[Aragorn30d]

Its certainly a tricky one.

If the garage test drove the car and the timing belt snapped while they happened to be driving it, would that be their fault?
Or a coil spring snapped?
Or a brake caliper siezed up?

Its easy to jump to the conclusion that it was in their care so any and all faults must be caused by them, but clearly thats just rubbish. Its a used vehicle and all its parts are in various states of degradation.

If the fault was caused by their negligence, then sure, they are liable, but if some component just happens to fail while they're driving it its hardly their fault is it?

The oil thing is likely a bit of red herring, because as mentioed, oil level at minimum isnt an issue whatsoever.

I blew the turbo in my mates VW Bora a couple of years ago. We were in italy, driving up the Umbrail pass, came out of a hairpin, nailed the throttle, BANG. You could argue it was by fault becuase i happened to be driving the car and was at full throttle at the time. The simple fact was, the turbo was clearly on its last legs, and i happened to be driving it at the point it had enough. The high altitude and temps probably didnt help either. But it could just as easily been him or the wife (or a garage) driving it at that point. It could have happened they day before on the nurburgring, or the day after in hungary.

Essentially, if the turbo was healthy, you should be able to drive it as hard as you like, and it wont explode. Theres not really anything negligent a garage could do to ruin a turbo while driving the car, short of dropping some nuts and bolts down the air intake before they set off.

[trixdout]

This is not a tricky situation. The car broke down during their care. A garage should have oil of all weights and should have topped the car off before breaking in the new pads or just testing the car after the job was performed. It is ridiculous to think that they shouldn't have to foot the bill and have the repairs done. Worst part is to be sure they do the job correctly if they are being adamant about you paying the bill.

BE CAREFUL.

[AzRiz]

Originally Posted by Aragorn30d

Its certainly a tricky one.

If the garage test drove the car and the timing belt snapped while they happened to be driving it, would that be their fault?
Or a coil spring snapped?
Or a brake caliper siezed up?

Its easy to jump to the conclusion that it was in their care so any and all faults must be caused by them, but clearly thats just rubbish. Its a used vehicle and all its parts are in various states of degradation.

If the fault was caused by their negligence, then sure, they are liable, but if some component just happens to fail while they're driving it its hardly their fault is it?

The oil thing is likely a bit of red herring, because as mentioed, oil level at minimum isnt an issue whatsoever.

I blew the turbo in my mates VW Bora a couple of years ago. We were in italy, driving up the Umbrail pass, came out of a hairpin, nailed the throttle, BANG. You could argue it was by fault becuase i happened to be driving the car and was at full throttle at the time. The simple fact was, the turbo was clearly on its last legs, and i happened to be driving it at the point it had enough. The high altitude and temps probably didnt help either. But it could just as easily been him or the wife (or a garage) driving it at that point. It could have happened they day before on the nurburgring, or the day after in hungary.

Essentially, if the turbo was healthy, you should be able to drive it as hard as you like, and it wont explode. Theres not really anything negligent a garage could do to ruin a turbo while driving the car, short of dropping some nuts and bolts down the air intake before they set off.

I see where you're coming from, but the part where you said you were pushing the Bora hard causing the turbo to blow, is kind of the issue here. What right does the VW garage have to push a customer's car hard? Not saying they definitely were, but it's likely, and IMO they do not have a right to do this.

Yes, you are right that things happen and you can't always simply blame the garage, but the 2 main points that shift the blame on them are:

1. It's very possible that they were pushing the car hard without a right or need to do so

2. They say the REASON that the turbo failed, was "low oil". We all agree that this isn't going to be the direct cause on this day, and if they believe that this WAS the cause, why did they drive the car on "low oil"?

If they hadn't driven the car hard, and just driven it calmly and carefully, I bet the turbo would not have blown on that drive.

[Aragorn30d]

But regardless, a healthy car could have its ass booted all day long without an issue. The turbo on the Bora failed because it was old and worn out. Thats what happens to old and worn out turbos. Its a function of how a turbocharger works that a worn out one is likely to fail when its doing high shaft speeds, which usually correlates with a large throttle opening. Bedding in brakes requires accelleration followed by hard braking, a number of times. Its entirely feasible they werent thrashing it at all, just accellerating moderately hard to get up to motorway speeds and pop.

