Pls help v. worried about Starter motor - has it been ruined?

travel_freak

Hi,

I hope someone can help. I had a nightmare afternoon today with really bad breakdown service.

Today my car wouldn't start and apparently it was "flooded". I couldn't start it and had to call breakdown assistance (I have this through Prudential with my car insurance). I know nothing about cars and only know it was flooded as this is what the breakdown chap told me.

He was completely uncommunicative and monosyllabic, didnt introduce himself and appeared to have no people skills at all. (I am seriously regretting switching from M&S and RAC cover as RAC were always brilliant).

Anyway, this chap told me the car was "flooded". For the next 15 - 20 minutes he just kept turning over the starter motor, again and again and again, sometimes leaving the key fully turned so the engine was making a horrendous noise. Eventually smoke started coming from the engine and I asked him why this was. He didn't reply! He kept periodically thumping the accelerator during this time. I thought what he was doing had to be wrong but I don't know about cars and thought he did.

He plugged in his computer and said it wasn't showing any fault.

Finally he said he would have to tow me to my garage - this is a garage I have used in the past and trust.

The garage got it started immediately and when I told them what the breakdown chap had done they told me that this was completely wrong and he would have been flooding the engine more and could have damaged the starter motor in the process.

I am now seriously worried that the starter motor is damaged - how will I know this or can I have it checked and can I take some action against my insurer for sending out this person who was so unhelpful and may have damaged my car?

Also will my car now need tracking as it was towed by the front wheel tyres?

Also I had lots of stuff in the back of the car (as I was going on a long journey - or so I thought!) and I told him I would have to remove it before towing and as I was doing this he just loaded the car up on his pick up and things were broken/crushed in the journey to the garage as a result.

I'm so annoyed and upset by the service but mostly worried about my car as I haven't had it long, rely on it heavily and it's only got a very low mileage so I don't want to have the expense of putting a new starter motor in if damage has been caused to it by the actions of this guy.

Also, when I signed up to Prudential it was on the basis they offered Green Flag breakdown cover but they sent someone completely different - a local company I've never heard of and the service was dreadful.

Any advice gratefully received.

Thanks in advance.

goldspanners

starter motors will heat up very quickly and can be damaged very easily with prolonged use,but admittedly ive had to turn engines over for fairly long periods of time and never had any trouble in the near future with the starters.
if as you say you had smoke coming from the engine bay i would get the starter motor and cables checked out,it wont cost to much to remove the starter on most cars and visually inspect the cables for any sign of heat damage.
keep a hold of the reciept/work sheet from this breakdown firm and report your experience to green flag,if they have had or get more reports like this im sure they will remove them from thier database.

Conor_3

travel_freak wrote: »

Also, when I signed up to Prudential it was on the basis they offered Green Flag breakdown cover but they sent someone completely different - a local company I've never heard of and the service was dreadful.

Standard practice - even AA and RAC do it. When they've not got any of their own patrols in the area available, they'll use local garages which are sub-contractors.

Starter motor should be fine - it was just the cables getting a bit toasty.

Flooding is where the car doesn't start very quickly and the petrol being drawn into the engine soaks the spark plugs so they can't work. What you're supposed to do is leave it an hour or so for it to evaporate (if you're lucky it'll work most of the time) or take the spark plugs out then clean and dry them or ideally change them, not keep turning it over and over which just exacerbates the situation.