Garage issue, not sure on what to do next

Litten888

Hi all, 

 Make it as simple as possible! 

My 4 year old car starts to lightly smoke on and off when shopping one day and smells of burning oil so i take it to a well rated local garage who after 2 days say no faults found and the smoke was just from a regen its safe to drive no issues....

I drive it a day later and it smokes and drops into limp mode. Call garage who apologise and say bring it back in which i do

Almost 2 weeks later and with no contact from them i call them and they say they think they know what it is but are not 100% and will cost £700  but they cant say its for sure that and i still have to pay if it isnt that. After i say i wont pay for things that "might" fix it for £700 unless i know it will they said they will get another garage they partner with to have a look and diognose 

Call a week later to find it never went to the other garage as "it got worse and we couldnt drive it" and sat for a week untouched until i called 

Now saying take it to a dealer but its now undrivable and will have to be towed. Told to speak to the owner on monday 


Any advise what i should be saying or doing here? This is a very highly rated garage im amazed im having such a bad experience based on the reviews and positive feedback i had before dropping the car down to them

They cant mis diagnose and then make things worse before leaving it for me to sort surley? 

Thanks! sorry its a bit jumbled im a little stressed as you can imagine 

angrycrow

Look at it from a different perspective. They clearly don't have a clue what they are doing with your car so do you really want them to randomly change parts at your cost in the hope they get lucky and solve the problem. Get it transferred to a decent independent garage and have it properly diagnoses. What car is it, Make Model and Engine in case its one with a common issue. 

Litten888

Its a kia Optima 1.7 CRDi diesel. I forgot to add that when it went into limp mode i parked it up and the next day a mechanic appeared and asked to have a quick look but he only checked the engine oil and left...so i checked after and it was claggy thick oil ( i asked later if they checked it when it went in first time and they said no as they checked for leaks and the transmission ) 

Thanks for the reply 

Grumpy_chap

Litten888 said:

Its a kia Optima 1.7 CRDi diesel. 

How old and how many miles?  Kia have quite a long warranty - are you still covered?

tacpot12

Litten888 said:

...
They cant mis diagnose and then make things worse before leaving it for me to sort surley? 

...

They didn't diagnose the problem, so they can't have mis-diagnosed it. They failed to diagnose a problem, and presumably the bill just amounted to the time they spent looking to see if they could find a problem. If they used reasonable skill to find, they are entitled to be paid. Until you know what the problem is, you don't really know whether they should have been able to find a problem. (e.g. if the dealer says there is a fault code recorded on the EMU, then the garage should have been able to find the fault code). You need some expert advice as to whether  the fault should have been discoverable by the garage.

They didn't make things worse, the car got worse. Again the dealer may be able to confirm whether the garage did anything to make it worse, until you know that they did something wrong, you can't say for certain that they made it worse. It might have been going to get worse anyway.

I think you are putting too much faith in ratings. Many reviews (and therefore the ratings) are paid for and are fake. 

I also think you are putting too much faith in garages. You need to be calling them every day, not waiting for them to call you. Garages are busy places and if they haven't fixed your car on the first day, they are not going to be working on it the next day because they have the next days customers booked in for their work.You are likely to be at the back of the queue, which might be two weeks long! Call them every day, and get the car back from them if they are not able to work on it. If it is undriveable, get it towed to a garage that will look at it.

NSG666

4yr old Kia? - still under warranty unless it's over 100,000 miles or hasn't been serviced properly?

[Deleted User]

NSG666 said:

4yr old Kia? - still under warranty unless it's over 100,000 miles or hasn't been serviced properly?

7 year warranty - on all Kias - maybe the OP is confused ?
https://victoriamgclub.com/kia-optima-that-goes-into-limp-mode/

Litten888

Nope its over on 110,000 miles so not covered ( was used for work so alot of distance driving ) but always serviced 

In regards to the mis diognosis they said it was "likely" a valve but then proceeded to try and drive it to another garage? Surley that is making it worse if thats what they believed?

Going to ring KIA and see what they charge for looking at it on monday and pray i can afford it