I wonder if anyone has advice about how best to approach a problem with a car that only becomes apparent while at a dealers?
My Mum tok a big bite out of the side of her Skoda Octavia 2.0 DGS diesel estate by scraping it down a bollard about a month ago. Fair cop, her fault entirely, it went into a dealers to be repaired on the insurance about 3 weeks ago.
The bodywork and paint has been done, but she’s not got it back as the car won’t start. She used it for a couple of weeks before it went in, and they had been moving it round the shop while it was there, so I am fairly convinced that this has nothing to do with the accident. So are the dealers & insurers, who say this is a coincidence, and they are not going to meet the £650 cost of a new electronic unit (need to check exactly what, am going to ring them tomorrow). The car is 2 months outside of manufacturer warranty.
Given that they will have had the battery disconnected while it’s there, this (presumably immobiliser) failure seems like too much of a coincidence to me. I’ll post in technical once I have more details to see if there are any known problems (CBC breakdown at the other place has nothing obvious), but how should I approach this? They have clearly been bamboozling my Ma, so I’m taking over the negotiations.
My view? The balance of probability is that they broke it, so I’d be happy to contribute a maximum of £100. If they won’t play, pay and then take them to the small claims to get it back.
Any views / suggestions welcome.
Last edited by: Statistical Outlier on Sun 12 Sep 10 at 20:58
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There is a fairly good chance that if they used an arc welder they fried it.
How to prove? lord knows.
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I'm with Zero on this one. Seen it happen.
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more likely they boost started it because it had a flat battery and fried something
Last edited by: Bellboy on Sun 12 Sep 10 at 21:10
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Wouldn't be the first vehicle cannibalised either, same problem regarding proof.
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>> How to prove? lord knows.
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The OP has it correct - he doesn't need to prove it, just show that the balance of probability is the garage broke it.
Will Ma push it though? Women will often just pay up as they can't be bothered with the hassle.
Last edited by: Bill Payer on Sun 12 Sep 10 at 22:55
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Can you get a qualified engineer in as an independent assessor? Might be worth his/her fee.
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see if they are a pas approved workshop
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>>Can you get a qualified engineer in as an independent assessor?
It's pointless in this case - sorry. The cost to conclusively prove the cause of failure* is much more than the cost of the new part.
The possibility of finding conclusive evidence is actually a big if - even with massive resouces and skills available [without compare within Europe] to the project I've been working on, and even with the suspect electronic parts being open, and hence able to be inspected by a scanning electron microscope, we haven't been able to fix a cause for some electronic component failures.
Finding whather the garage;
- did any electrical welding
- if so, where was the return clamped
- if so, what precautions were taken to protect the vehicle's systems
- disconnected / reconnected the battery
- jump started the car
and getting this in writing from the garage would be a good start.
As an aside, I'm not too sure about the standard advice, which is to disconnect the battery while welding. This leaves the electrical system floating, with an ill defined voltage applied, which can't be a good thing.
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As an aside, I'm not too sure about the standard advice, which is to disconnect the battery while welding. This leaves the electrical system floating, with an ill defined voltage applied, which can't be a good thing.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> i wont do this i only weld with a spike preventer connected
and as ive said many times before i never start anything with my boost starter
a diesel is a classic where a boost starter would probably be used
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Well, I phoned them this morning - thanks to all who had ideas on what to ask.
I spoke to the boss, and had a pleasant conversation around the circumstances. He really did feel that they had followed procedures, but was at a loss to explain why the failure had occurred. He denied that the car had ever been bump-started. The last time the car started on its own was when being backed out of the paint booth before being left for the BH weekend before being refitted.
Anyway, Skoda had refused any goodwill as 'it's been in a bodyshop for welding - QED'. My man said that he was looking into a couple of other things that he had 'just been made aware of' (he was off Friday), and would come back to me.
The result? They still can't explain why it failed, but in the circumstances are meeting the cost of the new immobiliser system themselves. No admission of liability, no threats, unpleasantness or arguing from either side.
I think this is a very fair outcome, and fair play to them for sorting it out. It will probably result in my folks buying another car from them in the next couple of years, so I hope they are not too sore.
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I know it might be stating the obvious here but have they checked if there is any fuel in it ?
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He's probably read this thread...
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>> Anyway, Skoda had refused any goodwill as 'it's been in a bodyshop for welding - QED'.
If that's the manufacturer's attitude, why would your's be any different.
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Skoda Octavia II - Garage-induced problem? How to approach? - Zero
