garage broke my car, advise needed please

[josharb87]

took my car to my mechanic (used him before, and trust him, only started using him as hes a mercedes specalist) for its mot, now he doesnt do the mot's, but takes it down the road(few hundred meters) to the test station, he left it there for its test.

now apparantly when the mot bloke drove it into the workshop, 'all of a sudden' the radiator exploded at the top. . now my mechanic(the mercedes specalist) rang me and told me the radiator had a leak, needs a new one, mot suspended. fair enough i thought. went round unanounced after work, where the story changed to the first one the radiator header tanks cracked, fan shroud broked, and 4 small dents in the bonnet from the mini explosion. the bills going to come to around £350 rather than the £50 for the mot (not genuine parts either)

 

now im not happy now ive thought about it. . who should pay? whos at fault? am i lucky it happened at a garage rather than bombing along the motorway? or is it a case of they broke it, they fix it?

[ukminch]

Depends why it broke. If it genuinely happened that it just happened during the mot then thats life, now if he shut the bonnet with a spanner in etc........ Was he asked to do any work on the car before MOT?

 

R

[josharb87]

yeah just replace number plate, stop the exhaust blowing, run some fuel conditioner stuff through it as failed on emissions on saturday (this was its re-test)

 

may well have been genuine, but rather annoying never the less!

[Stephen Blair]

things do happen josh, but the fact that the story changed makes me think a little, forget the second guy, your contract is with the first bloke, he told you £50, now it is up to him to sort it out with the other guy, if he was told porkies then he should not be happy with them, if he is just passing the buck and not bothered then just tell them you are going to call trading standards, if their guy says its a genuine fault that has happened and just bad timing then fair enough pay the man, if he says this must of happened doing 120mph then that is where the query is..i was in the same position at your age with a car, originally 350 came back to a bill of 700, i called up the ts folk the guy got a bollocking and a black mark and no end of grief, i still had to pay the money but i felt a whole lot better though. dont take any crap and stand your ground.

[josharb87]

well first off i was ok about it, these things happen, and i trust my guy . . ill have another word tommorrow, make sure none of the facts change, what annoys me more is the dents on the bonnet

 

hey ho

[Mesterh]

Well tbh I would be VERY surprised if the radiator 'just' blew up like that!

 

I would guess foul play tbh, someone screwing the nads of it or as someone else said a tool dropped onto the fan.

[Justme]

I assume its a diesel? I bet they had it rev'd up to the limiter & some thing gave out.

[josharb87]

petrol, not diesel, if in neutral it wont go over 3500rpm as a safety feature

 

i'll grin and bear it unless more is revealed tommorrow

[Stephen Blair]

take some pointers from your customers that give you a lot of grief josh at work, persistance works, have a right good look under the bonnet, you seem pretty knowledgable about engines, do some investigating. ask to see there insurance and report on the incident for your insurers, or if it a dodgy wee garage then you are on to plums mate

[josharb87]

well im now happy in my head now, after wondering how on earth a radiator would just blow up, my guy has said he took it for a drive to get the catalytic converter nice and warm to help pass the emissions, left it running to keep cat warm when he dropped it off, now he (and i too) think that the radiator cap was faulty-if pressure builds up its the caps job to release the excess pressure, if its faulty then the pressure builds up and has to go some where, so when they reved it to move it to the mot bay then reved it for emissions, it must have been a touch too much . . atleast its now a plausable account to what happened

 

did knock him down a fair bit though . . from £350 for cash down to £250 . . .250 for a years motoring=70p a day? not bad looking at it like that