My daughter took her 51 plate Ka to Halfords (!) for its MOT.  As expected it needed some work - some welding and a few other bits and pieces. At £400 it was topside of being worth fixing but she decided £400 for a car for another year was ok as she doesn't have the cash for another.  It is low mileage and looks pretty tidy plus it is her first car!

 

Halfords don't do welding so she took it to her local friendly garage who duly did the work.

 

Now the problem!  After finishing the work he noticed oil seeping from the power steering due to a corroded [something - not sure what] and the power steering has now failed making the car undriveable.  Price to fix £300.

He says Halfords should have seen this and even if it wasn't weeping then, the corrosion should have resulted in an advisory at the very least, .

Halfords say they reported on the car as they found it on the day and the guy who did the work must have broken it even though it is not so close to where he was working.

 

So while they blame each other, the choice we have is pay the £300 and flush the £400 down the toilet or pay another £300 to get the car on the road.

 

So what do you reckon?  Does anybody carry any liability here?  Do we just cough up the £300 and put it down to experience?

Prob not worth fighting.

 

Plus you need the car.

 

Spend the £300 and hope you get a bit longer out of it.

 

And she'll hopefully learn to steer clear of those sorts of places in the future.

Common ford ka problem corroded power steering pipes

Pretty shabby back street behaviour from Halfords though. You'd think going to them would avoid the usual garage shenanigans wouldn't you? Or perhaps not...

 

I'm with Aspman, spend the £300 to get it back on the road, and let your daughter learn her lesson of NEVER returning to a Halfords ever again. They're not known as Halfrauds for nothing! Hopefully she'll broadcast the experience on social media and potentially put her friends off also. Every little helps when it comes to those black and orange crooks.

Prob not worth fighting.

 

Plus you need the car.

 

Spend the £300 and hope you get a bit longer out of it.

 

And she'll hopefully learn to steer clear of those sorts of places in the future.

Yes.  I think that is probably how it will end up.  I have suggested the best she can expect is a refund of the test fee from Halfords - she can try for nothing

Common ford ka problem corroded power steering pipes

 

That would back up the repair garage claim that Halfords should have picked it up.  Is £300 a reasonable price for that?

I'm afraid I can't help with your quandry but have you seen this?

http://garagewire.co.uk/news/halfords-autocentre-fined-47000-following-undercover-sting/

That would back up the repair garage claim that Halfords should have picked it up.  Is £300 a reasonable price for that?

You could try and source the parts from a scrapyard and then have a local garage fit them. You might get the parts for £50 / £60 and then maybe £100 to fit.

 

I'm going off a similar issue I had last year with a 2003 Fiesta. Due to a scrapyard mess up, the £60 pipes and pump turned out to be for the wrong car, so I ended up buying just a new pipe for £85 from the local Ford dealer and I think my local garage charged me about £90 for fitting.

 

If you're (she is) lucky, you might just save £150.

At the minute you've spent the £400 at Halfords and it would be a shame to see that wasted, so I'm agreeing that you should get it repaired at the minute, maybe with scrap parts but if you go with scrap parts the likely hood is they won't last that long with that being a common problem, so you could do that then sell the car in a years time and hope you see a decent return. Then get hunting for a decent replacement for cheap cost. That Octavia I bought off ebay for instance. £171 for the car, £20 for a new rear caliper from a scrap yard, £30 for a new headlight unit and indicator unit to fix connection and lense issue, and a couple of other bits, then the MOT test its self that's a 1.9 TDI Octavia with 12 months test for under £300. Just gotta know where to look and bid right.

Argue the point that a hose won't rust in a day to the extent that it leaks - had this years ago with a car, took it in for test, it failed on welding, had it retested and they failed it on a shocker being bent - the following day (less than 24 hours later), argued it with the service manager and they eventually backed down. Raise holy hell in the shop, usually works

?

Was the Service Manager the MOT Examiner as well.  

"They backed down",

 Was it the Service Manager and his Guide Dog that failed it?

 

Failing unsafe vehicles from the road sometimes helps in making the roads safer.

 

Anyone raising hell at a MOT Examiner because of one doing his / her job is just nonsense.

Raising a case with the DVSA makes more sense. IMO.

?

Was the Service Manager the MOT Examiner as well.  

"They backed down",

 Was it the Service Manager and his Guide Dog that failed it?

 

Failing unsafe vehicles from the road sometimes helps in making the roads safer.

 

Anyone raising hell at a MOT Examiner because of one doing his / her job is just nonsense.

Raising a case with the DVSA makes more sense. IMO.

 

What I meant was that they admitted that the shocker couldn't have bent in that time frame - still had to change it

Moral of story- for parts ,Halfrauds are acceptable, but you can even get the wrong bits. For MOT- find a garage with no repair axe to grind. And as for the fast fit fitter- for MOT, That's the place to miss.

?

Was the Service Manager the MOT Examiner as well.  

"They backed down",

 Was it the Service Manager and his Guide Dog that failed it?

 

Failing unsafe vehicles from the road sometimes helps in making the roads safer.

 

Anyone raising hell at a MOT Examiner because of one doing his / her job is just nonsense.

Raising a case with the DVSA makes more sense. IMO.

 

Depends if they're actually doing their job and examining the vehicle or just blindly writing a list of things they'd like you to pay them to change. 

 

I've had the latter done to me and I hit the roof. 

What did the examiner do then, retest and then pass things that the vehicle had failed on without any work being done?

or did you take it some place else to be retested and you got a pass without having done anything?

Or are we talking Advisories?

The above, and many other similar experiences that ive read about, is probably my main reason for thinking how our NCT (National Car Test) and CVRT (Commercial Vehicle Roadworthiness Test) are set up is somewhat better. Testing can only be carried out at a NCT centre, where no other work is carried out - only testing. If you have a fault there is a scale of severity which dictates what you must do, but normally 28days to rectify and retest (55quid for test with retest 28 if a non visual fault, freerecheck for visuals eg tyres or bulbs). If the fault is deemed unroadworthy or dangerous thou shalt arrange for it to be recovered from the centre and its logged that the car is not to be driven until retested.

the above means that there is no question of the staff failing something in the hope of generating additional work/income for the tester, despite the rumours of a % being failed to maintain the statistics...

A final update!

The garage doing the repair sourced the parts cheaper than his original estimate and charged £225.

Halfords refunded the cost of the original test and gave her a voucher for a free service.

A much better outcome than I expected!

Give the voucher to someone you hate

The lesson is Ford ka rust like no tomorrow and are to be avoided :(

A final update!

The garage doing the repair sourced the parts cheaper than his original estimate and charged £225.

Halfords refunded the cost of the original test and gave her a voucher for a free service.

A much better outcome than I expected!

 

Glad you finally got some peace of mind.

Give the voucher to someone you hate

As next year, they'll fail the car again for something and there's no free retest with Halfrauds.

I am surprised that Halfords are still in business