Hippo
Lord Hippo
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- 55,203
Just read through all of this. If you have a receipt for the work then you need to tell the garage who did the work it’s their fault. You put it in their garage to have the fault fixed, which included the original cause. That was the water pipe from what I understand (split one). After vehicle was returned it over heated again due to top hose coming off and caused failure again. This was either due to the hose coming off as they didn’t fit it correctly with the required clip, or the original fault not being fixed proper the first time. (I once had no coolant in a transit – temp gauge was ok as it was measuring air temp in the pipe). They will probably say no to doing work for free. There’s a chance if they do the work it won’t be correct as they sound like they int too good with cars, not matter what they may say. He may have tested it, but a reasonable person would expect far more than 500 miles after a good repair. They may have done the work on the cheap, but you as a customer got a discount for work completed to a good standard. I would argue the work they have done and failure since would suggest their work int up to scratch.
Regardless of what you do, it’s always good to put a report into trading standards as they may have a number of complaints about them, and add yours to their investigation. This happened to me earlier this year and a conviction in court from a number of unhappy customers – not to do with cars.
As far as proving the failure goes… one garages word against another isn’t enough for evidence. You would need to pay for an inspection for evidence for it to go to court. Inspector would have knowledge of faults and put together a reasonable report which I would think would back up your story. They won’t take it apart, but you could show them the gunk, split pipe, talk through events of what happened etc. If the engine is already in bits then the report may not have the strength it would have had if it were not taken apart, as foul play may be suggested by the garage. If you choose not to go down the route of the garage fixing it (or the garages refuses) then you could request a refund on the work done, or agree a partial refund which would give you some £ to help fix the problem. I would also go to the mot place and ask them what happened with your car. They may give info which the garage hasn’t passed on. Make sure the garage knows you’ve spoken to trading standards and file a report with TS. At least it will be there if they choose to investigate due to number of complaints.
Regardless of what you do, it’s always good to put a report into trading standards as they may have a number of complaints about them, and add yours to their investigation. This happened to me earlier this year and a conviction in court from a number of unhappy customers – not to do with cars.
As far as proving the failure goes… one garages word against another isn’t enough for evidence. You would need to pay for an inspection for evidence for it to go to court. Inspector would have knowledge of faults and put together a reasonable report which I would think would back up your story. They won’t take it apart, but you could show them the gunk, split pipe, talk through events of what happened etc. If the engine is already in bits then the report may not have the strength it would have had if it were not taken apart, as foul play may be suggested by the garage. If you choose not to go down the route of the garage fixing it (or the garages refuses) then you could request a refund on the work done, or agree a partial refund which would give you some £ to help fix the problem. I would also go to the mot place and ask them what happened with your car. They may give info which the garage hasn’t passed on. Make sure the garage knows you’ve spoken to trading standards and file a report with TS. At least it will be there if they choose to investigate due to number of complaints.