Hi guys,
I supplied a local garage with a water pump from XXX car parts for my Golf TDi which they changed along with the cambelt. When it was put back together the water pump was leaking and they had to strip it all down again. Having checked the part number on the pump it seems it's the wrong part and fits a newer TDi engine. Called XXX who tell me the part is the one for my car but has been superseeded by another part now.
Either way, the pump is either wrong or defective. How likely is it that I will be able to claim compensation for the refitting of a new water pump. I suspect the garage will charge me another £200 for the extra work.
Cheers, Nick
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Oh dear, I think that you should count yourself as lucky if you manage to get the money back on a part that has already been fitted, unless of course it is defective but by the sounds of it, it wasn't the right water pump for the engine and that is probably why it leaked.
You are now stuck as piggy in the middle and I think you are just going to have to grin and bear it. This is the problem when customers supply their own parts for the garage to fit, if there is a problem then you have no comeback on the garage - you are on your own.
If the garage had sourced the water pump then the onus would have been on them to ensure it was the correct item for the job. And the same thing happened then, it would be the responsibility of the garage to strip it all down again and fit the correct pump at no extra charge to yourself. It the same if it goes wrong within 12 months, the onus is on the garage to rectify the fault free of charge if it was caused by 'their' part failing.
Because you have attempted to save yourself a few quid by supplying parts yourself, you then take responsibility for ensuring that you have supplied the correct part and you are merely then paying the garage an hourly rate for fitting the bits that you bought. Thus any extra work involved (in this case stripping the parts back off and putting the correct water pump on 2nd time around) all gets added to your bill. Again the warranty situation differs too, if your supplied part becomes defective some time after it has been fitted, you take responsibility for paying someones labour cost to correct the fault.
I'm not against people supplying their own parts, but they do need to consider the implications of doing so if it all goes wrong. And when it does go wrong, the cash that you have saved may be dwarfed by the big labour bills to get the job put right.
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I totally agree with what Simon says but it seems a bit poor on the garage's part that they didn't check the water pump before fitting it though, unless it looks identical of course.
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They do look identical, must be a very small difference in them, maybe a diff gasket or something. It fitted ok, it was only when they attempted a test drive that they noticed coolant leaking out.
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If it was leaking; then it would appear to be faulty - yet another of the, cheap, rubbish parts that bedevil the whole industry.
Did you ask the garage how much to supply and fit a genuine pump? You'd be surprised how cheap most dealer parts are to the trade - if you insist on supplying the part yourself, at your risk, the lost profit on the pump would just get bumped on to the labour.
You do have a legal right to recover consequential losses from the faulty part - but you'll probably have to issue a SCC summons before they'll take heed. Rubbish part sellers are experts at confusing the issue by blaming everyone else and know that 99% of their victims will just whinge a lot, then go away.
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Cheers for the replies, It wasn't a cost cutting idea to supply my own water pump, it was because I wanted one with a metal impeller (supposedly last longer than the plastic version from VW) and XXX were the only place I knew that sold them. But it doesn't matter as i'm still in the same situation.
I was hoping I may have a claim against XXX car parts as they have either supplied a faulty or incorrect part. They claim the part supplied is correct for my car yet all other suppliers of the same part list it as fitting a newer model. I should have just gone with the VW version and got the garage to supply all parts.
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