more & more problems diagnosed by garage

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babydays

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HELP!

I left my 00 OPel Zaphira into my local garage last week on diagnosis of a broken clutch.
This was going to cost up to E600 (inclu labour) to replace.

Then I was called two days later to say that the fly wheel was also gone - anotherE600 or so.

Today they called to say that the crank shaft is also a major problem (no cost given yet).

We had been considering trading in the car and if we had thought it had all these problems would have done so.

My question - is it normal for a garage to assume that a 'chucha chucha' noise is the clutch broken and then for it to continue to find more problems - or should the garage have had an idea at the start what might have been wrong?

Also - should I stop the garage now (stop increasing the bill) and sell it as scrapage? YIKES!
 
Tell them to stop and price up everything, a lot of lads won't do a crankshaft, they will want to put an engine in.

From what I can see it looks like they diagnoised a clutch and when had it stripped out saw damage to the flywheel (prob caused by the clutch). Not sure how they found damage to the cranshaft by removing the gearbox!? Did they have it all back together and drove it and it's no better?
 
Mr2 said:
...
From what I can see it looks like they diagnoised a clutch and when had it stripped out saw damage to the flywheel (prob caused by the clutch). Not sure how they found damage to the cranshaft by removing the gearbox!? ...
Click to expand...
It sounds like this is a diesel with a dual-mass fly-wheel?

In fairness to the garage, it sounds like the clutch had a problem for a while if the fly-wheel needs replacing. Its easy enough to diagnose clutch problems, apart from sound effects. Increase in engine speed / revs with no resultant increase in road speed, reduced engine braking effect when changing down, etc.

To get access to the crankshaft, the garage would need to remove the fly-wheel, which is bolted to the crank-shaft, and drop the sump off the car.

It would be unusual to have a fly-wheel damage the crank-shaft. Some of the common causes of crank-shaft damage are lack of maintenance with no oil-changes, oil levels or pressure dropping due to leaks or sometimes poor quality oil.

It sounds like the engine is a goner. Unless you can get a reconditioned one the car is probably a scrapper unfortunately.
 
yes, exactly Mr 2 - when they put it all back together again it was still making noise.

They just phoned and said they recommend putting in another 2nd hand engine - all in all the works would cost around E3K - they're going to phone back with a sure price.

There's only 57,000 miles on the car and it's from 2000. Do you think if we got all those works done would we get another good no. of years out of the car without any more major problems? - are there other problem areas left??

They said a 2nd hand engine would have a guarantee for just 3 mths - I suppose just enough time to see is it ok...
 
just saw mathepac reply -

it's a petrol engine. They talked about a reconditioned engine and a 2nd hand engine - is there a difference?

We probably didn't look after the oil often enough but I don't think there were leaks or that we used poor quality oil.

Again - if we get another engine (2nd hand) and the clutch and fly wheel replaced are there many more major things that could happen or can we use this for more than 5 years or so?

tks a lot for the input - I know nothing about cars...
 
If I was you, I'd go to the garage and drive the car myself, check it and if the noise is as the way you left the car in, I would refuse to pay as it's mis-diagnoised.

As regards the 3k for a recon engine and three month warranty, try and price IVI engines on the Naas road 01-4500011, used them a few times can't remember your man's name up there but nice fella and good to deal with, get a 6 month warranty with his recon engines and if something does go wrong I know he will stand over it. Be supprised if he over the 2k mark (your garage is probally using IVI aswell and putting a bit on top).

Would defo not recomend a 2nd hand engine out of a scrap yard you could be buying a problem and get stuck with it, you would have to put new timing belt etc and god only knows how long it's been in the scrap yard so might not last that long if the oil has turned to gunge and you would have no come back!

There are quite a lot of other areas that can give you bother but you would be better in the know as you drive it, has it suspension problems etc, but nothing else would be of similar cost bar a new gearbox and that you could get recon for about €700 and save buying a new one.
 
mis-diagnosis? hell.
are you saying that perhaps it wasn't a problem of clutch and flywheel at all but just the crankshaft?

They showed me the clutch and flywheel yesterday and pointed out scrapes on the flywheel ....

they did misdiagnose a central locking issue previously - said the central locking was gone when it was simply the chip broken in the car key......

the noise is still there because that's why they kept on searching for more problems and found the crankshaft problem...

could it be that I've a whole lot of bad luck at once - clutch, flywheel and crankshaft?


?????
 
