Failed Turbocharger 3 months after fitting, what are my rights?

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Hello, a company fit a turbocharger onto my car as part of a performance package with a remap and a few other bits and pieces.

So far the turbo has been sent back to the garage who did the work for me and they have sent it to Garrett foir inspection. If Garrett refuse replace the turbo under warranty for whatever reason, what are my rights with the garage who undertook the work.

I have a suspicion that it may be foreign object damage, but am concerned that if it is this I may have no rights at all? Im not sure, please could someone clarify.

There is a right where Goods have to be fit for purpose and I don't know whether it would fall into this category or not?


Cheers for any help
 
I once had a similar issue with a Valeo clutch kit. The bit of metal that holds the springs in place on the clutch plate broke 2 months after fitting. Luckily it was a bad batch of clutches produced by Valeo so I was refunded, however they tried their hardest to place the blame on poor fitting. Seems a lot of manufacturers will try and go down this route.

If it is a foreign object that has caused the damage then surely it points the blame at poor fitting unless it was a blade from the turbine?
 
how was the vehicle driven, did you allow the car to idle for a min before driving and keeping off boost for the first mile or so etc,may well pin the blame on you for causing oil starvation or similar.
 
how was the vehicle driven, did you allow the car to idle for a min before driving and keeping off boost for the first mile or so etc,may well pin the blame on you for causing oil starvation or similar.

A valid point but with modern turbos you would do well to wreck it in just 3 months :p
 
I have a suspicion that it may be foreign object damage, but am concerned that if it is this I may have no rights at all? Im not sure, please could someone clarify.

Meaning you think a stone hit it or something? Yeah, you'd pretty much have no rights then unless you're talking about something it should reasonably expect to encounter. They have no obligation to replace or fix something you smashed.
 
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how was the vehicle driven, did you allow the car to idle for a min before driving and keeping off boost for the first mile or so etc,may well pin the blame on you for causing oil starvation or similar.


Yeah, this is not an issue for me, I am very careful with how I look after my cars and engines, I like things to last and am aware of the basic requirements of a turbo.


Meaning you think a stone hit it or something? Yeah, you'd pretty much have no rights then unless you're talking about something it should reasonably expect to encounter. They have no obligation to replace or fix something you smashed.

Well it would've only been a result of driving and having been ingested into the airbox and somehow got past the filter (I don't think it was a stone anyhow), not anything else that I have done - do I really have no statutory rights? Its not as if I've purposefully done anything other than drive it?


Also to mention in legal terms that the Garages warranty with Garrett should have no bearing on my warranty for the work carried out.
 
figuring out what exactly the foreign object was should solve the question.

its either in the intercooler (if it made it through tthe compressor) or in the cat... if it made it through the engine
 
If you can prove that the turbocharger was faulty or it was not fitted correctly then you would have a claim against the company that undertook the work (not Garret but the garage). If you can't then you don't have a claim unfortunately.
 
I've heard bad things about Garrett lately:

I work at Garrett Turbos, now called Honeywell Turbo Technologies which there so proud of. When Cliff Garrett Owned Garrett He used to brown bag his lunch everyday and cared for a quality Product. If he knew what Honeywell has done now he would turn over in his grave. Honeywell bought Garrett In 1998 or 1999. After this they opened up a turbo testing lab in shanghai China and quickly moved there turbo overhaul to Mexicali Mexico, quickly after Garrett overhaul went belly-up. So they moved there whole production to Mexicali Mexico, as if that first failure was not a sign.

