March 2009
I bought a Ford Galaxy TDCi Zetec (07 plate) in December 2008 from a well known car supermarket .
I paid the AA £171 for a comprehensive vehicle inspection, which it passed with flying colours.
The previous owner had serviced after 7 months/15,000 miles and it was on 25,000 miles on the forecourt. I called Ford, gave them the details to check if it was still under manufacturers warranty. They told me it was but that as it was now on 25,000 it needed its second service. I therefore bought the car for £13k and took it for its service at a Ford dealer.
For 2,000 miles it was great.
Then last week after 3 months , the engine started vibrating and rattling badly. The AA towed me to London to a Ford dealership. They called me the next day to say that the car wasn't under warranty after all, because the first service was not done within 12,500 miles, and if the engine problem was due to the oil not being changed back then I would be liable.
I felt sick, but told them to go ahead with the engine inspection. Back came the news that the engine has heavy metal contamination which has damaged the fly wheels and ruined the engine. All this apparently because the oil wasn't changed between 13,500 miles and its service at 15,900 miles. It needs a new engine and turbo, which will cost £5,800.
Ford have said they will contribute nothing.
I'm now a bit stuffed - I simply haven't got the money to fix it. I don't know if Ford/the dealer are duping me - can the lack of oil change on a car 7 months old really be so fatal? Or was there an underlying problem with the engine build quality?
Who is responsible? the car supermarket, The AA inspection team, Ford or me?
Any help gratefully received.
{Supplier of the car generalised as an accusation is being made against them, which falls foul of our no naming/shaming policy} Read more
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I expect it will all be meters now, but we used to dip the tanks at a garage I worked at.
Long brass - no sparks - rods with a bit of tyre chalk on to make reading the level easier.
Had to do the same with the delivery tanker, too, to make sure he'd given us the full measure.
Only way was to climb on top, the tankers used wooden dipping rods, about an inch square.
Car is coming up to three years old and so the warranty is almost up. I am debating whether or not to take out an extended warranty. The official Citroen warranty is around £350 and seems to have too many exclusions. However I came across this warranty from Tesco - £259 - seems pretty comprehensive and covers wear and tear.
www.tescofinance.com/personal/finance/motoring/car...p
Anyone had any experience with Tesco or tried to make a claim?
Is it worth taking out an extended warranty? Car in question is a Citroen C4 - 50,000 miles - currently do around 15k a year. Car has been reliable so far but am thinking what the mileage racking up could may be worthwhile. Read more
Its deliberately written like that to give them lots of wriggle room think about it carefully, had somebody in our legal dept look at it and they just laughed.
I have just bought a Harman Becker RB3 Sat Nav unit for my Voyager.
Can anyone advise where I need to locate the GPS antenna.
Thanks
no need to shout ! Read more
Hi, have the same problem - did you find a fix for yours?
I've an annoying problem with my Focus, and I'd be amazed if it hasn't occurred many times before.
Whenever I leave the car for more than about 2 weeks, the battery drains to such an extent that I have to jump start it.
The battery is only about 4 months old, and I've had this tested and it's fine.
I've carried out a current drain test, and with the ignition off and all doors closed, there is approx 250 milliamps being drawn.
This drops off to zero when fuse No 36 (Electronic modules and instrument cluster) is removed.
I don't know how much power the alarm/imobiliser should take, but 250ma seems a bit high to me.
The car is a 2001 Zetec, 1.6 petrol.
Has anyone else ever had this snag, and if so, any advice as to what to do next would be very gratefully received. Read more
There is only 1 module on these (apart from the engine control unit)and that is the "Gems module".It is located above the accelerator pedal ,behind the dash pad.It controls central locking and most timed functions;wiper delay,hrw etc.Not seen one causing a battery drain..yet.I would pull the radio out and disconnect it rather than remove the fuse.hth
Hi,
I've got a problem with my C5. It takes a lot of cranking to get it started. Sometimes it will not start at all, particularly when the engine is warm. I sometimes now have to start it using "easystart" spray.
This problem has been gradually getting worse over the last few months. I initially thought it was faulty glow plugs. I took out the glow plugs and found three were burned out. I put new ones in and still the problem persists. That was not an easy job!!!!
I have taken it to the Citroen Centre in Oxford. He checked all the various pressures and air flows using his lexia computer. All seem to check out okay but he cannot check pressures whilst cranking. He suggested buzzing through the wiring looms. All seemingly okay.
Can anybody give me a steer where I might now look? It appears that it is probably a fuel suply fault whilst the motor is cranking. Once it has started, it runs very nicely indeed.
