Took my car in to my local garage on Tuesday to have it’s MOT and work on the handbrake done.
Picked it up yesterday afternoon and drove the 1.5 miles home. This morning got in the car and switched the radio on…. screen stayed dark. Turned car off and back on and the screen came on for a second but then went off again – no sound nothing.
Built in phone doesn’t work nor the reversing sensors either – both of these are routed through the stereo system. Car is an XC90 and uses a MOST fibre optic system for a lot of the comunication between devices.
The work on the handbrake involved messing around with the main cable that runs under the centre console and right past the back of the stereo/fo cables (garage actually said they had to pull the cable right out to make an adjustment).
Should I expect the garage to rectify this or can they say ‘it wasn’t us’ – which is what they’re doing at the moment?

—–
Edit – Work was paid for on a credit card if that makes a difference.

Yes take it back and sooner rather than later

They could say that. They’d be stretching credibility though. Trading standards?

edit – credit card company may be useful too – sorted out an insurance claim excess for me on a hire car once when the hire company were being very unreasonable.

Should I expect the garage to rectify this or can they say ‘it wasn’t us’ – which is what they’re doing at the moment?

‘yes’, ‘not really’ and ‘they would, wouldn’t they’

I’d suggest writing to them saying ‘I’m taking it to a Volvo main dealer for investigation and if they say it was done whilst the handbrake was being worked on I’ll be sending you the bill’. Chances are the original lot will want to sort it out rather than pay main dealer rates to get it done.

[edit] if you do take it back to the orginal garage ask to stand under th car with them whilst they ivestigate so you can see what they find and agree what caused it before they have a chance to invent another cause.

Should I expect the garage to rectify this

Well, if it was all working before you took it in, I don’t really see why you’re asking the question.

Speak to Service Manager, then Dealership Manager, then Volvo UK, just keep banging away

Phone them back and tell them to stop taking the piss, you broke it you fix it.

Speak to Service Manager, then Dealership Manager, then Volvo UK,

Local indi garage, and not a Volvo dealership, which I’ve used before on a few occasions. Spoken to the owner who has said “I can 100% guarantee we didn’t do anything but bring it in and we’ll have a look”.
How he can guarantee 100% that one of his employees hasn’t bent a fibre optic cable too much is beyond me.

Local indi garage, and not a Volvo dealership,

Ah, fair enough. Still, principle stands, it worked when you gave it to them, it didn’t when they gave it back. Up to them to fix it.

Coded radio in Volvos, it could be that it got fully shut down during that service and therefore you’ll need to find the code to reset it. I had similar happen with my V70. All sorted out very easily, though.

It’s entirely possible that it’s a coincidence, bear in mind. It’s likely that they’ve dislodged something, but I wouldn’t go in all guns blazing just in case.

How the owner can be “100%” sure, I don’t know.

No code to input on the XC90 as the stereo is software linked to the cars ECu or something. I’m suspecting a fibre optic issue as the system seems to be starting, checking for other devices (phone/reversing sensors/cd changer/sub-woofer/minidisc), not finding one of them and shutting down.

Update…. fixed it myself. I had installed a Dension Gateway to connect an iPod so I checked to see if it was getting power and it wasn’t because the mech (who ‘100%’ hadn’t unplugged anything) had pulled the power cable out.
Plugged it back in and everything working fine. Good job I checked as the garage would never have found this.
Happy days.

Glad you sorted it.

oh crap….. just back from picking up kids from school, get out and smell something hot. Check the rear wheels and they’re OK, check the disks and one of them is too hot on the drum part (combined drum and disk) – b****y handbrake binding on one side.
Oh well, they just ‘fixed’ it so they can fix it again.
Sometimes I do wonder why I keep taking the car there 😐

Sometimes I do wonder why I keep taking the car there

To give you something to post about? 8)

jeez, I could start my own forum. Every time I take a car there it has to go back for something. Like the time when I took the Golf in for the ……

😉

I have long thought that everytime a mechanic gets near a car they loosen something else, guarantees repeat business. However I thought they only did this to women.

No, women are born with a screw already loose…a mechanic would be hard pushed to loosen another one off!!!

Oo-er phinarr phinarr. It’s usually just my car I get serviced, but will ask for the extras next time.