Who pays what? Garage related work

yop

Guys,
You may have seen me on about my wife Focus and alternator issues.

Soo, last Thurs week, I left it to a local "street" garage who has done work on my car before. He said "ya, it is your alternator, we will get it refurbished."

So rang Friday, "nearly ready, will ring you tomorrow. Leave it until Monday."

Rang Monday, "alternator in but issues with over charging, so have to bring it to local Ford garage to get ECU reprogrammed"

Rang Tuesday, still not ready. Rang Wed, "Pick it up this evening"
Called on Wed, he had just arrived from the Ford Garage.
Light was still on, "Have to bring it back to them"

Rang Thursday, "Back out with the Ford Garage".
Rang today "They have to put in a new alternator"

Now.....

First question, is it unusual that the refurb does not work?

2 - What sort of bill am I going to get on this? To me I gave a garage the car to do the job, now the car is off at a dearer, main dealer!!!! I could have given them the car in the first place!!!

3. IS he going to try and bill me for the refurb and the work he did, + the work done by the Ford garage, plus the EcU?!!

I can smell a big haggle going to happen here!

Thanks

Darragh29

Can't say I've heard of this before. having to get an ECU reprogrammed after fitting an alternator??? It sounds like the garage have run into some sort of trouble with your car. I've just changed a complete engine on a Ford Focus and we didn't have any problem with it, so if we were just changing an alternator, we wouldn't be expecting to have any issues like your garage is having with your car. Best thing there if you were having some sort of an issue with a reconditioned part after installing it would be to draw a line under it and get a new one in from the main dealer and take a hit on the price.

JohnCleary

Um, im no expert, but if it's 'overcharging' he probably means the regulator on the alternator is knackered and throwing out more/less than the regular (I think) 13.8v

Seth Brundle

yop wrote:

I can smell a big haggle going to happen here!

I can smell something else!

OKenora

Yeah I can smell that shile of pite even way up here. re-furb usually means change the brushes and check the coils, rarely if ever fails as the re-furb guys simply won't do one thats totally knackered and they test them before returning it to you anyway so iof the regulator was also gone it would have been replaced at the re-furb. ECU re-programming.......erm........ah........nope can't think of what to say about that without getting myself banned, probably getting it done to turn off warning lights that have been triggered for some reason.

I would think that either he has done more damage to the car than the car originally had when he got it and is trying to get it sorted or he simply hasn't a clue what he is doing at all or possibly both. Hopefully if the first he won't be trying to sting you with the bill for his mistakes (from past experience with garages he will try).

Captain Slow IRL

All you should be billed for is the refurbished alternator and the time taken to remove the old one and fit the new one. You might also be charged for delivery/collection of the alternator.

The new alt should have been only a bolt on job, check it's working and give back to customer. If it's had to go to a main dealer, something fishy's up - it's possible the garage got a dodgy second-hand alternator instead and when fitting it, blew fuses and possibly damaged the ecu - they don't know what to do, so send it to the experts.

If it was a refurbished alt and was dodgy, the crowd that refurbished should be liable for any subsequent damage caused after fitting it.

If you wanna ring a ford garage and ask them how much to fit a refurbished alternator (that they supply) along with labour costs should cost you, this'll give you a maximum price you should expect to pay the garage that done this work for you.

Mr.Diagnostic

The charging system on the focus is what is known as smart charging. The output is controled by the Engine ECU.
There are a lot of flash updates for these but as far as I am aware none are for the charging system. There should be no need to flash/code/program the ECU in this case.
Something I have seen a lot of is old autoelectric shops that are not equiped to test these altenators. I had a Merc last week that had 3 recon alternators fitted before it came to me. The customed was convinced the problem was in the car but the fault was the alt. The autoelectric shop later admitted they could not test these.

The question I would be asking is if it now has a new alt and it is still not right did it need a new alt in the first place?

BTW, most of these that I have seen were either wiring faults only or alt and wiring faults. The alt is prone to burn the terminals in it's plug.

yop

Alright lads thanks for all the inputs, now I have a sick feeling in my stomach!!

On Friday he rang me back to say that a new alternator had gone in, new battery (even though I had a brand new one put in myself) and it is still not right.
They are saying to him in the ford garage that the car is charging at 20V once the car is running for 15 minutes!!! So something is not right at all!!

I wonder should I contact the Ford garage myself?

zing

yop wrote:

I wonder should I contact the Ford garage myself?

I'd be inclined to to find out exactly what's going on. Maybe bring along proof of ownership of the car in case they're not willing to talk to someone about a car who isn't their customer.

yop

I rang the Ford garage there, service manager is not Irish which made it very hard to understand him and really just complicated the issue, I am not been racist and far from it but he just peddaled me the same speil!!!!


Anyway - He said that the car was currently on the lifts and that they were putting in a new alternator.
I said to him that was this the 2nd new one, he said no this is the first time that the car was on the lifts.
I asked him had they tested the refurb, he said it would have been tested.
I asked him would it be ready today, he said yes!!!
I asked him was the ECU reprogrammed, he said he would have expected that it was.
I asked to speak to the person who had done the work on the car, he said it was not possible.


So now I will wait for a while, I am tempted to go out to them myself to see what the story is. I am sure that the first garage guy will not be happy I am bypassing him but at this stage I prefer to be in control of this.

Someone is lying to someone!!

bbability

If it was my car I would make a point of visiting the garage personally.

BostonB

Sound like their stories don't match except when it comes to not paying the bill.

yop

Rang this morning, alternator replaced, still not fixed. They have to start with wiring.
Rang the "Garage Guy" who I originally gave the car to twice and he did no ring me back. Beginning to pea me off big time this guy now.

MercMad

As Mr.Diag. says a lot of new cars do require the ECU to be either reset, or told of new hardware.

It sounds like nobody knows what the fault is and reminds me of the number of times we had an S320 CDi back at the dealers before we realised, yet again, that none of the Merc dealers know how to fix anything these days !