Am I Right To Ask For Compensation?

Mini Chat
1

Hello there Mini forum it’s been awhile.

I’m after some expert opinions and advice on quite a serious matter so please no spam.

My girlfriend took her mini to a local garage that will remain unnamed, last week to have some work done after she noticed a knocking noise coming from the front driveshafts.

After leaving the car with them for a few days the car was ready to pick up on the 6/10/2010, the work carried out was as follows:-

1 Inner CV pot joint £30
1 Driveshaft oil seal £1
1 Outer CV boot (loose) £1.50
1 CV grease £1
5 Litres of 20/50 oil £12.50
4 Front wheel studs £4
2 Split Pins £1
2 Brake disks £20
1 Brake pad + retainer set £15
1 Inner hub seal £1
3 Hours Labour @ £30 p/h inc vat £90

Total + VAT inc @ 17.5%
£177.00

Happy that the work was carried out and the problem had been rectified she paid them the money and went on her way.

Until yesturday.
On sunday the 10/10/10 (unlucky for some it would seem) we decided to take the mini on a day trip to manchester for a spot of retail theropy.
She pulled the car onto a car park in central manchester, and all of a sudden the car lost all drive. The engine was on and she could put the car in gear with no clutch, the speedo was going up and down but there was no movement at all.

After a few very rude people stuck behind saw it subtable to tell my girlfriend exactly what the thought of her and her broken down car we had no option but to push the car out the way and exit the car park, having to pay £6 to get out.
Still no idea what could have been wrong at this point, so i got on the floor and had a look, this is what I saw..(sorry for the poor quality)

That is, or should I say was, the passenger side CV joint looking forward.
Im no mechanic but surely this is dangerous? Especialy when you concider 15 miniutes proir to this the car was on the M6 doing 70mph.
I’d honestly dred to think of the damage this would cause flairing around at that speed. It could have easily riped the brake line off, become jammed in the wheel, broke the track rod ect ect, im honestly counting out my lucky stars it come out when it did.

It cost £226 and took 6 hours the get the car recovered back to Stoke-on-Trent.

I think its fair to say the missus is well and truely unimpressed with the garage that did the work on her car.

I visited the garage today on her behalf to find out what the crack is, and to be fair the didnt realy seem all that fussed. They just said yeah bring it back to us we will have a look.
They were also very quick to shift any liability away from themselves, apparently it’s a common occurence on minis for the driveshaft to fall out? If so i’m bloody glad I sold mine because as far as i’m concerned thats far from normal.

To there credit they have said dont worry about it we will put it right, however this is not the point. Its not the first time she has had work carried out by this company that has been substandard. Pretty much everytime they have done something to her mini it has had to go back because the problem hasnt been put right or becuase it has caused another problem. But this time it could have had much worse consequences.

I don’t know how they could deny any responcibity when they carried the work out less than a week before this happened. We are going back tomorrow to see what they are willing to do to make ammendments.

So am I in the right to ask for the money back, or is there any genuine reason why this may have happened and it not be the garages fault?

Thanks for reading I will keep you updated.

2

I started my GDL (graduate diploma in law) 2 weeks ago.. so dont really know the legal side of it very well yet…

But from my understanding… they should pay your out of pocket expenses… i.e. £226, IF and ONLY IF… you can prove they are to blame (negligent) in the matter…

Thats my opinion anyway… as to whether they are to blame… I dont know enough about the mechanics of the drive shaft joint to know whether the work carried out was done incorrectly which resulted in this occurring…

J

edited: Driveshaft NOT CV joint! my bad!

3

> Hello there Mini forum it’s been awhile.

I’m after some expert opinions and advice on quite a serious matter so please no spam.

My girlfriend took her mini to a local garage that will remain unnamed, last week to have some work done after she noticed a knocking noise coming from the front driveshafts.

After leaving the car with them for a few days the car was ready to pick up on the 6/10/2010, the work carried out was as follows:-

1 Inner CV pot joint £30
1 Driveshaft oil seal £1
1 Outer CV boot (loose) £1.50
1 CV grease £1
5 Litres of 20/50 oil £12.50
4 Front wheel studs £4
2 Split Pins £1
2 Brake disks £20
1 Brake pad + retainer set £15
1 Inner hub seal £1
3 Hours Labour @ £30 p/h inc vat £90

Total + VAT inc @ 17.5%
£177.00

Happy that the work was carried out and the problem had been rectified she paid them the money and went on her way.

Until yesturday.
On sunday the 10/10/10 (unlucky for some it would seem) we decided to take the mini on a day trip to manchester for a spot of retail theropy.
She pulled the car onto a car park in central manchester, and all of a sudden the car lost all drive. The engine was on and she could put the car in gear with no clutch, the speedo was going up and down but there was no movement at all.

After a few very rude people stuck behind saw it subtable to tell my girlfriend exactly what the thought of her and her broken down car we had no option but to push the car out the way and exit the car park, having to pay £6 to get out.
Still no idea what could have been wrong at this point, so i got on the floor and had a look, this is what I saw..(sorry for the poor quality)

That is, or should I say was, the passenger side CV joint looking forward.
Im no mechanic but surely this is dangerous? Especialy when you concider 15 miniutes proir to this the car was on the M6 doing 70mph.
I’d honestly dred to think of the damage this would cause flairing around at that speed. It could have easily riped the brake line off, become jammed in the wheel, broke the track rod ect ect, im honestly counting out my lucky stars it come out when it did.

