Car Warranty – consequential damage.

I after am a knowledge based rather than what seems logical response if that possible as logic does not seem to be working for me at the moment!

My car has been in for a problem this week. It had a leaking slave cylinder which required removing of the gearbox. All the work has been done but after putting it back together this morning they have discovered that in rotating the engine (?) to remove the gearbox the manifold was cracked. The initial work was carried out under a dealer warranty scheme. Apparently the warranty won’t pay for the replacement of the manifold as this is considered as “consequential” damage related to the repair. Whilst the garage (a main agent dealer, but not the one that sold me the car) is prepared to do the work at a discounted rate they are expecting me to cover the cost of the manifold.

To me this sounds like a crock. Either the warranty should pay for it (the garage say manifolds are often damaged doing this particular job) as an inevitable consequence of the work, or the garage should pay for ballsing up. What is the (knowledgeable) opinion of the massive? I’m awaiting a phone call in a minute to tell me what this might cost.

nah consiquental damage is basically when something that is not under warranty fails as a result of something under warranty going.

lets say your clutch isn’t covered (common). Lets say the dmf goes (common) and takes out the clutch (common). dmf may be covered by the warranty, the clutch wouldn’t.

what it sounds like happened here is that the garage monkeys broke your car. This is entirely their responsibility and not yours*

*theres 2 ways to read your sentance. one is that when they moved the engine, the found the crack, and one is that they caused the crack, cos they moved the engine. Not sure which is right? if the former, then its nothing to do with consiquental damage, its either covered or not

sounds like incompetance to me ….. sounds to me like the garage dont want to foot the bill – but cant claim it back from the car company because its not a warrentable item.

5lab – it’s that the work caused the crack. They say that the car is not drivable as you would get stopped so must be a big crack & the car has just done a 1300 round trip nice and quietly at above brochure claimed mpg so I can’t see any way there could have been even a small crack previously (normally see a drop in mpg with exhaust issues don’t you?).

Warranty – no, not the car company’s responsibility. It IS most definitely however the garage’s responsibility. They are trying it on. They broke your stuff, sue them if necessary. They need to take responsibility for what they did.

What if they reversed into your car after it was fixed, whilst fixing someone else’s car? It’s the same thing.

molgrips that’s my thoughts exactly. Except – (trying to a least be a little reasonable) where is the line about stuff that is easy to damage carrying out a repair and who should pay for it? And I guess I only have their word (at the minute) that it is easy to crack a manifold moving the engine in this particular model.

Citizens advice bureau would be my fisrt port of call, seems like their trying it on.

You will need proof i.e. written statement that says the crack was caused by the garage / mechanic misuse though.

My wifes old clio had a cracked manifold for a while, it drove fine but you could smell fumes in the car when stationary and on startup.

I just renewed the warranty on one of our cars and consequential damage is included – although it’s a complete policy and not many companies cover consequential damage.

Yep – agree it’s the garage’s fault. What’s the manifold bill going to be?

Doesn’t matter does it? It’s easy to break a glass by dropping it – we just take care, don’t we?

wot molgrips said – if my window cleaner puts his ladder through one of my windows setting up to clean it then he’s paying for a replacement.

i don’t think the mpg would be low as a result of the manifold crack, but you should be able to hear it. If they noticed it when putting it back together then i’d suggest the noise is so obvious as they wouldn’t be able to hide it (otherwise they would just ignore it and hope you didn’t notice).

no ‘repair’ has consiquencial damage as a consiquence of the repair. If parts are routinely compromised as part of a repair (such as gaskets) then they would be replaced as part of the repair. Def trying it on. tell them to jump

ETA : its never easy to crack a manifold. They are big bits of metal tubing welded together. The only way to crack one whilst rotating an engine would be

a) tried to rotate the engine with the manifold still attached to the exhaust\engine when it should have been disconnected

b) dropped the engine and it landed on the manifold

I’m having an interesting fight with a garage that repaired my car after an accident. Their view is that their warranty only covers the individual items that they have actually repaired.

