Am i being ripped of for car repair £2000 ZAFIRA 06

bigjimmyauk

bigjimmyauk

bigjimmyauk

Soldato
Joined
23 Nov 2009
Posts
6,038
Location
North Leicestershire
Well on my was home from the school run i decided to pop in tesco parked the car up and noticed oil coming from the car. At closer look the bottom of the gearbox housing had a 2 inch square of metal hanging of it i touched the piece of metal and it fell off. On closer inspection the inner piece of the metel(the side nearest the gearbox) Had loads of score marks on it like someone had took a angle grinder to it i didn't hit any bricks or bumps as the piece of metal was mint on the other side (the side nearest to the road) on closer inspection of the metal it looks like it has tiny hairline fractures in it.

I got towed into my dealer garage i get a phone call later saying worse case scenario is that it needs a new gearbox which will be £1970 inc fitting (apparently you can't get gear box parts and only full units as exchange only)
gearbox approx £1110+VAT the rest is labour charge.

The interesting part is the car has only done 24k miles and been out of warranty 8 months my mate who works at the garage as head of repairs said he thinks it may be a defective part and he's getting vauxhall to look at it but can't gaurantee anything as it's out of warranty.

If he gets back to me tommorrow and says i've gotta pay the full whack do i have any legal standpoint as surely the parts manufactured are designed to last more than 24k miles as they are all contained within the gearbox and the only gearbox requirement is to have the gearbox oil changed every 2 years and no parts inside the gearbox are classed as servicable parts and cannot be checked at any point in the service life as they are deemed to exspensive and difficult to check and repair.


Sorry for the long post and heres a pic of the part the score marks are what would be sitting inside the gearbox housing like something has been grinding them

DSC01225.jpg
 
The problem is for that to break it has likely had to have been hit by something. Either from the inside, which means broken gearbox anyway, or from the outside.

As it's the metal case it will not be repairable or replacable so a new gearbox it is. The only way you can get it cheaper is to try and find a second hand replacement fitted by an independant. It's a straight forward job so will be fine as it's out of warrantee.

Hopefully the dealer will help you out with either a goodwill gesture or reduced cost repair.
 
hominid said:
The problem is for that to break it has likely had to have been hit by something. Either from the inside, which means broken gearbox anyway, or from the outside.

As it's the metal case it will not be repairable or replacable so a new gearbox it is. The only way you can get it cheaper is to try and find a second hand replacement fitted by an independant. It's a straight forward job so will be fine as it's out of warrantee.

Hopefully the dealer will help you out with either a goodwill gesture or reduced cost repair.
Click to expand...

Thats what they are trying for the last time they did a good will gesture was 3 years ago when they paid 780 quid for a new steering rack for my astra all i had to pay for was oils,clening fluids and nuts,bolts and washers.


2k does seem a bit excessive for a Gbox and fitting IMO

P:S could a mod move this to motors if possible
 
yes £2k is way too much, i had a gearbox failed on my old fiesta, got one from scrap yard for £50 and paid £100 my local garage to get it fitted.
 
This seems well dodgey to me.
Does anybody else drive it ?
Has anybody jacked the motor up for you ?
Have you had any work done on it ?

Sounds to me like your best bet is to go cap in hand to the dealers & Hope they take pity on you & save you some costs somewhere along the line.
Gutted for ya though mate 2k is a Massive kick in the sacks to take.
 
malc30 said:
This seems well dodgey to me.
Does anybody else drive it ?
Has anybody jacked the motor up for you ?
Have you had any work done on it ?

Sounds to me like your best bet is to go cap in hand to the dealers & Hope they take pity on you & save you some costs somewhere along the line.
Gutted for ya though mate 2k is a Massive kick in the sacks to take.
Click to expand...

No i'm the only person that drives it mainly to take the kids to school and go shopping thats about it hence why it's only done 24k.

The piece of metal that came off was perfect on the outside so no jacking done there also not hit any curbs or bumps it's mint it's just the inside which is in the pic looks like the gearbox has fell to me :S
 
S'pose your only course of action is to Pay out to get the motor fixed & then try to claim back some of the cost from the original dealer.
If like you say there is only damage to the inside of the box you may be able to prove it was faulty when you bought it.
Good luck with it.
 
malc30 said:
S'pose your only course of action is to Pay out to get the motor fixed & then try to claim back some of the cost from the original dealer.
If like you say there is only damage to the inside of the box you may be able to prove it was faulty when you bought it.
Good luck with it.
Click to expand...

I bought it from the same place it's getting repaired main vauxhall dealer i traded in my astra for it in november 2007 it's got full Service history and was service 6 months ago.

A gearbox shouldn't really fail after 24k

what makes me laugh is the fitting cost would almost be cheaper to hire a rally team to change it in a hour (would probably do a bteer job too :D)

Getting 2k together tho will be a problem :(
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom