A mate of mine has got a '54 plate Mk 5 Golf Gti, and has recently had a problem with it so brought it down for me to try and find the problem.

A few months ago he had it back to a certain Northern main dealer who replaced the DMF under warranty, however when I lifted the bonnet to investigate his new problem, I saw that the pulley belt was half worn through, and the corresponding pulley had sliced into one of the aircon pipes thus releasing all the refrigerant !!!On further investigation, I found that the bottom gearbox mounting bolt had sheared off allowing the whole engine to swivel forwards in it's remaining mountings, and as a further result, this has partly crushed the exhaust downpipe !!!

My bro-in-law's garage has replaced the bolt and pulley belt for him, but has found that the exhaust downpipe (complete with cat), and aircon pipe are dealer-only items, and they want over £600 for the exhaust downpipe (and presumably new Lambda sensor), and £164 for the aircon pipe !!!!!!!

I suspect that the reason the bolt sheared in the first place was because it wasn't tightened up properly by the dealers when they put the gearbox back in...but proving it could be a bit difficult. I have advised him to get back on to the dealers to seek recompense, and he says he will be contacting them on Monday.

Has anyone else out there had a similar problem, or could suggest a possible remedy please ???

All I can suggest is check the receipt for the work done when the DMF was replaced. The gearbox mount bolts are single use stretch bolts, and so new ones should be listed on the invoice. Other than that, hiding to nowhere I'm afraid.

bump...

As above the dealer should have put a new bolt in the mount. If they did not then they didn't do the job properly and they should stump up.