A friend has had a Seat Arosa Sport from new about five years ago. He had the exhaust system replaced by a tyres & exhaust place, following which there were strange noises. He took it back and the response was "Must be something wrong with the engine".
The car failed its MOT on exhaust emissions, following which it was taken to a main dealer for a service and diagnosis of the problem. The dealer determined that not only had the wrong exhaust system been fitted but to make it fit the idiots had cut through the lambda sensor, hence the emissions test failure.
Next step is to present the tyres & exhaust place with the evidence, including photographs of the correct components and configuration. I'll let you know what happens.
You can't be too careful, can you?
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Interesting one here.
If the system that was fitted was incorrectly picked for that car from the parts catalogue and you could prove that then I would have thought that your case would be stonger.
Can the Seat Dealership provide a formal engineers report to claim damages through the small claims court?
I'd be interested as to what the legal experts here have to say.
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How much time has elapsed between fitting and diagnosis ?
He has a case I would say.....remember it would be on a civil burden of proof...
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The dealers appear to be very supportive. The exhaust systems for the standard Arosa and the Arosa sport are different, and it seems that the former was fitted in error.
The whole thing has happened over perhaps several months, if that. It wasn't touched by anyone between the fitting and the MOT. When the strange noises were heard, the car was immediately taken to the fitters and they denied any responsibility -- "Must be an engine problem, gov."
My mate certainly has the small claims court in mind, but I've suggested to him that the best next step is simply to present the fitters with the evidence, declare unaggressively that there is obviously a problem to be resolved, and see how they respond. He wants his money back, at least, and if they get stroppy I suspect he will aim to hit them for consequential losses as well.
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Not wishing to step on your toes PU but....
Roger, you say The whole thing has happened over perhaps several months. If it's less than 6 months according to the Sales of Goods act then is the burdon of proof not upon the provider, not the customer?
Hence IIAR the fitters would have to demonstrate that they did nothing wrong in order to successfully defend themselves in court provided that the problem was first raised within the first six months since the sale.
After this time period, the burden falls upon the customer to demonstrate that the parts/service were/was the cause of the problem.
How this relates to consequential losses I'm not sure, but if a court were to decide in favour of the customer on the sale of goods act it surely won't harm his case for consequential losses.
PU - does this sound sensible?
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Well, he's got his money back without any trouble, although he didn't press any further because he has no appetite for a protracted argument.
The Seat dealers have provided a photo of the old and new lambda sensors. The old one has had its nose ground off (yep, definitely ground off) -- no wonder it wasn't sniffing anything and sending it back to the EMS. I wonder if the individual fitter involved still has a job.
Thanks for the responses here. As I said, you can't be too careful. And in fairness it has to be said that the company involved was thought locally to be quite reputable.
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I think it would worth him sending copies of the photo's plus the dealers invoice to the exhaust centre's head office. If it's a large chain I'd be surprised if they refused to pay up.
I've stopped using fast-fit places, they're just all so terrible, and the exhausts they supply are never a patch on the OEM one. The last exhaust I had to buy was the back box for my wife's Clio. The Renault dealer quoted more or less the same price as the fast fit places, and it was as good (and as quiet) as new when done.
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