Car repair

AndrewsF99

I recently sent my van in for an engine refurb as it had a bottom end failure. The van was driveable when the tow truck came to pick it up and I have confirmation that they had the van driving after the engine had been refurbished. However, before I came to pick it up, I then got a call from the garage to say the ECU had failed. They said they didn't know why it had failed all of a sudden. I paid the bill and then took the van to an auto electrical garage who did diagnostics on the ECU and confirmed the ECU is knackered due to it being spiked and if he had to hazard a guess as to how it was spiked, it was likely caused by it being jump started. I asked the garage whether the van would drive if the ECU had spiked and they said no it would not. 

So essentially, it has happened after the van left our possession. I have been in touch with the garage about the ECU situation and asking them how they want to rectify it. They are now ignoring all my calls and texts so can I request the money back through the credit card company that I used to pay for the work?

eskbanker

If an independent expert is prepared to commit in writing that the garage breached the contract you had with them (in more definitive terms than 'hazarding a guess'!), then you should have a valid section 75 claim with the card company.

AndrewsF99

eskbanker said:

If an independent expert is prepared to commit in writing that the garage breached the contract you had with them (in more definitive terms than 'hazarding a guess'!), then you should have a valid section 75 claim with the card company.

They have said the ECU is definitely spiked and the van would not drive with the damage it has had done to it so it had definitely been done by the garage because the van drove even with the engine failure and the garage have said it drove ok after they did the engine refurb. The electrical garage cannot garauntee how the damage was caused as multiple things can cause spiking but did confirm that is has been spiked and that there is no way that Van would have driven with that kind of damage because the van doesn't even turn on currently 

eskbanker

I was answering the question in the context of the credit card process, i.e. you need to demonstrate that the merchant breached the contract to sustain a s75 claim - if you'd like to discuss the more technical aspects of the issue, it would probably be better to do so on this board:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/categories/motoring