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Omega General Help / Another breakdown
« on: 30 October 2015, 17:08:22 »
Took the car in for its MoT recently – it needed wishbones, headlight polish and a replacement sidelight. I asked the garage to do the work and also to replace a noisy wheel bearing.
On picking the car up, the battery was flat. I asked why this was but just got a shrug, “don’t worry about it” and a jump start. (Done incorrectly, of course.)
About three miles down the road, feeling cross because the wheel bearing was as bad as ever, the battery light comes on and the engine starts to clatter. I stop instantly to find that the aux belt has shredded and the tensioner has seized and disintegrated. No big deal except that parts of the belt have become sucked into the timing and shoved it out by a notch or two, hence the clatter.
In short, goodbye engine – since I can’t be horsed to re-valve both heads, even assuming the pistons are OK.
My question to you more learned folk is does the garage bear any share of the responsibility? Clearly the seized tensioner is not their fault but they did return the car to me with an obvious problem that wasn’t present when I took it in. And, when the flat battery symptom was pointed out to them, they didn’t bother to check for the obvious causes. Is this a lack of competence or is it just the kind of sloppiness that is OK these days?
On picking the car up, the battery was flat. I asked why this was but just got a shrug, “don’t worry about it” and a jump start. (Done incorrectly, of course.)
About three miles down the road, feeling cross because the wheel bearing was as bad as ever, the battery light comes on and the engine starts to clatter. I stop instantly to find that the aux belt has shredded and the tensioner has seized and disintegrated. No big deal except that parts of the belt have become sucked into the timing and shoved it out by a notch or two, hence the clatter.
In short, goodbye engine – since I can’t be horsed to re-valve both heads, even assuming the pistons are OK.
My question to you more learned folk is does the garage bear any share of the responsibility? Clearly the seized tensioner is not their fault but they did return the car to me with an obvious problem that wasn’t present when I took it in. And, when the flat battery symptom was pointed out to them, they didn’t bother to check for the obvious causes. Is this a lack of competence or is it just the kind of sloppiness that is OK these days?
