[Mk2] [Turbo] LEGAL ADVICE NEEDED, MY ENGINES BEEN KILLED

[alan.i]

I'm in need of legal Advise regarding faulty workmanship carried out on my Rev2 turbo, which resulted in the engine being written off. Let me explain!.
About a month or so ago i visited a local company who specialise in wheel and car restoration and asked them if they could clean and repaint my cam cover as it was looking a bit tatty I had a spare cam cover and left this with them after ageeing a price of £60 pounds.
I picked up the cam cover a week later and waited for a dry day in order to fit it. That day came last week, on sunday morning.

All went well with the fitting until i took it for a drive. At the first junction i came too, the car stalled and was very hard to restart.
It felt as if the battery was dead but i managed to get her started and limped her home. Whilst the cam cover had been off, i took the opportunity to clean up the throttle body and fit new vacuum hoses at the same time.

On trying to figure out what was wrong, I tried to retrace my steps and put it down to a vacuum leak or faulty idle control valve. All the fault finding i carried out was proved fruitless. I had posted on forum pages but had no success.
In the end i took the car to a local garage to see if they could diagnose the problem.

Whilst in the workshop, the mechanic reported that he was confident that the worsening noise, now coming from the engine was the piston or piston small end had gone, as a preliminary quote, he said that the engine would have to be stripped,replace piston/pistons and hone the bores and possibly the big ends would need to be replaced.

Because of the sudden damage to the engine, i knew that something else had caused this failure and went home to scratch my head and wonder how i was going to pay the repair bill?.
Whilst making a brew at home i had a rather nasty eurika moment and dashed back to the garage and asked the mechanic if it was ok to remove the cam cover.

On the removel my worse fears where confirmed when i found that breather duct inside, was full of shot blasting sand which had penetrated the whole engine.

I am know sat at home wondering what i do next, as i'm at a loss. I'm hoping that you or members of the club may be able to point me in the right direction in my legal standing regarding seeking compensation from the company for carrying out the work to the cam cover.

I went and spoke to them this evening and showed them the clogged cam cover,but i was fobbed off by them sayng that they had only carried out the work i had asked them to do. What i hadn't asked them to do was fill the thing with sand,and at the same time paying them money to carry out a professional job.

If they didn't have the knowledge or mechanical expertise they shouldn't have said they could carry out work.
In wrapping this up ,could i ask anyone with any knowledge of how to go about getting this sorted out to contact me either through the forum or by telephone.07967 563958.
I will call you straight back to save your phone bill.I need all the help i can get .Cheers Alan.

[Slarty]

Firstly, use paragraphs man!!

Secondly, oh xxxx That's awful and I actually said out loud "oh no!!" when I got to the sand part

Hmmmm, in my opinion, the garage WOULD be at fault. Their negligence led to the sand being left in the breather pipe which obviously resulted in the engines demise. You should have, and in fact did, had no reason to suspect anything had been left in the rocker cover.

However, having said that I'm no legal expert by any means! Perhaps CAB?? I think you'll end up having to take them to the small claims court but speak to a professional about it. Lawyers sometimes offer the first 30 minutes of a consultation free...

Good luck with it all mate and I really hope for your sake that this bunch of idiotic "mechanics" are bought to book on their mistake.

[dai21t]

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[Caribbean_Blue]

Mate that is bad news - really sorry.

DO you have an invoice or reciept for work firstly??

Secondly go straight to a solicitor and get some proper advice and guidance.

Also who was this garage?

[steve b]

In my opinion you've no come back, you fitted the cam cover without cleaning it up. Silly thing to do. You paid for it to be cleaned up for painting, they did that responsibility ends there for them.

[BenF]

Sorry to hear this

I'd suggest draining the oil, running a flushing oil and refilling but it sounds too late to be any help. Personally I'd look at an engine swap, rather than fixing up the current engine, unless you want to DIY.

I had my Mk1's head skimmed last year when replacing the HG, and came back with swarf everywhere all over it. It was upto me to check and clean it all up before reassembling the engine.

I'd get some legal advice, but as you refitted the cam covers I suspect it would be down to you to check it before fitting.

[simmo490]

hi mate

this is bad hey.

i would say your both partly to blame.

you aint gonna want to hear this, the company should have cleaned it properly however your the mechanic that was fitting it therefore you should have done a full inspection etc of the given part.

if you ordederd a turbo from japan say, when it came over surly you wouldnt wack it straight on, you would have a look, check it spinns etc?? well i would say its the same situation.

This is what i would try and do. go back to them with polite head on, say you have spoken to a solicitor and the CAB, the outcome was the blame would be 70% them. then try and come to some sort of deal with them, i.e the engine cost £1400 to repair, they pay £1100 or so.

They may tell you where to go they may not. if they do tell them your going to trading standards, ring your local one, report the problem, they may ring this company, also they will issue you a reference number.

