Garage can't fix car

[amylou8]

My car broke down broke down on Monday. It overheated and the RAC towed me home. I took it to the local garage who diagnosed a hole in the radiator and said it would need replacing at £260 inc vat. They have now said that replaced the radiator but it has not cured the over heating problem. They're going to have a last go to make sure there's no air trapped but it looks like (their words) 'you've cooked it'. It's a 16 year old car almost out of MOT so it was dubious if it was was worth fixing in the first place. I agreed to it believing that this would cure the problem. Where do I stand regarding payment?

I think you are going to have to suck it up and pay as they did the work in good faith.

If a car has overheated, then it's standard procedure (and has been since I could drive in the 70s) to check that the head gasket has not been damaged by overheating.

There is a kit you can get - you have a liquid that changes colour when you out a special flask over the water cap in the engine if the gasket is gone.

That said, if the original cause of the overheating was a leaky rad, then that has to be replaced whatever. So if the garage have done that, they have fixed the cause of the problem. However for reasons best known to themselves (are you a woman, by any chance ?) they didn't bother to check for further damage, or inform you there was a chance the overheating could have caused further damage.

Were you given a written quote ?

In legal terms ... for the sums involved there's no much you can do beyond make your point in writing. It's bad service, but not necessarily actionable.

Also, blown head gaskets are the faults of dreams for shady dealers. A few bottles of radweld, problems appears fixed for a few weeks and then ... well nothing gets better.

Do they still have the car ? They might not release it if you don't pay. That could be fun.

No nothing in writing, just the price for the fix over the phone. The repair was sold as a fix, no mention of potential further issues. Yes they have the car, although it's old and worth scrap if the head gasket has gone, so no great loss if I don't get it back.

The question is whether they have used reasonable care and skill. To take this further you would need to get an independent engineer to take a look. If their report showed that the repair has not been carried out properly or that it the garage should have discovered the other fault before recommending this fix you would have a case and would be able to include the cost of the report in your claim. However, if the report said that it was reasonable for the garage to believe that the only fix required was to replace the radiator and that the repair was carried out correctly, you would not have a case and you would be down by the cost of the report.

Thank you.