This doesn’t correspond with my view that they contracted to ‘repair’ the car.

So currently going to court over the costs of additional work that I had to instruct the VW garage to undertake. £180 in court fees already ….if it wasn’t for over a grand I don’t think I would bother.

They are big bits of metal tubing welded together

Aren’t they usually castings and hence brittle? You can easy crack them if my readings of car forums are anything to go by.

I think we need some more info please:

Make
Model
Engine
Miles

Marko

Renault Clio 197 on a 08 just out of manufacturer warranty but within the 1 year (main agent) dealer warranty that car with the car when it was purchased in November. Circa 35K on the clock.

My feeling is if they had warned you that this might happen they would have some claim. I had this with my BMW motorcycle with replacing the clutch where the pushrod got bent – but it genuinely is difficult to avoid this happening and they warned me – even to the point of ordering a new pushrod with the rest of the parts.

sounds to me like they took a shortcut and didn’t follow manufacturers procedure – you can sometimes change a clutch for which the manufacturer says remove engine by tilting it

Apparently the warranty won’t pay for the replacement of the manifold as this is considered as “consequential” damage related to the repair.

Errr…the answer is in the question. The damage was a CONSEQUENCE of the repair. If the repair hadn’t been necessary, there would be no damage.

Its nothing to do with cosequential.

In repiring your car, they owe you a duty of care to do so skillfully, using the correct proceedures and parts.

The failure is their breach of the duty of care. It is forseeable that removing the engine inexpertly can and will cause additional damage.

It may be the rememdy in law is to put you back into the position you were in prior to the accident, wit a second hand part, as an imporved new part might be classed as betterment.

but I would not allow them to charge me for the additional repair.

If they refuse, you can get an independent engineer report (find one in the phone book – or contact MIMI the trade body for motor engineers) to proivde a report for less than £100 to decide whether the manifold looks as if it cracked from their repair or prior to. Engineer will look at dirt in crack ect. so see whats likely.

Then issue a money claim online and attach the engineers report, invoice and a pro forma invoice for repair.

Wait for judge to find in your favour.

The damage was a CONSEQUENCE of the repair hamfisted mechanics.

That’s like saying ‘we’ll replace your cylinder head for free’ and then charging you for a head gasket.

I have been through this. Lotus garage screwed up an air conditioning unit when they were replacing a radiator under warranty. Tried to charge me full price to replace the thing.

After taking advice from trading standards I used the following line which worked wonders.

“It’s not my fault that your mechanic is a cack handed ****wit. Just get it ****ing sorted and stop trying it on.”

KB- Yep, that makes sense to me too and what I argued on my initial discussion with the garage. Apart from the damage is only a consequence if you are a muppet engineer apparently! The warranty company won’t wear it & I’m coming to the conclusion they won’t wear it because it’s installer error.

I have just had a nice chat with the garage I bought it from (who I wish I had taken it back to now but it’s just that bit too far away) who without wanting to commit themselves totally to dissing another main agent said I should tell them to shove it and if the warranty company won’t wear it they should be taking it on the chin themselves.

The garage are trying it on. Its their fault, simple as. The have a duty to carry out work with reasonable care and skill as outlined in the supply of goods and services act 1982 – which clearly they have not.

Its nothing to do with cosequential.

It depends whether the ‘additional’ damage was a result of the negligence of the repairer or really a consequence of the initial negligent assembly etc. That is to say – that’s for the repairer and the manufacturer to worry about, not the purchaser…

konabunny – Member

Errr…the answer is in the question. The damage was a CONSEQUENCE of the repair. If the repair hadn’t been necessary, there would be no damage.

The damage wasn’t caused by the repair, it was caused during the repair, by a monkey.

It’s the garage’s responsibility but as it’s a main dealer and approved warranty provider I’m surprised the manufacturer aren’t taking an interest.