Originally posted by munchy
Hi Neil
Did they do this for you under warranty? Was there any speak from the dealer of not doing it under warranty?
Yes, all under warranty, Mark.
What basically happened was this:-
Back in April this year, I became aware of 'sludge' in the radiator expansion tank. Looking at the filler cap, it also had 'mayonnaise' on it - classic signs of oil/anti-freeze contamination. I reported this to the dealer (Fiat Derby - incompetent....) and they cleaned it out and refilled with fresh anti-freeze.
In the ensuing months, I did several thousand miles including a blast down to Le Mans and back, plus several 100MPH dashes. Whilst at Le Mans, I noticed that the engine seemed to have a low-speed misfire in the first few minutes until the engine was warm.
When I returned home, the car was due for its 12,000 mile service and within 1/2 hour the service manager came out to me and told me that yes, my suspicions had indeed been right all along and the head gasket had gone. The low-speed misfire was being caused by water in one of the cylinders....
I left it with them, almost in shock, to see what the diagnosis was. They took the head off, stripped it all out and sent it off to be pressure/crack tested. Came back all fine - no fault found. Therefore, the next suspicion was the block - they wanted to do the same with the block - strip it and pressure test.
No way, said I - the engine had only done 11.5K for God's sake and I wasn't having that. I told them in no uncertain terms that I would not accept a repaired engine - I wanted it totally replacing under warranty. God knows that long-term damage had been caused to that engine. After he'd spoken to his area Fiat rep, this was agreed to.
It then took about 2 weeks to get an engine from Italy, fit it and get the car back to me. In the meantime I was driving an Astra hire car that they'd got me when I told them that I WAS NOT going to continue driving bloody Puntos without air-con in the height of summer !
From the service visit to getting the car back took 1 day short of a calendar month - pathetic.
All is OK now so far, with 19,000 miles on - 7 on the new engine.
Moral is - don't stand for second best. State exactly what you want (assuming you're legally entitled to it) and do not back down.
--
Neil Barker