Could be un-lucky! but unlikely. If your not to up on cars a clutch will always look dirty and so will a fly wheel, if those "scrapes" were in the flywheel when the mechanic took the fly wheel out and bad enought to be making noises you would have defo also felt it in the clutch pedel when changing gears usually just as you press or just as you release the pedel.

Best thing is to go and test drive it your self before they strip it and see if it's as you left it..... and see
 
to be honest - I don't know if it's a reconditioned engine or a 2nd hand one - what's the difference? It's clear I need to make sure I know where it's coming from.

They have to call back about the cost but it was something like - E1,000 for the engine and about E200 to fit it plus vat, this is on top of the already quoted E1,400 for the new clutch and flywheel - so in total he said between E2,600 and E3,000 (ok the figures don't add up..)
 
they've had the car since last Thursday and already did the clutch and the flywheel and still found it had noises - that's when they came back with 'now there's the crankshaft'

I had, several times (maybe about 4 times over a year), trouble changing gears. It sometimes got stuck in neutral - while driving, scary ... I brought it to the garage about this (last year) and they couldn't see anything wrong with it. My husband said it must be bad driving on my part (!) because it only really happened when I'd been driving a long while.
 
babydays said:
to be honest - I don't know if it's a reconditioned engine or a 2nd hand one - what's the difference?
Click to expand...

Recon is not new, but checked, 'cleaned up', parts replaced (if necessary), sold as 'working within specification' (as they say) and usually given a guarantee.

2nd hand may be simply plucked from a car in a scrapyard - no guarantee, bought as is, warts and all (if any)
 
That could be down to poor qualith gear oil in the box or a low level, if the oil is not right in the box you can get morning when you cannot select some gears till the engine is hot and sometimes the gearbox gets so hot that when you want to change gear it wont let you.

Re-con engine is one that have over hauled and is ready to be out back into a car, 2nd hand is out of a crash car (usually) and comes from a scrap yard but you dont know how the engine is until it's in the car and you try and start it.
 
tried IVI engines and got a quote of E1,650 (supply, fit and vat inclu) for a recon engine from 05 or 06.

not sure whether my garage was offering a recon or a 2nd hand but it was going to be E1,200 plus vat - waiting for them to call about prices and then I can talk about recon etc

feel a little better armed now... will also question them about their diagnosis...

any more input much appreciated but in the meantime thanks a lot for the help so far...

any courses out there for people wanting to know the elements of mechanics/and how not to be ripped of??
 
babydays said:
any courses out there for people wanting to know the elements of mechanics/and how not to be ripped of??
Click to expand...

Don't really know about courses (and depends where you live) but this site can be pretty informative for a start. Fás usually do beginner night courses too - but they might be too 'beginner'.
 
don't know if anything would really be 'too' beginner for me with regards to mechanics!! thanks for the compliment though!
 
babydays said:
...
any courses out there for people wanting to know the elements of mechanics/and how not to be ripped of??
Click to expand...
Here is one sample of what's available in Dublin...



Motor Maintenance (Beginners)

Tues 7.30 – 9.30 €98 An introduction to how your car works and how to keep it working. Preparing your car for the NCT..
 
update - the guy who I talked to earlier wasn't around at the end of the day to give me the prices of the various options but I spoke with another mechanic at teh same garage who said they wouldn't put in a reconditioned engine as he woulnd't want to stand over a guarantee for it...
he's favouring the 2nd hand engine option and says they get them from up North 'Trainers' and they've never had a problem with them yet. Also says that you'd see immediately after installing it if there was a problem with it...and if there was it'd be covered by the 3 mth guarantee...

I don't have prices yet but I'm also interested to know what the price of a new engine would be....
 
probably. thanks for the link.

talked to the garage again - still haven't got the prices but they say it's all down to not replenishing the oil.

the suspension is good on our car, we replaced the timing belt about 18 mths ago, so hopefully if we get a good enough engine and the clutch and flywheel are replaced then we're ready to go for another good no. of years. Now I know I'll be checking the oil every week!
 
all seems nonsense to me

questions are
1 was the clutch faulty
2 ok it was a faulty clutch, so they had to replace it
3 was the problem fixed with new clutch installed yes/ no
4 with new clutch , prob still there
5 what exactly is the problem with the crankshaft
6 flywheel is connected to the crankshaft by approx 10 bolts
7 was the flywheel changed during the clutch repalcement? if so was it replaced/ installed correctly, I.E. Stud lock liquid applied to threads of each bolt, each bolt torqued (tightened to the correct value) and in sequence.
if not then the problem may have been a flywheel installation leading to to crankshaft damage.


have you considered an independent assessor for this?
 
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