I have a Skoda Octavia 1.9tdi. Great until road performance became poor at 100,000 miles.
Skoda dealer used the analyser and diagnosed a faulty turbo- charger. That advice cost me £55. The new turbo would be £1,300. Trade in value? £1,000. Turbo probably not worth it.
I asked around and found a local garage to fit a turbo for £700.(12 month warranty, etc, recon unit from good trade source) Worth it,so I got it fitted, but then the turbo did not work. The local garage said it's OK, go back to Skoda it's something else. Skoda dealer said it's oil blowback as the turbo failed, cleaned up, etc etc. Back to Skoda frequently. On the analyser again. Advice is fit new genuine Skoda turbo for £1,300. And £225 for this opinion.
Back to local garage, who contact turbo supplier: old turbo removed still perfect, should not have been changed.Bad advice from Skoda dealer.
I think that the Skoda dealer is liable to refund the original £55, the £700, the £225. But asking them to put the turbo right is too much.
Any advice or opinions, please?
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What was the fault if the turbo was innocent ?
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I don't think the garage are liable for anything.
They have advised the fitting of a new Skoda turbo - advice you chose to ignore by taking the car elsewhere and fitting different parts.
Had you taken their advice and had a turbo fitted and this did not rectify the problem, then I think you would have legal recourse not to pay the bill - you've asked them to rectify the problem, they have failed to do so and so you don't pay.
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>>Had you taken their advice and had a (Skoda) turbo fitted and this did not rectify the problem, then I think you would have legal recourse not to pay the bill
Agree with this. The diagnostic systems can be quite specific at garages, if it keeps coming back with "fault with turbo" because it's a non OE one fitted then the can't really diagnose further until you've rectified that with an OE one first.
You might ask them what would happen if you fitted a Skoda turbo and the problem was still there, would they then refit your recon one without you having to pay? Unlikely though.
As it's a VW group engine, is it worth taking it to a VW tuner who has experience of non standard parts rather than a main dealer who can only tell you how to put it back to factory original? People who re-chip Golfs etc might be worth a phone call
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I don't think the garage are liable for anything. They have advised the fitting of a new Skoda turbo -
Yes, but I think that one of the factors to consider is that they charged me for the advice. The turbos for Skoda and VW are all made by Garretts, I think.
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What was the fault if the turbo was innocent ?
I cannot say what the other original fault or faults were. The diagnosis was clear, replace the turbo. Other faults might have included ECU, air mass meter, oil blowback.
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>> Back to local garage, who contact turbo supplier: old turbo removed still perfect, should not have been changed.Bad advice from Skoda dealer.
You might have a case if your initial £55-00 gave you an invoice from the Skoda dealer stating "failed turbo" or similar when the turbo supplier states that the turbo that was removed was in fact faultless. Perhaps see if the turbo supplier will put something in writing in this regard.
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In all my 40 years of motoring I've NEVER been asked to pay to have a fault analysed/diagnosed. What's so special about this case?
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L\'escargot by name, but not by nature.
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How have you managed that?
Recently I have had to pay for 3 different cars to have fault diagnosed, The price has varied from £50 up to more then £120. Considering all they do is plug it in to a laptop it is easy money for them. Bring back the old simple engines!!!! Have had to pay £70 for a diagnosis on a Omega 3ltr Elite, told it was one thing and just to put some rad flush in, Did that and blew the engine!!!! SWMBO was not impressed as she liked that car, Still got a good price for it on ebay. Have had many times when I have taken Trucks into service to have a fault cleared only to find out it reappears within 20 miles (Renaults are good for this trick), Dont think I have ever had a correct dianosis from the computer yet, I am one person who does not trust a diagnostic computer in the slightest. Think I will stick to my 1995 Laguna for the moment as it has a pretty simple engine on it that can be fixed cheaply!!!!
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Let's assume the following:
1. There was nothing wrong with the original turbo and the fault was elsewhere
2. the Skoda garage charged for expert advice
3. Their advice was that the turbo had failed and needed to be replaced
4. customer relies on that advice, buys new turbo (albeit not from garage)
5. Fault still there as nothing to do with turbo
In these circumstances, I think the garage are liable. They have charged for their advice. They are under a duty to provide that advice with reasonable care and skill. The advice is wrong, so the assumption must be that they made a mistake. The consequence of their advice was that the customer relied on it and wasted £700 on a turbo he didn't need. If the garage say "oh well, he should have fitted a proper turbo at £1,500", the customer can quite rightly say that if he had done this, his loss (and therefore his claim against the garage) would be £1,500 and not £700.
