think being the BIG word in my reply.

i know places like roger clarke use bob rawl for some of there mapping ie one companey builds it one maps it..

 

Well, if the commissioned mapper saw the faults I think the repair should be free!! Done and dusted I would say??

 

All assumption,s mate and they are the mother off all f**k ups...

 

If I recall, most new cars have new engines. Never heard of poor running in being blamed for failing to honour the warranty.

This is a community. Surely you would name and shame amongst friends? The fact is many specialists derive large amounts of business from this board, which is great, but they have to work at the customer service and take it on the chin if they screw up. If not, people will talk and the business may go elsewhere.

 

Actually thats exactly what i did - and that email that you see where they are telling me that the oil consumpion is ok, is from that period where i voiced my concerns to them.

They didnt actually recommend me any oil, they said i could use any oil. But as i wanted to make sure its perfect i was asking questions on scoobynet.

 

I really appreciate all the opinions guys, i knew i was getting ripped off, but its very reassuring where other people tell me that its true.

The situation is described exactly as it happened. Im not going to name names yet, but if they personally decide to participate in that topic, its up to them.

I dont want to pull Bob Rawle into this, as i appreciate that he would prefer to keep a neutral stance on this. He was a witness to what happend and has expressed his concerns via email to the other party, but he has nothing to do with my argument.

 

Here are the last few emails in a sequence, just for more pondering.

Builder:

"Through no fault of ours we have had to rebuild the engine. We have put a lot of time into this and time costs.

The engine has had a complete strip and the bores honed to a rough finish again, The engine needs a complete wash out to be safe and we have fitted new piston rings and of course a complete [ custom ] gasket set.

Strip and build a 2.35 is £900.00 pounds as a job. Remove and refit including all oils and liquids and so-on is £750.00. The parts cost is over £500.00. Then we have a driver running the car around for two days to get miles on the car instead of doing his job delivering and collecting cars. Plus at least 2 tanks of fuel at £55.00 a go and then my time to drive the car for Bob to check the map.

The bill should be at least £2260.00 + VAT I have deducted 20% plus from that to help you. Elsewhere the bill would be much higher with no sympathy from the company.

I can reduce it further to £1500.00 + VAT but that is far as it can go. Remember we have done nothing wrong here, we are correcting your mistake."

My reply:

"xxxx, i dont care about any of those figures. Here's your one of your previous emails

"There will be a modest charge for the repair, but l will keep it to a minimum for you. There is nothing wrong with the engine that is the fault of xxx, but as you have spent so much it would be unfair to charge full rate.".

You started rebuilding my engine without my consent. You have never told me how much exactly it would cost and i have never agreed to any work. Seeing what a "modest charge" is for you - how about you pay it for me ?.
You have spoken to me a couple of times about the brakes and you knew i didnt have enough money to buy em at 1,000 pounds. So what made you think that if you do some work without my consent and charge me 2,000 pounds for it, that i will pay it ?

If thats how you rip people off in this country - believe me, its not going to work.

Best Regards"


his reply:

"you know better than to say that l am ripping you or anyone else off. That is unfair.

As for rebuilding it without your consent that is also a bit too much to bear. We have tried at all times to be fair with you and in fact did far more work on the car first time than you were ever charged for. No matter, that is history. We discussed the problem with the engine and it weas obvious that the engine hads to have a repair, by simply asking when can i have it back? is an acknowledgment of a repair commencing.

Why do we need to argue over this? It is not necessary.

It is lucky in many senses that the engine was not damaged in any greater way than just the highly polished bores. fuel wash or bore wash can sieze an engine solid and then where would we be? With an £8000 engine totally wrecked with far more to argue over.

As you can see I have not charged full rate or anything near to it at £1500.00 it is a discount of at least 33% on our best guess of cost, I am sure it should be more. XXX does far more work on a car than we ever know about here and he will have changed thiungs and made adjustmenst and improvements to the way it was the first time just as a matter of being conscientious to do his best for the customer.

An engine of this type is always going to need constant attention because of the high state of tune. lt is likely that it will need a repair or refurbishment at 20 - 25,000 miles because it is working so hard all the time. That is always the case, whether we build it or Mclaren F1 team builds it. what then? will I be accused of building an engine that only lasts for 15 months before losing power??

Come on, meet me on this, as we have every one of your interests at heart, but do need to pay the wages and the rent. This job has no profit for us at all, it has been done to help out a customer that has spent a lot of moeny and who has ended up in a tangle and needs to get going again.

Try to see it all a bit clearer please".

and my last reply:

"There is a warranty on all the work you do. The wastegate pipe came off after 1,000 miles, engine started knocking - i spent 20 grand on a car, i expect it to be taken care of under warranty - as for reliability issues, of course i expect to have reliability issues, and so do you - thats why you warranty is not for a lifetime, but only for a certain period - which hasnt been breached yet. .

