I recently had to take our car into the dealership for some work under recall. After having the car back we kept having a warning light illuminate on the dash. It wasn't doing this BEFORE having the recall done. Took it back to Fiat who after 3 weeks told me what the problem was, hit me with a just shy of £200 bill for the courtesy car and a whooping £1700 bill for diagnostic....... Oh, and then to further insult me quoted me for the repair of the affected part as well.

I questioned this and was told that the fault was found out to be unrelated to the recall and it was just a coincidence that the warning light came on after having the initial recall done. The recall was something to do with a sensor calibration on the engine and the light illuminating was the check engine light.

Naturally one would assume that after having work done on the engine and then an engine light coming on the very same day, the two would be connected. I never signed any paper work or anything like that, I didn't even have a quote or anything before they did this "diagnostic"

One week into the diagnostic I was told that they don't believe the two were related but they would keep investigating. At no point was I told anything along the lines of "We don't think the recall and the check engine light are related. Due to these findings, if we continue to investigate you may incur a diagnostic charge. Do you want us to keep investigating?"

Surely this isn't legal? They can't just continue to do work on a car without actually asking you if you want the work to continue! Obviously the fact I wasn't quoted for a diagnostic or anything leads me to believe at first they also thought the same, that the recall had somehow gone wrong and created a problem.

As far as I'm concerned, I was told that the recall and the check engine light MIGHT not have been connected. As soon as they were absolutely certain the two were not connected, I should have been informed and told that all work from here onwards would be chargeable.

Do I have any legal rights or anything in regards to this? Nothing was signed before or after, nothing was verbally agreed on (I.E. There may be a charge) so surely they won't have a leg to stand on?

Have you got the car back
If so let them sue you as I cannot see from what you have told us that a district judge will let them win.

Mistral001

Report them to the manufacturer if they are a main dealer.

tacpot12

Even if you didn't agree to any cost, it would be unusual (in the extreme) to take your car to a dealer and have them offer to work on it for free. A judge might expect you to have understood that the work was chargeable UNLESS the dealer pre-agreed that it was not, and thus you should have expressed your expectation at the outset that the diagnostic work was free; at least to the point where there is evidence that the issue was unconnected to the recall work that had been done.

The fact that you did not agree verbally to a charge is not in itself enough to avoid being liable; generally if you ask a business entity to do work, you expect to pay for the work.

facade

tacpot12 wrote: »

generally if you ask a business entity to do work, you expect to pay for the work.

Absolutely, but you wouldn't expect to pay £1700 for them to say why the eml is on, more like £70.



£1700 is dismantle the engine to inspect internal parts money, you'd expect them to get in touch to agree work like that.


We need to know what they said was wrong with it.

bartelbe

tacpot12 wrote: »

Even if you didn't agree to any cost, it would be unusual (in the extreme) to take your car to a dealer and have them offer to work on it for free. A judge might expect you to have understood that the work was chargeable UNLESS the dealer pre-agreed that it was not, and thus you should have expressed your expectation at the outset that the diagnostic work was free; at least to the point where there is evidence that the issue was unconnected to the recall work that had been done.

The fact that you did not agree verbally to a charge is not in itself enough to avoid being liable; generally if you ask a business entity to do work, you expect to pay for the work.

Rubbish, recall work is free and the OP assumed that they botched the recall work and rectifying their mistake should also be free.

The dealer failed to inform the customer that the continuing work had nothing to do with the recall. If that cost them money, their problem.

By the way, which dealer do you work for?

tacpot12

facade wrote: »

Absolutely, but you wouldn't expect to pay £1700 for them to say why the eml is on, more like £70.

£1700 is dismantle the engine to inspect internal parts money, you'd expect them to get in touch to agree work like that.

We need to know what they said was wrong with it.

I would agree that once the work goes about a trivial figure (say £100 - £200), the dealer should have consulted the customer and agreed with them that the customer was happy to cover further costs.

The cost of the courtesy car has not been discussed much, so lets consider it now.

I think the OP is best off sticking to their version of events, which is the warning light come on so shortly after the recall work was done that he thought the dealer must have caused the problem when doing the recall work and took the car back to them for them to fix what they had broken.

But he failed to make it clear to the garage that he was not going to pay for anything they did AND he wanted a free courtesy car until they fixed his car.

By not being clear, the OP is liable for something, and if fault was not connected to the recall work and the dealer repairs the car, the OP will have benefited from the repair so should pay something. A Judge may look at whether the garage did their work diligently. Three weeks is a very long time to investigate a fault.

Mercdriver

tacpot12 wrote: »

I would agree that once the work goes about a trivial figure (say £100 - £200), the dealer should have consulted the customer and agreed with them that the customer was happy to cover further costs.

The cost of the courtesy car has not been discussed much, so lets consider it now.

I think the OP is best off sticking to their version of events, which is the warning light come on so shortly after the recall work was done that he thought the dealer must have caused the problem when doing the recall work and took the car back to them for them to fix what they had broken.

But he failed to make it clear to the garage that he was not going to pay for anything they did AND he wanted a free courtesy car until they fixed his car.

By not being clear, the OP is liable for something, and if fault was not connected to the recall work and the dealer repairs the car, the OP will have benefited from the repair so should pay something. A Judge may look at whether the garage did their work diligently. Three weeks is a very long time to investigate a fault.

I would argue that the OP is not meant to be seen as an expert, whereas the dealer is and I'd also argue that the court would see it this way also. Therefore I'd argue (I am not a lawyer) that the dealer should have not assumed anything at all, and informed their customer the terms under which they would commence work. The dealer has failed to do this.

It's a tough call IMO how much the customer would be ordered to pay towards the work. Civil courts often use the "what does the man on the No 10 bus think would be fair" as a measurement of fairness.