Car not repaired

Lappie76

Hi, a main Vauxhall dealership has completed a full engine strip and identified faults causing my car to use an excessive amount of oil. I paid just under £3000 for this as none of it was covered by warranty. It hasn't fixed the problem. I have asked the garage for a refund and they have flatly refused. They said they will take the car back in to diagnose it and then discuss with me what they find. I have asked them to clarify what diagnostics they will be running and if when they found the actual fault, will they then refund me, seeing as if they had found it in the first place, I wouldn't be £3000 out of pocket. They have refused to clarify and will only say that they will do the diagnosis for free and take it from there. They have refused to say they will put right the issue for free and said they are accepting no liability until they have diagnosed it.
It is due to go in on Monday 16th. Can anyone give me guidance on my legal rights please. I have had two years of ongoing issues with this garage.
Many thanks.

born_again

Lappie76 said:

Hi, a main Vauxhall dealership has completed a full engine strip and identified faults causing my car to use an excessive amount of oil. I paid just under £3000 for this as none of it was covered by warranty. It hasn't fixed the problem. I have asked the garage for a refund and they have flatly refused. They said they will take the car back in to diagnose it and then discuss with me what they find. I have asked them to clarify what diagnostics they will be running and if when they found the actual fault, will they then refund me, seeing as if they had found it in the first place, I wouldn't be £3000 out of pocket. They have refused to clarify and will only say that they will do the diagnosis for free and take it from there. They have refused to say they will put right the issue for free and said they are accepting no liability until they have diagnosed it.
It is due to go in on Monday 16th. Can anyone give me guidance on my legal rights please. I have had two years of ongoing issues with this garage.
Many thanks.

How old & what mileage?
Has car been serviced in line with Vauxhall requirements.
What sort of timescales re you talking about.

No garage is going to strip a engine to find any issues for nothing. A main dealer will be high labour rates to boot.

You would need to get a 3rd party to give a report on the issue to stand any chance.

Lappie76

It is a 2018 Vauxhall Grandland. It has been serviced by the Vauxhall garage I bought it from and has a full service history according to the garage but not according to Vauxhall's main database and this has been confirmed by Vauxhall customer care. It has done 94,000 miles. I am not saying they should have done the initial work for nothing and I paid the £3000 with hope they had fixed my car. My issue is they have not fixed my car and it is using 1 litre of oil approximately every 200 miles. They are refusing to refund the cost of the work and refusing to put it right without further costs to me. I did wonder if I might need to get an independent garages report. Thanks.

tacpot12

Do you have home insurance? If so, check to see if you have Legal Expenses cover. If you do, call the Legal Helpline provided by the insurer for legal advice on whether you can hold them liable for the cost of not having repaired the fault at this stage. It seems a little premature as they are offerin to diagnose the problem for free. 

What did they do to fix the problem? You should have an invoice, hopefully with a list of new parts they fitted. If no new parts were fitted, then I am struggling to see what they did to fix the car - if no new parts were fitted, you should ask them what they did to fix the problem. 

Lappie76

Thank you, I will check my home insurance. The issue with my situation is that there has been an ongoing issue from day 1 I have paid to have a full engine strip and new parts were fitted but they have not solved the problem. The garage are saying they will re-diagnose but refusing to say at what level ie whether they are going to do another engine strip or not.

Jumblebumble

Lappie76 said:

It is a 2018 Vauxhall Grandland. It has been serviced by the Vauxhall garage I bought it from and has a full service history according to the garage but not according to Vauxhall's main database and this has been confirmed by Vauxhall customer care. It has done 94,000 miles. I am not saying they should have done the initial work for nothing and I paid the £3000 with hope they had fixed my car. My issue is they have not fixed my car and it is using 1 litre of oil approximately every 200 miles. They are refusing to refund the cost of the work and refusing to put it right without further costs to me. I did wonder if I might need to get an independent garages report. Thanks.

If you have asked them to pony up the £3000 then I am not surprised they are not wanting to engage before they have seen the car. If they were silly enough to refund then what would stop you taking it elsewhere having kept any parts that have been replaced?
Why not wait till 16th and see what the situation is then.
If  any of the the full service history is from some non main dealer then it is probably  worthless as far as out of warranty repairs are concerned ( I am assuming you did not buy it new) 

Lappie76

Thanks. All of the service history is from the main dealer but it is not showing on the main Vauxhall database so it may well have been falsified. Apparently it isn't an issue if I continue to take my car back to the dealership to get it fixed. It is currently back with them today for them to complete further investigation, but considering they couldn't find what was wrong before after doing a full engine strip, I'm not holding my breath!

Lappie76

Update to the situation. They didn't do any sort of diagnosis but completed a visual health check and have rung me to tell me there is no oil leak. I already knew this and so did they. They are supposed to be investigating why my engine is burning so much oil. They said my car is fine and probably just using more oil because they changed the wet cam belt and it will take two weeks to bed in. I will be taking this further now.