I tend to use this reference number as a weapon really, let the company know u have one, it shows your gonna take it all the way.

take it from there.

(also you can let them know ure gonna name and shame them on all the car forums on the earth including classic etc)

simmo

[PW@Woodsport]

one things for sure,your engine is now totalled.The only thing you can do is have it completely stripped,right down to the bare block,oil pump off,the lot..... to get rid of every spec of shot blast.That stuff is absolutely lethal,a very small amount (1g if that) will totally destroy an engine.

The fault here lies well and truly with the cam cover painters,their complete lack of knowledge has caused this,believe me you would NEVER have cleaned the baffles in that cover enough to get rid of it all,the second they started shot blasting that cover it became scrap.

The reason i know this is because i did it on my old mini some 20 years ago,thought i was being clever shot blasting it,and i spent 3 hours cleaning the cover in a parafin bath.... end result=bottom end lasted a week.

You desperately need to get legal advice and confront the garage with proof their work caused your engine to fail.

[Si_Crewe]

The garages POV is gonna be "You asked us to clean and paint the cam cover and that's what we did."

Your counter-point should be "You're supposed to be a competant operation. You should know that shot-blasting the cover would leave crud in it and either ensure it was cleaned out or use a different cleaning process"

It's no good them saying "You should have cleaned it out before you fitted it" cos, as they've already admitted, they agreed to "clean and paint" the item. Not "prepare for painting, paint and leave full of debris".

Back on planet Earth, however, unless this is a huge operation, who can stand to take the hit of a couple of £k and a weeks worth of time, you are simply NOT going to get a garage to repair your car.
At best they'll have sufficient liability insurance to compensate you for the work required to rebuild your car.

Your first steps are to get a proper estimate of the cost to repair the damage (engine swap probably), in writing, along with an engineers report of what caused the damage.

Once you've got that you need to go see a solicitor. A lot of solicitors will do the first bit of work as a freebie on the understanding that they'll get the work when it kicks off properly.

The solicitor will send a letter to the garage asking them to submit details of their liability insurers so that money can be claimed back to cover the cost of the repairs.
If the garage doesn't have, or is unwilling to provide, that kind of insurance then that's where the fun starts.

*EDIT*
Also, yeah. Use paragraphs when writing.

[alan.i]

firstly,apologies for the lack paragraphs,it didn't read well. Anyway,i took peoples advise and got an engineers report done which i will be submitting to them as proof of the damage that has been caused.

I have also contacted Consumer Direct[trading Standards] and reported my grievence with them.They suggested that the company who carried out the work had contravened the...Goods And services Act 1982, in that they haven't taken reasonable care and skill in carrying out the work.

Apart from registering and taking notes of my complaint, they gave me a reference number and emailed me a set of instructions to help me formulate a letter of complaint.

In the letter, i will be requesting that what they have done wrong they put right, or if the work needs to be done by a qualified proffessional, that they seek my agreement in writing and meet the cost of getting the work completed at their expence by a suitably qualified trader.

I will be telling them that i am holding themliable for the poor care and skill of their work and that they have 14 days in which to respond, and provide me with details of their Public liability insurance.

This will be sent by recorded delivery.

In preparation for for their counter against me it would be helpful to hear about ways i could prepare against this in my arguement. I have taken note of peoples comments that i that i should have inspected the cam cover before i fitted it, but how far do we go when we are paying a so-called professional outfit to do the work.

How many of us, who have had work carried out on our cars, have asked the mechanic to give us a step by step breakdown on what he has done to keep our minds at rest and expect a reasonable reply?. Very few i would imagine.

We pay, and trust that they know what there doing, after all isn't what they have promoted and why we have chosen to use their services?.


I still haven't enroled the services of a consumer law solicitor and am wondering if i should leave it until the 14 days have elapsed. Thanks for your replies they are much appreciated.Alan

[PW@Woodsport]

How many of us, who have had work carried out on our cars, have asked the mechanic to give us a step by step breakdown on what he has done to keep our minds at rest and expect a reasonable reply?. Very few i would imagine.

this is the very reason i do step by step full photographic build threads of every car we work on,so the customer gets to see everything as it happens,no secrets and no nasty surprises.

You cant be to blame for this at all bud,who would bother checking the cover for debris before fitting? after all that was their job to make sure it was clean,they simply didnt have the mechanical knowledge that shot blasting the covers would destroy the engine.

you are going the right way about it though,and if you need an mr2 garage to back up your claim that this destroys the engine im more than happy to provide a written letter for you.

[alan.i]

Thanks for the replies guys, Any idea of the costs involved? ie engine swap versus engine rebuild. In the hope that this can be resolved, I am obviously going to need someone to carry out the work.

Can anyone suggest an Mr2 specialist who would willing to provide me with the written quotes and carry out the work for me if i am successful in i bringing these people to rights. cheers Alan.

