Advice/Options on bad service/bad repairs

[NORTI]

K Im after some advice on what to do.

Car is VC 6Cyl(173) Manual. Very reliable car so far.

Story is :

VC died whilst driving, called RAA & they confirmed was timming gear, but not the dizzy one as we expected, was the cam one. Ring a couple of places for quotes. End up using a place that didnt give us a quote (bad idea we realise now) because they were recommend to us. After they had a look, rang us with the cost, being nearly DOUBLE the first quote! When we told them of the much cheaper quote they said they couldnt go that low & would get back to us. We rang back & told them we would be collecting the car to take it to cheaper place (at our cost for towtruck) & they dropped the price somewhat (would end up costing us a little more than towtruck fee & cheaper quote)

Car gets fixed & they call to say we can collect.... & tell us that they also had to replace Dizzy timming gear as that was stuffed too.... what are the odds both go at once? (sounding very suss now) Also told harmonic balancer is way out & they had to tune by ear....

Paid & picked up car wed arvo. Thursday arvo driving home hear some disturbing noises, get home to discover fan is clipping due to it moving what looks to be waaaayyyyy too much. Also water is pouring out from the front of the block (may be water pump?) Call to them tells me that 'its murphys law' & cant be anything they have done..... WTF???


Is this right?? I should have known better than to let him go to a place that ignores me lol (I have issues with car places that ignore me or treat me as a stupid blonde female)

Where do we go from here? He is taking the car now to the place that gave up cheaper quote also because it happens to be 5 mins from home, not like 'recommend' place GGRRRRR

We obviously dont trust this place to tell us whats wrong & if its their fault, & will prob cost us a fortune, but if we get it fixed elsewhere what rights do we have??




TIA,
D.

 

[genetic_freak]

i've dealt with this times before

if you didn't agree to replace the dizzy gear then they have to pay as you did not authorise it.

the water pump could have failed due to a freak occurance but not likely. check for lever marks on the pump when the had to remove the cam gear/ timing cover. more than likely they have levered it off and damaged the pump.

tell them if they dont reimburse you, you will go to consumer affairs and report them.

but i would ring consumer affairs first to see if you have a case.

hope this helps.

Nick

 

[NORTI]

so your saying if I go somewhere else & they find above mentioned marks then to hassle them? Because seriously dont want to take it back to them to screw over him more.

He has already paid for dizzy gear, they said 'we had to replace that too, just to get it going' Strange, made us wonder if intial thoughts of it being cam gear was wrong & it was dizzy all along?




D.

 

[NORTI]

Consumer affairs advised getting RAA out to look at it & see if there is evidence of damage, but prob not provable that they did it. So there only advice was if we dont trust them, dont go back!



D.

 

[genetic_freak]

its strange that both gears went at the same time. unfortunately the gears are not made of metal but some crappy substance. more than likely the dizzy gear would have failed first.

you are entitled to get a third party to look at it (at your expense) and get them to write a report. and then if you threaten the original place with the report and say you've lodged a claim with CAA then they might bend over for you