Gearbox refurb and snapped driveshaft - PLEASE HELP - legal advice needed as well..

5th November 2007, 17:01

Well most of you probably saw my other thread regarding when my car broke down and instead of adding another 3 or 4 pages onto that I thought I'd create another one in the right section for some more advice. This was my other thread: Click Here

Basically, around 10 days ago I went to pull away from a roundabout and heard an almighty crunching and clanking noise followed by a loss of all drive. I stopped the car, there was gearbox oil all over the road and pieces of driveshaft scattered all over the road. It turns out that the driveshaft had broken/snapped and there was a hole in the side of my gearbox as well.

Now this is where it gets interesting. The driveshaft was replaced just under a year ago by a local garage so we naturally had it trailored straight back to their garage for the damage to be assessed.

They contacted the manufacturer of the driveshaft and we were told that it would be covered under warranty however they didn't tell the manufacturer about the gearbox..... They then said that they would contact the manufacturer again and that we should just wait.

A few more days past and I then called them again and was happy to hear that they had sent the gearbox off to be refurbed and I naturally assumed that this meant that they were going to be covering the costs of the gearbox as well. AT NO POINT HAD THEY EVEN GIVEN US AN IDEA OF THESE COSTS.

Now today we find out that the manufacturer isn't going to cover the costs of the gearbox and neither are they which come to over £550. They claim that the gearbox shows evidence of wheel-spinning... which definitely isn't the case. However one of the items has to be directly related to the other, they have already claimed liability for the driveshaft under manufacturing error so therefore that must have caused the damage to the gearbox however they are arguing that they are two separate incidents which is bo***cks.

However that point asside, we were not told about these costs before hand and therefore did not ok the work to be carried out on our behalf and we have therefore contacted our lawyers and trading standards regarding the issue.

From my first inspection, there was no gearbox casing on the road which suggests that it was hit from the outside by the driveshaft.

I have a few questions for you:

1 - Would wheel-spinning be a genuine cause of damage to a gearbox and can you recognise this by looking at the mechanics inside the gearbox? (I don't wheel-spin the car)

2 - If there was no gearbox casing on the road does this suggest that the gearbox was hit by the driveshaft?

3 - Where do we stand in the eyes of the law being as we weren't made aware of the costs of the work beforehand and therefore didn't ok the work.

4 - How much would an average completey gearbox refurb cost.

5 - Does anyone have a decent condition 1.1 gearbox for sale (52 plate preferably)

6 - How easy is it to fit a gearbox?

Thanks alot for the help in advance, I will rep accordingly. I feel cheated to be honest and I have alot of pent up anger that I will let fire from my mouth soon as this has gone beyond the line now. I miss my car, coming up to two weeks off the road now.

Scott xx

5th November 2007, 17:05

That's fuc*ing awful mate, I'm not sure on any of the above tbh, but number 3 surely has to be on your side as you did not agree to the work being done, hope it gets sorted asap.

5th November 2007, 17:12

Yeah exactly, our lawyer is looking over it at the moment and the garage is going to come back to us. But the problem also is that they have refurbed my gearbox which means that I'm now left without one... when they weren't instructed to do so.

If we take it elsewhere we would need to get another gearbox but that isn't our problem....

GRRRRR I swear this is the last time anyone touches my car..

5th November 2007, 17:14

Yup it's a shame, can not trust many garages these days, grease monkeys.

5th November 2007, 17:24

yeh well I have spent close to if not over a grand with them in the past year on maintaining the car. BUMP - need opinions please

5th November 2007, 18:18

Here's my opinion, and what I would do in your position.

Ask your lawyer to write to the owner / manager of the garage, and state that you were not given a quote for the work, and had you been given a quote, you would not have agreed to the work, as it is too expensive.

The letter should then suggest that the garage agrees they didnt get an "ok" from you and that they should pay half of your bill for you, and if the garage owner doesnt agree to this, the matter will be dealt with by the Small Claims Court and the local Trading Standards Department.

You cant do this yourself. A letter with this sort of content, coming straight from your solicitor, should put the shits up the garage owner, who ought to agree to let you off half of the bill straight away. Any mention of court and trading standards normally scare people enough to get something out of them.

Just my advice, but serioulsy, this is exactly what I would do........

5th November 2007, 18:31

Sounds like a shitty situation..

Going back to the whole point of them doing work without your permission or warning you of the costs involved, my brother had a similar situation when he owned my car. the gearbox was whining and not going in gear properly etc so he took it to a well known garage so they could diagnose the problem.

Anyway, he left the car with the garage for the day, went back to find a bill of just over £700 as they had gone ahead and refurbed the box etc without even asking him if it was ok to do so.