[alan.i]

Does it say on the receipt that it was blasted, cleaned then painted? I would have thought the responsibility is on whoever fitted the cover to the engine. I would have thought it should have been checked then really. I know when I rebuild things at work I always check the cleanliness of any items going on, never rely on other people. Good luck anyway.

This is my point entirely, You said that you check everything. I put my trust in someone who said that thay could do the work.
If they did not know, what they the where doing they should have never have agreed to do the work.

If i had taken my car for an oil change, would i be at fault if ihad not specified engine oil, and they had filled it with olive oil?.
Would they claim it was my fault because i had not checked it? GET REAL!!.

[Lauren]

I reckon because you fitted it that it will come down to being your fault in all honesty.

If the garage had fitted it back on for your then i reckon teh responsibility will fall to them.

The argument may centre around whether you asked the garage to sandblast it or they did of their own accord. If they sandblasted without you specifically asking them to do it, then I think you may have a case. But, if you asked for them to sandblast it, then I really don't think you will.

We had our cam covers sandblasted. We had to completely remove the baffle in order to get all the grit out.

[Morth666]

The garage was negligent.

They would be judged by the standard that would reasonably be expected in that area of expertise. If they claimed they could do the job then they would be judged by the same standards as a skilled individual or garage.

Even if they claimed they could do the job but had no idea how to they would still be judged by the standard within that field. Simply because they claimed they could. If they couldnt then there claim that they could is a misrepresentation to simply gain your custom.

If you can show that they performed the job below the standard of what would reasonably be expected from an individual or garage in the area they claimed to work in then they would have given you a misrepresentation.

If they did have the skills to perform the task then they were negligent as to the standard of the work performed.

Either way they were at fault. As the guy from another garage said..no competant garage would have shot blasted it because they would have known the after effects of doing it.

Just because you did not check the cover before fitting it does not effect this claim. You would not reasonably expect the garage to give you it back if it would destroy or damage your engine.

If you had done something after it had left the garage. Ie tried to clean it then left damaging material on it you would have no claim what so ever.

Hope this helped

[PW@Woodsport]

bottom line is .... say you gave them your whole car and told them to remove the cover,refurb it and refit it.... they would have simply bolted that cover down in exactly the same way you did,after all the cover was cleaned painted and ready to fit,the end result would be identical so i dont buy into all of this "you should have checked" nonsense.Also you cant check for shotblast particles....it hides in conjealed clumps in the baffles... and only a very small amount is needed to take an engines bottom end out,as soon as one particle gets between the shell bearing and journal kiss your crank goodbye.

Its 100% their fault wether you fitted the cover or not or wether you checked it or not,even if you asked them to shotblast the cover they should have had the knowledge to advise you that it would destroy the engine otherwise they have no place in the motor trade.

Im actually astounded that people are suggesting this can be anyones fault other than the garage,i doubt very much you'd take the same view if it was your car.

Take them to the cleaners mate.

[alan.i]

Having spoke with Trading Standards and recieved an engineers report confirming the state of the engine, i now have to submit a repair quote with accurate costings.
My car is/was 1992 Rev2 GT Turbo in immaculate condition. When i bought her in myself from Japan 18 months ago it had a 4.5 rating at the auction. It had 100k on the clock at time of purchase, which as now risen to 120k.
I spend more money on the car than i do for myself, and would be thorougly hacked off having to replace the engine with higher milage engine with no service history.
What are my options? In the event of someone seeing reason and ageeing that the engine needs replacing, would i need to settle for a later model higher milage engine, or would i be within my rights to specify a
later model around the same milage? ie Rev3.

I do not see why i should be the looser on this one,and end up with a car that is inferior to the car i had before. Before anyone Answers, put yourself in my position and ask the same question of yourself.
personally i don't think i should,but i'm wondering where i stand from a legal point of view, ie, like for like replacement.

How much would an engine transplant cost in total..Rev2,Rev3 swap.and would anyone be willing to give me a written quote in order that i can submit this to the outfit who carried out the work to the cam cover.I need this information as part of the legal process and would be greatful to anyone who can help...Alan

[alan.i]

These are recent photos of my car and offending cam cover after the installation. Would you be happy starting all over again?

[dai21t]

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[alan.i]

I asked them to paint it, not, to fill the thing with BRIGHTON BEACH.
Your not a mechanic by any chance are you?.

If you are, Don't you realise, that the reason why people employ you, is that they do not posess the necessary skills and pay you their money to carry out the work to a professional standard.

Had i left the car with them, i would be in exactly the same position. They would have fitted it without ensuring that the sand had not entered.

They knew the part was going to be fitted to the car. Common sense should have dictated that any open vents would have to be blocked.

If they didn't know what they where doing,they should have told me so and i would have walked away.
Is this what you would expect? I didn't








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