The main issue here, is that while it is my fault that the engine wasnt run in properly.It is Your fault that the pipe came off, which in turn was the cause of engine knock. I brought the car to you, Because the engine started knocking, not because i thought it wasnt run in properly (which is a bit ironic) - hence i was expecting it to be taken care of under warranty.


When you started to do the work, you knew the whole story and you knew who was to blame for what happend, hence you never asked me for any money or told me anything about money at all.

You took the engine apart and found out that i havent run in the engine properly - but what was causing the knock ? Something was. I know there was damage from that overboost when the pipe came off - engines dont just start knocking when there is nothing wrong with them, so you were really obliged to fix it for free under warranty, i.e you really had to take the engine out and apart anyway . But now you found out that i havent run in the engine properly and you want me to bear the whole bill, because its the perfect excuse ?

As for the agreement to your terms of fixing, and acknowledging that you are fixing - those are 2 different things. I certainly was aware that you are fixing the car, but did i agree to the terms ? All i knew was that " There will be a modest charge for the repair, but l will keep it to a minimum for you", now - can 1,500 pounds+ VAT be considered a modest ammount; i dont think so - especially that you knew that i have no money to buy 1,000 pounds worth of brakes that my car really needs. Now how could I have known that a modest charge will be 2,000 pounds ? Well i couldnt, as i thought it was a warranty job and you just wanted me to pay a couple of hours labour to xxx.

And please stop telling me how much you have done for me, as i have paid a fair deal for all of this - both with money and patience. Good to know none of this matters to you either.

Best Regards"

Am i taking the right stance here?

 

Interesting about polished bores. It's a subject of debate on the exact causes. The first few hours of the engine's life IMO are the key to ring/bore seating.

If it was left idling for a significant amount of time to say, to warm up could do more harm than good.

I've built quite a number of engines, which admittedly I don't do for a living. But none of which have glazed the bores. Be that sheer luck, running-in, honing techniques, or the rings being of a softer meterial, I couldn't say.

 

Serega,

if you genuinely don't want to name and shame I suggest you re-edit your last post to take the garages name out.

 

I can't understand why the warranty is not picking this up Cost must be irelevant as warranty picks up the tab

TX.

Edit - you have to be really careful with garages as if they just say no, what can you do. I got screwed years ago when my STi engine blew about 2 days after a service. Garage just shrugged their shoulders & more or less said f*ck you

 

That is disgraceful behaviour on the parts of the Garage in question !!
the reason one use a reputable garage is that we can go back to them if things go WRONG !!!....end of

 

If the boost pipe came off and it overboosted within a few thousand miles of being rebuilt and started to knock because of this then that is 100% the garages fault. (is it your job to check all the pipes and fixings on a engine rebuild and install? NO).

It is very easy to kill an engine that overboosts like this.

The glazing of bores etc is another issue unless they are going to argue that this caused the knocking and not the overboost.

*IF* you are guilty of causing the glazing of the bores then yes you should pay something for the honing etc, but little if they indeed had to take the engine apart anyway becuse of the other issue (they are *VERY* lucky you did not totaly kill the engine by driving on overboost so should be greatfull they are not liable for a complete new engine).

They do seem quite convinced that none of it is their fault though
"I can reduce it further to £1500.00 + VAT but that is far as it can go. Remember we have done nothing wrong here, we are correcting your mistake." So would be good to hear the other side of the story.

So are they saying the knocking was casued by bore wash or by the overboost (be intresting to read the answer to that as realy if they say the overboost then its 100% their fault )

you need to edit post 37 if you want to keep their name out of it

I would think that all of us would expect a refund/it repared for nothing unless we had done something seriously wrong if a big money rebuild does not even manage to get past running in and inital mapping. If the engine builder does not warranty that much then they should be avoided.

 

can somebody who saw the original post with the garages name on, please pm me it, as i may need some engine/gearbox work in the coming months, and would at least like to know for future reference. i would appreciate it, as it unerves me.

best of luck segera with your engine. i genuinely feel for you, having had the big ends go on my wrx last year

 

I think both sides could argue until they are blue in the face and get nowhere - what is needed is an independent experts opinion on what caused the damage, without this it is impossible to say who was to blame, and who should be liable for the costs.

Can agree that the hose shouldnt have come off, but if the engine was already damaged due to incorrect running in ? In this case I can see that the garage would be correct to charge for the repairs to the running in damage, and cover any extra damage caused by the hose themselves.

 

sounds like a nitemare but 3bar on a fresh engine is

rebuilds can be a PITA
i had a problem with my own after the starter motor fell off not long after i picked it up

 

A compromise is whats required here .... I would go out with the owner of the garage and have a cup of coffee - discuss it, I think you would be surprised at how much pain could be avoided if you do this.

