Cars broken

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Soldato
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So on Friday I had some work done on my car. Alternator Belt and Alternator Pulley replaced. Today I drove half a mile from home and the car made some awful noise, like something flapping around, and I lost power steering, engine went. I managed to pull over to side in a bus stop.

Called the RAC after looking at the engine bay. There were bits of frayed belt and it didn't look fitted right on the pulley. Tried to tick over engine but nothing hapoening.

RAC turn up have a look and said the belt wasn't fitted properly. Bits of the belt have gone round the pulleys and he says it's caused the cam belt to fail. He said no compression on ticking over.

I've had it towed back home but the garage I had the work done is 20 mikes away near my work. Obviously I need to tell them what's happened but if it is negligent work where do I stand with repairs. If they have misfitted it will they have to fix everything caused by it. How does one prove this? I'm already £500 down on the repair work and had to join the RAC today which cost more than usual and have to get a tow to the garage.

Please if you have any advice it'd be welcome.

http://imgur.com/yZbDBVA
http://imgur.com/rPLFlDj
 
If you've had a cam belt fail and you've tried to start it again you might be in for a nightmare unfortunately... I had a friend who had to have a new engine
 
Contact the garage and have a civil discussion with the manager / owner and explain the situation. Explain what the chap from RAC told you and the likely / probable cause being an incorrectly fitted belt. Seeing as they had just done work to that part of the engine, and for it to catastrophically fail after a such a short time / distance, it's pretty evident that it was negligent and poor work. Offer to have the car returned to them to see if any remedial work can be carried out, or if not to reimburse you for all the work done as a minimum. If you want to use legal jargon to aid you, then take a read of the Supply of Goods and Services Act, October 2015. This will state that a service must be provided with reasonable care and skill and the service provider is responsible for any damage it has caused due to the lack of care and/or skill.

As it is likely their fault that has caused this, you would be able to claim compensation for loss and damage and reasonable expenses incurred as a result, such as alternative transport. You must offer the garage the chance to cover these or help with the arrangements though.

Have a read here for some pointers.
 
Can you demand a new engine if the cambelt has failed?

I had horror story a few years back. A garage did a poor job on a service which included a cam belt change on a car I had purchased from them.

About 6 months later it failed destroying the top end. They took the car back but would only repair the top end that was damaged. 18 months and 13k later the bottom end gave up. It was out of warranty and they refused to help despite my concerns at the time of repair.

Overall it cost me 2.5k for a full rebuild.
 
Speak to the garage boss/manager, chances are they will sort it out for you. If they find something else amiss, they may just offer to pay part of the bill.

If they don't play ball, threaten them with trading standards.

Is this a garage you always use? They won't like losing a customer.
 
Teknobry said:
it cost you 500quid for an alternator belt and pulley?!
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No they did a weld job on the exhaust too and rear brake pads. Parts were cheap it's labour as always and VAT.

So the garage have said they don't believe the work they did caused the cam belt issue. The warranty company won't do anything until they have a full report on what caused the issue.

I'm in limbo here and I have no idea what will happen. I've had the car a month, done 1500 miles in it and it's now proper ******. The garage I am sure will deny their work caused the issue but it is odd that 2 days after a repair the belt frays/fails and then cam belt/engine is borked. I am just going to go round and round until I end up forking out for it.
 
Tinders said:
How much of an effect would a failed cambelt have on the bottom end in reality?
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Often the bearing shells are damaged by the impact with the pistons and valves. A flat spot can happen which will cause failure at some point.

If you Google "cambelt failure followed by bottom end failure" you will see how many people report this.

On the other hand some diesels seem to fair quite well. Fiat diesel engines tend to break the rockers rather than bend the valves. It depends on the engine but I would certainly research it.

Changing the bearing shells can often be done with the engine in situ by removing the sump. Far cheaper than complete failure which will almost certainly require a full rebuild and a crankshaft re-grind.
 
Nasty situation really sorry to hear this.
1. tell garage you will get an independant assesment and charge them.
2. get an indepenant assesment.
3. get another car.
4. be prepared to wait for this to get resolved.
5. get and keep names of garage, owners and directors.
6. make sure they don't rename or go bankrupt.
Andi.
 
andicole0 said:
Nasty situation really sorry to hear this.
1. tell garage you will get an independant assesment and charge them.
2. get an indepenant assesment.
3. get another car.
4. be prepared to wait for this to get resolved.
5. get and keep names of garage, owners and directors.
6. make sure they don't rename or go bankrupt.
Andi.
Click to expand...

1. they are going to give me a full report asap. Then I will ask for an indy assessment too
3. Borrowing my mums car for now but she'll want it back soon :(
4. I dread how long
5 and 6. Doubt they will disappear, been around for 30yrs +

It's going to be tough fight but I wouldn't expect 2 days after a new pulley and belt were fitted for this not to cause another issue if the belt failed. Cam belt on this car is 10yrs or 100k miles and it is 8ys old with 79k on clock. I know this is a set figure but still wouldn't expect it to go so soon after a different repair. It's proving it that I will find very difficult to work out.
 
SC0TTRS said:
wow, 10yrs or 100k.
What's the car if you don't mind me asking? :)
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It's a Mondeo mk4 2.5t

quoted from another website "It's a Volvo engine:105,000 or 10 years. Which ever is soonest. Cost will depend on who does it. Nothing out of the ordinary. There are no distributer pump timing issues like there are with the old VW V6 for instance."
 
So I've asked several people who all suggest that if the cam belt went then the alternator belt would not have shredded like it did. The garage are saying what happened to the cam belt affected the alternator belt but I just don't believe them.

You can see the new belt frayed bits and RAC said there were potentially more bits that could have snapped off and in to the pulley system.

rPLFlDjl.jpg

yZbDBVAl.jpg

10T2ZC4l.jpg

mQzjfsMh.jpg
 
In situations where the access is very poor it is easy to get the belt installed incorrectly so that rather than sitting across all the grooves in the pulley, It sits one ridge over so that the last ridge overhangs the edge of the pulley

(If you understand what I am saying)

In this situation, the belt will rapidly be cut through at the point of overlap and unravel causing large amounts of "string" to flap about and wrap around pulleys causing varying degrees of damage ranging from mere nuisance to total catastrophe.

The other thing that can cause this is an excessively worn Guide/Tensioner pulley that can push the belt off. (I have seen this happen, and the amount of wear doesn't need to be particularly great which its why it is a good idea to replace all guide pulleys/tensioners as a set, as with when one does a cambelt.)
 
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