Sorry if this has been covered previously. I recently took my car in to have some grumbling noises at low revs sorted. The garage confidently thought it was gearbox bearings. So one stripdown later, with new bearings and, oh yes, a new clutch because the late Xantia clutches can't be refitted, and a bill for £750, I drive it away and ..... no difference. Since then, the garage has taken advice from Citroen TS who suggested try a new driveshaft, which again has made no difference. So, in summary after 5 weeks, I've paid £750 for nothing .... actually, not strictly true because the gearchange into 2nd and 3rd gears is now notchy and actually "crashes" on a cold morning, whereas before it was smooth.
Before tackling the garage head-on, I'd appreciate any thoughts on where I stand. I'd quite like to walk away from this garage with my £750 refunded and hand the car over to Citroen UK for examination. The garage will, I'm sure, argue that the £750 is a valid payment for the time and materials they spent trying to fix the problem, even though they proved unsuccessful.
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I would talk to your local trading standards office as they will know exactly where you stand. I think you cannot be charged for work that doesn't fix the problem. It is not up to you to pay for a garage that doesn't know what will fix it and to keep giving them money in the hope that they will get lucky.
Did they say what tests they did to come to the conclusion that they thought it was gearbox bearings? Grumbling at low revs can be any one of a million things. How long have you had the car and when did it start making the noise?
teabelly
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It depends;
What did you sign and/or agree to before the work commenced ?
Was their piece of work to fix the problem or to replace the widget ?
Usually they are pretty well covered on this because at some point you have to authorise the *actual* work.
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Cars are complicated things and fault diagnosis of this kind is very difficult.
Sometimes the trial and error method of replacing parts is the only resort.
If you asked for a "fixed price" to cure the fault regardless of the work that needed to be carried out, I'm sure you wouldn't accept the subsequent huge quote.
I think in this situation I would have waited for component failure and or done the work myself.
It is fair to ask for a fixed price for a specific job, thus making sure they do it efficiently. As opposed to charging by the hour.
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Keith, thanks for your reply. Who do you think should pay for the trial & error method? They're the professionals, they know their stuff (allegedly). They quoted a rough price which I knew might turn out to be be more, but my assumption was that this was a price to fix the problem, not to fund their time running down blind alleys. I'm interested in your comment about waiting for component failure; the garage said (assuming it was a gearbox bearing) that it needed looking at pronto otherwise the whole gearbox might fail. And there's no way I could do the work myself - my DIY days are long gone.
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Mark, thanks for your post. I didn't sign anything. I've known the garage for many years and if my cars have needed fixing, they just get on and do it and I stump up the costs. They've always fixed problems before - I assumed this would be no different. I appreciate it's probably one of these things that's difficult to diagnose without stripping things down etc... but who should bear the cost of this investigative work, especially if they were barking up the wrong tree (as in this case). A rough cost of about £500 was mentioned, and I agreed to them going ahead. My assumption was that this was to fix the problem, rather than spend £500 investigating.
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teabelly,
thanks for your post. The initial diagnosis consisted of the garage listening to the grumbling as I drove the car, then they hoisted it on the ramp and tried driving the wheels and then spinning them by hand. They concluded it was gearbox bearings. A rough ballpark cost of about £500 was mentioned, and as far as I was concerned, this was a cost to fix the problem. But it didn't, and the gearchange is now notchy. They also had to fit a new clutch, as they couldn't refit the old one, taking the final cost to £750.
The car is 2.5 years old, with 39k miles. I bought it at a year old with 9k on the clock, the rumbling noise at low revs was there soon after I bought it but I assumed it was just a loose exhaust. I'm kicking myself because I had a Citroen warranty for the first year, but the problem only started getting appreciably worse after the warranty expired.
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The only flaw I can see in the diagnosis method is that it wouldn't be possible to spin the wheels by hand up to road speed and the same pressures wouldn't be on any of the suspension components. Did they try the free wheel test ie putting the car in neutral and letting the clutch in and out at a noticeable speed to see if the noise changed in anyway?
teabelly
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teabelly - I don't know. They "drove" the wheels to road speed on the ramp then switched off the engine to let it freewheel.
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If the noise stopped then the above wouldn't prove that it was gear box related as the engine wasn't running. With the above they have just proved it isn't suspension/wheel/any part of the transmission that is moving when coasting related. If they had kept the engine running but let the car freewheel and the noise stopped then that would offer greater proof that they were right in their diagnosis of gear box problems.
teabelly
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You say you initially thought it was a loose exhaust. Well, this is a long shot, but... I had a similar problem with my BX that turned out to be an over-tight (at the manifold end) exhaust, that was vibrating against the heat shield/steering rack at certain revs. It gradually got worse as it loosened the heat shield, until I got fed up with rubbish service, changed garages and the new mechanic went over everything with a torch, to see what was touching what.
Chris
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maybe this sounds silly but it is possible your car has nothing wrong with it.
Noise transmission from the gearbox via the gearchange ot subframe into the cabin can be quite bad and appear as a whine or rumble due to the sound being modified by its transmission through the structure.
Look at the soundproofing inside the cabin near the gearchange or pedals..
madf
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