Garage complaint - advice appreciated

K71

The local garage I’ve used for years replaced the power steering unit on my 2010 Peugeot 207 for £500 in November last year. The unit was faulty and within a few days,  when failing, there was a sudden loss of coolant and temp gauge became faulty. I reported my concerns to the garage who replaced the unit and told me there was no issue with the radiator/ no leak but they had replaced the thermostat - I was given no paperwork to confirm the work undertaken. The day after I collected the car it broke down with cylinder head gasket failure. From advice I gained following this, sudden loss of coolant is an indicator of CHG failure. I tried to complain to the garage, who told me my ‘power steering was working” and wouldn’t enter into any dialogue other than to say their insurers would investigate my complaint. An independent engineer visited in January and inspected the car and confirmed CHG failure. I offered to show text communication with the garage about my concerns relating to the sudden loss of coolant, but this wasn’t taken from me. AXA is the garage’s insurer and after months of emails to try and get an outcome which have been ignored (car’s been SORNd on my drive since and is now out of MOT). I phoned last week and was told there was no liability and that they wouldn’t send me the engineer’s report, but would provide some information by email, I still have nothing from them. I’m not satisfied with this - do I have any scope to take my complaint anywhere else ? 

Thanks in advance 
Karen 

LudaMusser

I would imagine that the next step would be to speak to citizens advice and depending on their advice, maybe a small claims court

Ive just had a quick look on auto trader, £500 was a lot to spend on a car that may be only worth £1,000-1,500. I guess it wouldn’t be economical to spend more money on it unless the garage pay out or do the work FOC. Not sure I would want them working on my car though. Good luck

facade

Why would a power steering unit have anything to do with the cooling system?

Assuming they changed the rack, they only have to drop the back of the subframe a couple of inches to get the rack out, they don't disturb anything to do with the cooling system.

Running with low coolant can cause a head gasket failure, they likely changed the thermostat housing as it is known to leak on a 207 , or maybe the thermostat was stuck closed, likely the damage had already been done by this point.

I doubt if you will get very far claiming that the garage caused the head gasket to fail.

onlyfoolsandparking

Local garage that you've used for years? what sort of relationship do you have with them? I too have used same garage for years and I consider the owner a good friend (well actually he is a good friend) but whenever he has encountered a problem fixing one of my cars, we have always sorted it out between ourselves, sometimes It's cost me, sometimes It's cost him but problems have always been sorted, can people not communicate anymore without getting all legal etc?

K71

onlyfoolsandparking said:

Local garage that you've used for years? what sort of relationship do you have with them? I too have used same garage for years and I consider the owner a good friend (well actually he is a good friend) but whenever he has encountered a problem fixing one of my cars, we have always sorted it out between ourselves, sometimes It's cost me, sometimes It's cost him but problems have always been sorted, can people not communicate anymore without getting all legal etc?

I thought I had a very good relationship with the garage.  They refused to even discuss the matter with me and referred me to their insurer. The issue was not with my communication. 

onlyfoolsandparking

I'm not suggesting there is any problem with your communication, does seem strange though. You say they refused to discuss and referred you to insurer? Did they not even attempt to give you any explanation of what might have happened as a result of what they did? Sometimes fixing an issue on a car can expose another issue although as @facade has pointed out steering rack has got nothing to do with cooling system.

I,m not siding with the garage here but It's quite possible to get steering problem fixed and your head gasket blows a day later, they,re not connected so in reality you had 2 problems with your car, just that CHG didn't show itself at same time as power steering     

K71

facade said:

Why would a power steering unit have anything to do with the cooling system?

Assuming they changed the rack, they only have to drop the back of the subframe a couple of inches to get the rack out, they don't disturb anything to do with the cooling system.

Running with low coolant can cause a head gasket failure, they likely changed the thermostat housing as it is known to leak on a 207 , or maybe the thermostat was stuck closed, likely the damage had already been done by this point.

I doubt if you will get very far claiming that the garage caused the head gasket to fail

That’s not what I said - I reported concern about sudden loss of coolant ( had to top up repeatedly on journey home when power steering became faulty again - apparently this was also causing overheating ) I was told there was no problem  with it - from advice from other mechanics subsequently it should have been a simple test from the symptoms. 

K71

Maybe it would be more helpful if I rephrased - you have to take your car back to a garage that had fitted a faulty part. You flag concerns that it’s suddenly losing coolant (a lot) they tell you there is no problem with it. The very next day the cylinder head goes - would anyone else feel that the garage had not investigated this properly? 

onlyfoolsandparking

Like @facade said the damage had probably already been done BEFORE the garage changed the thermostat although why they wouldn't tell you that I don't know

K71

There was a matter of a few days between me getting the car back with the new power steering unit and it developing an intermittent fault, which was by their own admission caused by overheating. I would  add when arranging to bring it back - advising them that the fault was causing the wheel to jerk when driving, feeling very unsafe - allied to a sudden loss of coolant - they wanted me to drive it home again as they were too busy to look at it,  which I refused to do as it did not feel safe to drive. The CH problem was showing itself as sudden loss of coolant which I repeatedly raised and did not feel that I was taken seriously. My issue is that this was not checked properly.