Took me car into a garage as I thought a rear wheel bearing was gone. They find it was the heat shield on the exhaust, but report that the engines not right and they will look at it, starts off with saying theres no gasket on the inlet manifold, then a broken spark lug, then timings off, then its misfiring/backfiring, then it cant even idle before it stalls, then I got the head gasket has failed, they fix all of these problems, and today they are reporting its till not working properly and getting an electrician in to take a look at it, suspecting the ecu isnt playing ball and not firing on 1 and 2 intermittently. To me this whole affair is unbelievable. So far I know im £280 quid down on the head gasket work, that didnt solve anything. Before I get fleeced for anything more, do you guys have any info on whats going wrong here?

Thanks.

how was the car running when you put it in the garage?

what made you think it was a wheel bearing?

Right
So it had a Lumpy idle
Stalled Easily
Its Backfiring
And Blown Head thats been repaired
timing is out

Misifiring is Going From Easy to Worst
Spark Plugs - Ht Lead - Coil Pack - Wiring Damaged / Damaged Rpm Sensor - THEN ecu

Ecu is the last thing to poke a stick at it

since they've done the Head - they should have retimed it
So it elminates the problem of that - and Should mean the backfire shouldnt occour if timing was the cause

The backfire isn't good - the cat is been roasted badly - Get the Easy / Cheap options done first

Also - is the EML on?

Ziggy

When going round corners had some grindy/grating noises coming from the rear of the car, very similar noises to when the bearing went on the other side.

Car didnt have anything when trying to accelerate, but it's old and a 1.2, so wasnt bothered, definitely wasnt stalling or backfiring.

Head gasket was fitted about 18 months ago be the GF's brother, we had the head skimmed and all new gaskets. New sparks and leads at the same time.

Fairly cheesed off about it, its been with em for about a week now. I only paid £650 for a little motor to get me to work, hardly seems worth it carrying on with it as this point.

No idea if the EML is on, not got the car

sounds to me like there taking you for a ride if there was nothing wrong with it when it went in its a bit of a coincidence all this started happening when they drove it from where you left it with them to in there garage :chin:

Sparky not arrived to take a look at it. Head gasket didnt cure the misfiring/backfiring or stalling, so cant even take the car, going to have to hire a car tomorrow for work