Garrett Turbos made a quality product for a fair price. A turbo is a precision instrument. Garrett turbos was part of Garrett Air Research (on 190th st. In Torrance ca.) Where they have a huge facility designing turbine engines, and so on. Most of the senior technicians in our main turbo facility (Lomita Blvd Torrance ca) came from our air research. If you’re building jet engines a turbo is not all that difficult. Well Cliff Garrett dies. At that time ALL production of Garrett Turbos was at Lomita Torrance ca. Also all engineering and research was there as well. After we were bought and production was sent to Mexico to save costs. Our production numbers doubled. And cost was cut in half our failure rate tripled. Well who cares Honeywell is making money and lots of it. Turbos are considered Honeywell’s golden egg. They feel that turbos are going to take over big. Which it already has in the diesel market. We make ford diesel turbos, daf, Chevrolet, some Audi, vw, fiat, Perkins. Millions of turbos. And there now all coming from china and Mexico. Well up until lately the company figured if the product was designed in the US and assembled in Mexico we would be ok. Well to further there profit and **** the customer once again....the LAST of what makes turbo American leaves in January 2011. We will close the doors to the Torrance Lab. In Torrance we did all our racing turbos (wrc stuff, Audi racing etc..) then in the garret garage we did the turbos you people buy for your Subaru’s. Actually I take that back. They take turbos that were made on a production line somewhere else in the world, and change a couple of parts on a bench in Torrance (wheels, housing..etc) and send it to you the customer saying it was made in the us.....no it was not it was just repackaged and altered a little. Well as of Jan 2011 all your turbos will be made in Mexico or china or Czech Republic. This is the last Garrett facility in the United States.

We have huge law suits pending due to turbo failures. GM is probably going to leave us.... ford has already sued us. Caterpillar has one of the largest recalls in garret history in the process. Our name is becoming ****. The last few VERY smart guys left in the company are being fired to save costs, but see our profit is already good.....they just want more. Please don’t spend 1500$ on a gt35r. Now that it’s costing Honeywell less to build turbos do you think you will see a smaller bill when you order there product? NO!. They are going to charge you even more for even less. There are countless procedures that are being terminated everyday that made our turbos THE BEST. They keep cutting corner after corner. Did you know that we shave metal off our turbine and compressor housings until they are at the EXTREME minimum needed to contain in the event of failure they are shaving every nickel off the cost of a turbo. Did you know that 2000$ gt40 you buy is all mark up. I won’t dare say the actual cost to the company in fear of a lawsuit but lets just say your sales tax is more then the production cost.

Do not buy these turbos. BorgWarner and mitsu are trying there best to compete with us making a quality product. Honeywell is using its big name to back junky turbos Like Toyota is starting to do. I guarantee in the next 8 months you will see a huge decline in quality. All designing and production is in CHINA AND MEXICO. Honeywell is taking back all there benefits they used to supply us with as employees. That way when they lay us off its as cheap as possible. Instead of saying "Well after we take a hit laying those people off we will make tons" they are just taking back all there benefits so they walk away clean and clear. We used to get a severance package. Which they just took away. One of the head engineers involved in the t3 project. (Designing the first t3) he is still with our company. he was supposed to get 44 weeks of pay if he ever got layed off (30 days and 1 week for every year with the company. 40 years with the company)Due to the new Honeywell rules he gets only 16 weeks pay they stole all that pack after promising it to him for 40 years. My fingers and about to fall off typing all this and I am heated so I don’t care about grammar I’m concerned about you people not supporting a Nazi company. Take your business elsewhere. Somewhere where you will get what your money pays for. Have a nice day and don’t forget if you hear the name HTT Honeywell Turbo Technologies Stay away

(They still use the garret stamp on the turbos)

This isn't the only testimonial I've read, however the other one said that they are more than happy to issue replacements as their markup is so large. Go figure.

Caveat emptor and all that.
 
If you can prove that the turbocharger was faulty or it was not fitted correctly then you would have a claim against the company that undertook the work (not Garret but the garage). If you can't then you don't have a claim unfortunately.

I thought up to the first 6 months it was up to the retailer (or in this case a garage) to proove the turbocharger wasn't at fault when fitted. After 6 months then I believe it becomes the consumers' responsibility?
 
I thought I'd update this thread with the inspection report.

The turbo has failed due to overspeeding - the garage told me that was the problem because of a boost leak and nothing they could do
 
how can them not fitting it properly and leaving a boost leak not be their problem ? don't let them get away with this.
 
I thought I'd update this thread with the inspection report.

The turbo has failed due to overspeeding - the garage told me that was the problem because of a boost leak and nothing they could do

Boost leak, that'll be their fault then seeing as they put it together.
 
Basically the turbo has failed due to a poor installation.

The turbo should last a reasonable amount of time/miles, therefor this is un-acceptable amount of time and the failure is due to a poor installation due to a boost leak as proven by Garrets report.

The garage is liable, have a nice chat with them, if you have no luck, depending on the monies involves take them to small claims court.
 
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