Hi All

We had an 04 picasso, the clutch went , so we had it rcovered to a local garage, who had just started up and was a family friend. He fitted the new clutch, and rung us to say that it still would not start, on investigation he tells us that a piece of metal had gone into the engine making the timing jump 2 teeth, and the valves were bent, he had it for 12 weeks, saying he was awaitng a gasket. Do this chain of events sound right, the total cost was £660, on top of this we had a list of other bodge jobs , until we realised what a cowboy this garage was, reconditiond alternator on my astra which had never been reconditioned in its life, EGR valve on the picasso that was again second hand and was fitted without the clamp at the back of it so we kept getting engine faults. we had lost our locking wheel nut soe he said he would get us a set and drill the old ones off, well he did drill the old ones off, but left us with 3 on each wheel.

Anyway the main problem i want to know about is the clutch going and the "piece" of metal going into engine causing the timing to jump, is this possible or do you think it could have been caused by him changing the clutch, and forgetting to put some belt back on when starting it up.