Any thoughts or advice would be greatly welcomed.
Cheers,
Mike Read more
Hi,
Don?t rule out the starter motor. This engine uses a small diameter starter, which is basically a smaller motor and gearbox combination to generate the starting torque. The gearboxes are prone to wear and seizure causing high current drains during cranking, slower cranking and poor starting. A good motor should spin your engine faster than you would expect. If your cranking speed is slightly low, or even just ?normal?, then I would suspect the motor. Also when this happened on my wife?s car it was worse when the motor was hot. When I changed the starter the car went from a habitual poor starter to ?instant starting all year round?.
I would expect a high pressure fuel fault to be detected and reported by the engine management.
Hi,
I have a 1.3 16v suzuki wagon R on a Y plate.
The handbook says I should get between 36(urban) and 55(extra-urban) MPG but the most I have managed on a longish run at 65mph is 38mpg, and in mixed driving I get around 34mpg. Owners on suzuki forum report 45mpg is easily achievable.
I've changed the plugs, oil, air filter and oil filters to no avail- and the tyre pressures are spot on. The car has only done 45,000 miles and has been serviced each year from new, any ideas what the problem could be?
I know I am calculating the mpg accurately so am a bit stumped.
I'll be very grateful for any ideas you might have.
Cheers,
Mike. Read more
did a 1500 mile trip to Brittany from NE England last week.
Achieved 45mpg on one stretch- this was driving at around 60mph.
i know rover have a bad name but im i right in thinking that they have a honda engine ? also are parts easy to come by? and how do you peeps rate them ? Read more
The problem with HGF on the K series is that there is so much conflicting information on the cause, and the effectiveness of the various remedies.
Some people claim the upgrade multi layer steel (MLS) gasket kit and modified oil ladder has a 100% success rate in permanently curing the head gasket issues. Others have said they've seen subsequent failures of cars thus equipped. Ditto the cylinder head dowels which have been switched between metal and plastic, and back to metal at various stages in the engine's life, and the plastic ones have also been implicated in this issue.
Some claim it's a thermostat location issue. The 'stat on these engines sits on the inlet from the radiator rather than the outlet to it causing a multitude of problems including the cold water in the rad working against the hot water in the cylinder head and delaying the opening of the thermostat, plus the sudden rush of cold water from the rad causing thermal shock to the head when the thermostat opens. There are various kits to relocate the stat which receive varying feedback from owners.
Some say its a casting and assembly quality issue. The quality of the castings on the heads is apparently hugely variable, and many do not meet the level of precision required to form an effective long term seal around the fire rings on the gasket. This to my mind is the most likely explanation, as it is the only one which explains why some K's do 150,000 miles without incident, and others fail repeatedly. There are also reports of engines leaving the factory with cylinder liner protrusion variances between the cylinders that are well out of tolerance.
And finally there's the issue of the tiny coolant capacity of the engine making leaks much more serious. This also shows the origins of this engine - as a small (1.1 and 1.4 litre) engine with ultra-fast warm up times to power a light city runabout. At its original design stage, it was never conceived that it would be stretched to 1.6 and 1.8 litres, let alone be used in a big, heavy 4x4 and a junior supercar!
If you can get the car so cheap you can afford to bin it if it breaks, it's worth a punt
Doing this as a favour for SIL. Her small cul de sac is apparently being used by a car trader.This makes it difficult for residents to turn and park. Up to five or six cars at a time are often there and cash has been seen to exchange hands. The council have received at least one complaint but have not got 'evidence' to prove illegal trading. When their man went to have a look, there were only two cars on the driveway and none on the road. What kind of evidence is needed? Five cars were there last night when I was visiting.
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What has been described above, if substantially true, is illegal. For one thing parking and offering cars for sale (more than one) is usually a breach of local council byelaws.
I've been having problems with the driver side electric window, initially it would just get stuck every now and then but now it wont move at all, the passenger side window works fine, also the light on the button for the driver side window isn't on (it is on the passenger side button though). I thought it might have just been a lose wire so I took the door panel off but the wires seem to be fine, I'm guessing it's not the fuse as the passenger side window is fine, any ideas what else it could be and any possible fixes?
Thanks
Trevor Read more
Had a similar problem on my wifes 03 fiesta, eventually traced it to the door post wiring harness connector (between the door hinges), it had become disconnected although it was still in position and looking at it it was still connected, Re-fitted and the window worked immediately
Browse
After reading all this I will certainly never buy another Ford car again and thinking about it all the ford card I have owned have had quite expensive problems many within the Warranty period and some just outside....TBH I don't know why I kept buying them?