It cost £226 and took 6 hours the get the car recovered back to Stoke-on-Trent.

I think its fair to say the missus is well and truely unimpressed with the garage that did the work on her car.

I visited the garage today on her behalf to find out what the crack is, and to be fair the didnt realy seem all that fussed. They just said yeah bring it back to us we will have a look.
They were also very quick to shift any liability away from themselves, apparently it’s a common occurence on minis for the driveshaft to fall out? If so i’m bloody glad I sold mine because as far as i’m concerned thats far from normal.

To there credit they have said dont worry about it we will put it right, however this is not the point. Its not the first time she has had work carried out by this company that has been substandard. Pretty much everytime they have done something to her mini it has had to go back because the problem hasnt been put right or becuase it has caused another problem. But this time it could have had much worse consequences.

I don’t know how they could deny any responcibity when they carried the work out less than a week before this happened. We are going back tomorrow to see what they are willing to do to make ammendments.

So am I in the right to ask for the money back, or is there any genuine reason why this may have happened and it not be the garages fault?

Thanks for reading I will keep you updated.

Personally ive never heard of driveshafts falling out being a common thing on minis but im no mechanic. It might be worth consulting someone like the Citizens Advice Bureau or similar really, it does seem weird for this toi happen just after the garage did work in that area of your mini. Glad everyones ok though.

4

In all the years of Mini Motoring, i’ve never known a driveshaft to drop out unless there was a problem with the CV joint. The very part they would have had off to replace the outer CV Boot.

It is possible to damage the retaining c-clip when inserting the driveshaft into the CV joint, but hopefully it would have been fitted carefully, and the condition of the c-clip checked before insertion.

5

Normally if you have a knocking from the drive shaft area, its normally the outer CV joint that worn/needs replacing. Which from you list they’ve gone and replaced the inner one leaving the outer one, mostly likely in need of replacement, that’s now failed.

Or in there rush to replace the inner CV joint, I can’t see how they would get the dive shaft out otherwise. They’ve possibly damaged the outer one in the process and weekend it to the point it’s now failed.

Plus they’ve changed the oil ‘supposedly’ but been too lazy to bother change the filter as well.

6

can you see the circlip on the driveshaft? if not then thats the problem. it wouldnt/shouldnt come out if it was on there.

7

no way is it a “common occurance” for the driveshafts to fall out!

as tulip says, have a hunt around in the grease to see if the circlip is in there. i reckon they’ve had it apart to sort the inner joint but not fitted it back correctly or even left the circlip off completely.

and why the 4 wheel studs?

8

i am with darkscamp the c clip has been damaged when fiited i expect, get an engineers report first then let them fix it, if they dont pay your expenses then look into legal action

9

> Its not the first time she has had work carried out by this company that has been substandard. Pretty much everytime they have done something to her mini it has had to go back because the problem hasnt been put right or becuase it has caused another problem. But this time it could have had much worse consequences.

Why keep going back? Once bitten twice shy and all that…

10

It is the same side they worked on? They would have to separate the shaft to fit the boot, but you’d expect them to work from the pot joint end if they had that joint off anyway. My speculative guess would be that they removed the inner of the pot joint from the shaft by hitting it with a hammer and dislodged the outer joint’s split ring at the same time. This is far more probable than the shaft deciding to pop out of the joint all on its own, doubtless after many years of not doing so.

They are responsible for their work and you can expect them to carry it out to a reasonable standard, with a level of expertise to foresee battering it with a hammer instead of using the proper service tool might well separate the wrong joint from the shaft. There are 2 bases to claim on, breach of contract - you paid them to fix the car and they didn’t; damages incurred as a result of their negligence.

11

Call consumers direct on 08454 04 05 06. Thats what i did when i recently had the same problem when kwikfit bodged a repair on my ball joint leaving the driveshaft not sitting right in the bearing.

Kwikfit denyed all blame until i got a letter of opinion from the local ford specialist (was on my mondeo) to say the problem i had was common when doing the work they carried out and should have been easily avoided and was up to kwikfit to rectify. Kwikfit had to get the area technician to look at it before accepting blame, they replaced my driveshaft free off charge.

Consumer direct told me to write a letter to kwikfit attaching my letter from the ford specialist and threatening them with the sale of goods and services act 1979. They were very helpful and will give you a step by step personal assistance with dealing with the problem. The small claims court is another good peice of ammo to threaten them with but ring up Consumer advice first to double check.

Here is a list of departments for Consumer Direct if you dont fancy paying 0845 numbers just type in “consumer direct” and bobs your uncle

Hope you get it sorted, as you said, it could have been a lot worse

12

For it to come out the outer CV end, then the Spring ring must be missing, if there were room for the 1/2 shaft to fall out it would come out the other end as the inner joint is free floating. In the list of parts they have not mentioned the outer CV, and using expanders, and the fact they’ve replaced the inner CV the new boot could have been replaced without dismantling the outer CV.

This may just be an unfortunate coincidence, however, if the garage are prepared to remedy the issue without expense then I would say it would be a fair compromise…

I think a lesson learnt here should be, an AA, RAC or other recovery organisations membership would have saved you quite a few pennies.