Enter into the meeting with an open mind and talk around whats what .... they could assist you, and you may need to pick up some costs (simply to move on, if nothing else).

 

It is always hard to judge things on the web. There are always two sides to every coin. As it stands I think I would say the following:

1) There are two issues with the engine, the knocking and the polished bores. To deal with either issue the engine had to be taken apart and striped. Yes, the polished bores were not known before they striped the engine to deal with something else. So just be thankful that they found this out before it caused an issue. Conversely, they should also be thankful that you were careful with the engine once the overboost occurred.

You both appear to have benefited equally by having the engine removed and taken apart. If this had not been done, both of you could have been out of pocket later down the line as either error could have resulted in engine failure. From where I sit, the costs for removal and striping should be shared.

2) For some reason the running in was not done correctly. The garage says that to you, and you seem to be in agreement with them. If this is the case, then the direct costs involved in sorting this out should be born by you.

3) The garage did not do the best of jobs fitting the engine as various pipes came off. You believe that one of these incidents caused the knocking. I'm not sure the garage has accepted this fact yet. The costs associated with this should be paid for by the garage if this is the case.

You would need a fair breakdown of the costs involved in all of the work they have done. Then you could split the costs out in a fair manner.

 

Out of interest what running is procedure did you follow and what did they recommend? Also, did they recommend it before and you ignored them or after the fact?

 

Why have they given you a specific way to run the engine in , which you say you have done , and they then turn around and say you need to work it harder once rebuilt. what was the point in telling you how to run it in in the first place.

Also you cannot have too much fuel going in when running it in , yes too much fuel will wash the bores and can damage the pistons and not bed the rings in , or even damage the bores , as the fuel will wash away the oil that lubricates , if this is the case then the map to run it in is too rich which is not your fault at all , it has got nothing to do with the way you have run it in.

Along with the pipes coming off , it doesn't sound that good a job , If it was me I wouldn't be looking to pay anything towards putting it right.

 

Is there not datalog in your management system to show running in fueling and indeed the overboost issue? Was an overboost fuel cut not incorporated into the map??

 

With Mr Godney, they told you a specific way to run in and this as far as im aware you did, they then at a later date say you should work it harder, sorry but that a complete retraction on previous instructions, so they are to blame. I wouldnt have agreed with them but its to late now.
To much fuel means no lubrication which leads to shiny bores, again their fault.
Flannel flannel flannel is all they are giving you, now what you should do is go have your free half hr with a solicitor print off all emails received and sent and see what they say, try and find someone with a trading standards litigation background.
On their assessment make a decision. Dont name and shame publicly do it via private message, websites sometimes have a way of biting you in the *** at a later date.
If the solicitor thinks you have a good case you can for the cost of £120 sue the said dealer upto a max £4999 without incurring any other costs in a small claims court

I have somthing similar going on and I could have just said its not worth it and thats what he hopes you are going to do. F**k him if you have a case sue his chuffin ***

 

I had an issue with a gtr engine a few years ago and I contacted a government organisation called Consumer Direct.

Its a free service, you can find the number on the net, and they are trained to understand consumer rights and the legal side of things. They can also advise on the wording to be used in letters to the person you are in dispute with.

They will also give free initial advise on whether they think you have a case.
Hope that helps.

 

Run in was up to 3,000 for the first thousand and then add 500rpm every 100 miles and keeping light boost all the way. They said i was taking it too easy and that led to polished bores.

 

Since they needed to drop the engine anyway i think you need to sit down and agree to pay for the parts. The labour should be under warrenty. As you say they had to do it for their warrenty check so asking you to pay for it does seem like a bit of an excuse.

5t.

 

if it comes to it and they won't back down and cover the costs I would pay the money to get your car back and take them to small claims court to recover the money.

I really can't see any judge not awarding you compensation, you paid £8000 for an engine that lasted 2000 miles and you did not thrash it.

 

Just a point ive picked up in one of the earlier replies you had off the guy.... he states part of the cost is to pay for their driver to run the car around for two days to get some miles on it,when he could be delivering other cars etc.....

Was this how the initail engine was run in also ?

 

Nope, but after they told me that i didnt run in the engine properly, i asked them to do it for me, because i didnt want to be responsible for that anymore.

 

I'd agree with that, plus, since the garage has a business relationship with Bob Rawle - have you asked Bob if he'd be able to come along to the meeting to back you up?

 

I dont think its really fair to drag Bob into this.

 

After reading stuff like this and realising the money thats been spent i think i'll leave mine standard and if i want something thats quicker i'll wait until my lottery numbers come up, get rid of impreza and buy something thats quicker out of the box. It's not just the money thats at stake here, it's the time thats been wasted, the sheer hastle and worry. I would'nt wish that on anybody