Legal advice required

[petrolhead]

Hello All,

 

for those of you who aren't aware of my predicament (see 'Merry f**king Xmas from Honda' thread), my Honda Accord wouldn't start, it went to Honda dealership who diagnosed a faulty high pressure fuel pump and charged £1610 for the pump and around £180 labour. I wasn't happy with the price (which would have meant remorgaging or taking a loan out) so I decided to do the work myself. I replaced the pump for £485 with a warrantied unit, and the car still wouldn't start. I traced a fault to No4 injector and replaced that and everything is fine.

 

However, on a hunch, I got my old pump inspected by a certified Bosch Engineering firm and have a written report. It was absolutely fine. I know Honda would have replaced the fuel pump and then diagnosed 'another' problem with one or more injectors so the total bill would have come to well over £2k. So my question is am I legally entitled get the £485 from Honda plus the £50 they charged for 'diagnosing' the problem? Common sense says that I should and I have spent a lot more time sorting it out myself. But I know the Law doesn't always operate on common sense.

 

I know people are all too quick too sue but I genuinely feel wronged here.

 

Your thoughts are appreciated

[ZetecVan 2.0]

This isn't going to answer your question, but I thought generally, the way garages work are to replace the smaller, cheaper items first, like sensors etc, before moving up to the larger ones. Sounds like they've decided to do it the opposite way round to get more cash....

[over_head_cam]

Unless their intent was to defraud you then I would have said no. Have you lost any money. The £50 was for their labour, regardless whether they got the diagnosis wrong or not.

 

Obviously this is only the way I see it. But I would forget about it and move on

[petrolhead]

well, when they rang my wife she specifically asked "are you sure it is the fuel pump?" and the answer was "we don't bet on £1600 parts".

 

In addition the part is made by Bosch who I later found out only charge £900 so that is a £710 mark up even without factoring in a trade discount.

 

Have I lost any money? yes, I replaced a £485 pump that didn't need replacing. I spent £80 on recovery getting the car too and from Honda dealership. I understand that £50 was for their labour but surely a professional Honda garage shouldn't have got this simple diagnosis (for them) wrong?

 

If I had left it with them I estimate the final bill would have been £2300 for what was essentially one faulty injector.

[5hane]

would you not be able to return the extra fuel pump? or cant you because its been fitted

[petrolhead]

No returning it, it has already been fitted. I wouldn't want to even if I could as I feel that Honda should be accountable for it.

[Vista]

Have you approached Honda?

[petrolhead]

Not yet, do you think it is best to talk to them with the "what are you going to do about it?"

[over_head_cam]

I would probably start with "we seem to have a problem"

[Vista]

Yes, if you want them to do something about it then you need to tell them something is wrong first. You have evidence of their diagnosis and bought a pump on the strength of that evidence yes? it then proved there was nothing wrong with your old pump. Tell them that and say you want your money back the worst they can say is no, that's when you need to contact trading standards / CAB and see what your next move is.

[Tom]

Also ring Honda GB customer services mate they maybe a better bet in getting what you want

 

Mr Van, In the trade we always try and start with the basics. Although it is very easy to jump straight in at the deep end and over complicate things as everything to do with cars is sooo not simple anymore.

 

I can see what Honda have done. They have tried to start it - nothing - read off the fault memories and seen a fault code that reads something like 'rail pressure too low on engine start' or 'pre supply pressure fault' .

There is a probably a common fault on that particular engine with fuel pumps going wrong and rather than testing it, the tech has guessed that this is the problem as 99.9% of the time it is the problem. I have done this myself a couple of times, although not to the tune of 2k and i never pass the cost of my mistakes on to a customer.

 

On Beemers we have the same problems on the diesels but after a couple of goes you know to test, not guess as, the same in matt's case, a faulty valve inside an injector can send all of your fuel pressure straight back to the tank and lead you down many wrong paths

[petrolhead]

cheers tom & vista, I'll have a friendly face-to-face then