If the above assumptions are right, then it would still be a defence for the garage to argue that their diagnosis was reasonably reached, even if it subsequently proved to be wrong. Tricky I should think.
The problem is in identifying who is right and who is wrong. I was in teh same situation myself once (garage A blamed Garage B and vice versa) In that case it was possible to identify who was to blame (a wrong part had been fitted) but in this case it is more difficult.
To win a small claim, you would need an independant engineers report which supports you.
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Hence my request for clarification as to what the fault actually was.
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I went to the turbo supplier today Thursday. The new turbo had been installed incorrectly by the highly recommended local garage, and secondly the air mass meter was faulty. PW'ssuggestion (below) was right, and it seems likely that this was the original, and probably the only original, fault which the Skoda dealer diagnosed as needing a new turbo.
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Thank you for your reply. I have been back again to the Skoda dealer, and now I am coming to the conclusion that the replacement turbo was an incorrect part. There seems to have been a change in turbos. The original turbo may be a different pattern, with different vacuum controls.
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Thank you for your reply. I shall be going on Thursday to see the original turbo reconditioner, and shall ask about reports to use as necessary.
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Hi Skodauser,
Have they checked the air mass metre. This went on my Seat TDi and on hills car struggled to get to 50 and wouldnt go much faster, on the motorway was flat out at 80.
Apparently there is a big failure rate on these on the VAG TDis- and although can drive the car will have a very big impact on performance.
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Hi Skodauser, Have they checked the air mass metre.
Yes, there was a check and substitution made of the air mass meter. The Skoda garage also has said many VW have this fault. Mine had another fault: the engine cut out abruptly with loss of brakes and steering. Disconcerting in the outside lane of the M25 at 70mph! This was traced to a faulty relay and again a bad batch had been used.
Thanks to you and all respondents for helpful suggestions and replies. I shall press on.
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How have you managed that?
Perhaps by trying to be too clever!! And too tight fisted!!
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In all my 40 years of motoring I've NEVER been asked to pay to have a fault analysed/diagnosed. What's so special about this case?
I think part of the reason was that it took some time for the technician who used the analyser. And it was clear that I wasn't going to have the replacement turbo fitted by the Skoda garage.
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In all my 40 years of motoring I've NEVER been asked to pay to have a fault analysed/diagnosed. What's so special about this case?
The prices of these diagnostic machines and the fairly regular and expensive software updates make it almost mandatory to charge for their use. Even more so if someone just comes in for a diagnostic chack and then goes elsewhere to get it fixed.
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You might have a case if your initial £55-00 gave you an invoice from the Skoda dealer stating "failed turbo" or similar when the turbo supplier states that the turbo that was removed was in fact faultless. Perhaps see if the turbo supplier will put something in writing in this regard.
Thank you for this suggestion and I shall follow it up on Thursday when I go to see the turbo reconditioner
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skodauser,
When replying to people, please can you quote what they say before you start writing your reply. But please don't quote the whole text, just a summarisation. I've done a quick swap around, btw.
TIA. DD.
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Skoda are convinced that you need a new turbo & that they should fit it.
Until that has happened, I don't see how, in a court of law, you can prove that their recommendation is wrong!
On the grounds that nobody is likely to pay the 1300 that it will cost for a new Skoda-fitted Skoda turbo I doubt greatly that you will ever reach any conclusion.
In any event, it seems pretty unreasonable for you to pay them £55 and to land them with a potential liability of £700. Much as you must be feeling sore that there's nobody to blame (and I know the feeling), it's not the garage's fault that you took your car elsewhere.
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One of the reasons the dealers charge a premium is that you're effectively paying insurance on the job. So if a fault can be due to an ECU or MAF meter, they will replace the one they think is most likely and charge you for both, if you come back, and say it's still no good, they can replace the other part and not make a loss.
It's not just car repairers that do this either.
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