Needless to say, he wasn't going to pay it, he couldnt anyway, £700 is alot of money to a teenager just starting his working life so in the end after some "enthusiastic chatting" (lol) they agree'd to knock a huge amount of the labour off and stuff which pretty much halved the bill.

Any reasonable garage should do this tbh, if they dont then seek legal advice as they are in the wrong completly..

5th November 2007, 18:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by James_Bristol

he left the car with the garage for the day, went back to find a bill of just over £700 as they had gone ahead and refurbed the box etc ..

Bloody hell, they did that in the time he left the car wth them for an inspection??? Quick workers, at that garage.........................

5th November 2007, 18:48

He left it with them from when they opened at 8 iirc and picked it up after work at about 5..

They took the box out and reground some of the gears and put it back in..not a huge job really for a Citroen specialist..

No need to get cocky either..

5th November 2007, 18:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by James_Bristol

No need to get cocky either..

Not being cocky, buddy. Just amused me...

5th November 2007, 22:10

thanks for the help guys,

It's in the hands of our lawyer now, he's going to deal with everything for us. He said that we wont have to pay for the work but he will talk to them etc and find the best solution.

Repped accordingly

5th November 2007, 22:12

i have 3 1.1 gearboxs in garage buy one....... please

5th November 2007, 22:13

You could turn this into a Progress Thread, and keep us informed as to how its going....

Good luck with it!

5th November 2007, 22:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steve_VTS

i have 3 1.1 gearboxs in garage buy one....... please

PM sent

Quote:

Originally Posted by potatopete

You could turn this into a Progress Thread, and keep us informed as to how its going....

Good luck with it!

I'll keep you updated, we're going to try and move quite quickly as it's almost been there two weeks now.

scott

5th November 2007, 22:44

What nobs! There’s loads of cowboys out these days… will do anything for a bit of money! Would never do the right thing!

Ask them what evidence there was that it had been wheel spinning?? there won’t be any!! What twats! Can a 1.1 even do a wheelspins ffs??

Btw you can wheelspin all you want! Reverse then 1st! It still shouldn’t do that! Even if you were doing that it isn’t good enough for them to say there’s evidence of it… it still doesn’t prove you were wheelspinning it! That’s an extra cheap excuse tbh

Just tell them where to go, shop them to trading standards, buy steves gearbox and a driveshaft… get the car towed home, get your toolkit and the Haynes out and get cracking…

5th November 2007, 22:48

im still surprised they're honouring the warranty dude enlight of the track days the car has done, however if the manufacturer has accepted that there was a manufacturing defect then thats a different matter...

Im not sure how the company could identify signs of 'wheel spinning' by studying the gearbox... the only things i can think of is the appearance of the clutch as i guess that is the weak point in torque transmission (after the drive shafts)... in which case the manufacturer could get out of honouring the warranty if they applied the 'wheelspinning' theory to the shafts as well...

The only thing i can think of if they have seen something in/on the box is signs of wear from track days...

secondly can a gearbox just suddenly explode because of componentry inside the box? if it did then you would have come across signs on the road and lack of drive... lack of drive would have meant lack torque to the driveshaft which meant you couldnt have snapped it....

see where im going with this?

5th November 2007, 22:52

To be honest, they keep avoiding the question of how there was a 4 inch hole in the side of the gearbox. They have no evidence to say that the hole was caused internally. There was no gearbox casing on the road which suggests through the laws of physics that it had to have been hit from the outside by some force when the driveshaft snapped.

We'll just have to wait and see what outcome there is though..

5th November 2007, 23:00

i think they know they're 'shafted'

had to im sorry.

5th November 2007, 23:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by adsayer

i think they know they're 'shafted'

had to im sorry.

Looking, really hard, yep, there's a joke in there somewhere......

5th November 2007, 23:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by adsayer

i think they know they're 'shafted'

had to im sorry.

lol I'll quote you on that when I speak to them next

6th November 2007, 19:43

Can get you a 1.1 box for £80 mate

6th November 2007, 21:17

to be honest mate there jsut trying to get money out of you imo, because your car is stripped out etc.. and been kev'd up there jsut saying that it happened because you were wheel spinning because there prejuding you as a boi racer and presume thats how you drive your car, as for the gearbox all they might be able to see is say some stress or particular mark on a component and jsut put it down to wheelspinning again presuming you drive like that and hoping u take the blame. They need your authorisation before they can carry out any work and you could have bought a secnd hand low millage gearbox which is what most people do when it got a big hole in it rather then repair it as its cheaper as 1.1 boxes go for dirt prices £50-£150 where as a gearbox rebuild can be anywhere between £250-£600

6th November 2007, 21:48

It will be difficult to prove that it was the driveshaft that broke the gearbox (evidently it was but its hard to prove). Also it could be either how the driveshaft was fitted or a defected driveshaft in the first place?

With regard to the cost hmmmm thats a difficult one on the gearbox....