Unless he can actually prove they were panning the car in TO AN UNNECCESARY LEVEL, he doesnt have a leg to stand on IMO. The real question is why a 20k old turbocharger has failed so soon, but thats a question for the turbocharger reconditioner or the garage that installed it, not the bloke that happened to be fixing some completely unrelated component.

If the garage drove your car over a speed bump and a spring snapped, are you going to try and claim its their fault because they shouldnt have driven it over a speed bump? Ofcourse not. It snapped because it was old and knackered (or faulty) and the speed bump just happened to be the final straw. If the spring happened to be 6 months old, you'd be going back to the folk that installed it and shouting the odds at them for selling you a crappy spring.

The rubbish about the oil level suggests to me that they're just trying to come up with some reason to pacify the OP about the failure. They dont know why it failed, they're not turbocharger engineers and havent dismantled the turbo nor checked the various parts like oil feeds etc, so in reality at this point they have no idea why its died, but people expect that their garage knows all things about cars, so the garage probably felt they had to provide some reason. Probably wrong, but many people do the same thing when faced with questions they dont know the answer to.

[RajB]

I am very sorry to hear this. Never good when something major goes pop.

Did it go in for anything else other than the brakes? As strange they would check oil levels etc unless they mean after the event? Don't know of many garages that would check the car over just for brakes. Tends to be a fit and there you go type job for most.

In all fairness a turbo can give out at any time and isn't always from WOT. My old 530d disintegrated it's turbo while accelerating (and not WOT either) while cruising on the Aston Expressway out of Birmingham.

Needless to say the fact it went pop in their care they should be meeting you half way at least. It was obviously on it's way out anyway as a healthy turbo will not give out at booting the hell out of it constantly even on a trackday for example.

But they should as goodwill be covering towards the total cost as it can't be proven either way they were negligent or not.

Don't back down for sure but come to an agreement to lessen the blow of the total cost.

[trixdout]

IF the engine and/or turbo was burning oil then blue smoke would have been apparent in the exhaust.

[djgandy]

What car is this for? I'd say the problem is reconditioned turbos.

I've had a few mates "save money" using reconditioned turbos to end up replacing them 10-30k later. It's a lottery imo, but they don't seem to hold up.

One was lucky and the garage replaced FOC with a brand new turbo instead and the owner said it was his fault for using reconditioned parts. Lesson learned on the garages part, don't sell people crap products. That was very generous of the garage!

[Aragorn30d]

There are certainly quite a few shonky rebuilders around, and plenty cheap crappy turbos from China which dont last 5 minutes either!

[old grey steve]

It's regrettable that this sort thing takes place and the discussion like this has evolved! I think of you look at pure bullet points which is exactly what I'd do if faced with this situation of ask

1/ What was the car in for?
2/ What work did we do
3/ Upon carrying out required work had we/did we spot any potential issues?
4/ If any issues were discovered while car was in our care preventitve wise will the issue prevent/hinder the work we are undertaking?
5/ As said on a previous post of mine if there was a health scare with the car then under my care if advised the car wouldn't of left my custody unless the issue(s) discovered were discussed with the customer!

Re what actually happened as a garage I'd be asking a question re whether the health check undertaken (which is good practice) has highlighted a potential vehicle weakness?

It highlight oil level on minimum! Will take cause a failure of the turbo? No
it wouldn't? But at the same time a garage could of advised by calling the customer to say "oh by the way while carrying out the requested brake change on your car it's our policy to do a basic visual health check on every car we are entrusted to work on and we have noticed that the cars current oil level though not low is on then minimum indicater, ideally we advise on this sort of thing that the level should be bought up to the optimum level. Would you like us to attend to this for you?"

Believe it or not that's all that needs to happen. Balls now 200% in the customers court as acting for the garage, you'd advised the customer of your findings. If this hasn't happened then perhaps the garage missed a trick which is strange from a main dealer(if it was a main VW dealer)to do.

But to the point of whether this would cause a turbo failures it wouldn't IMHO for a Turbo to fail at 20k you'd ask questions re the rebuilt unit itself I'd say and whether the turbo when replaced was matched up with new oil feed/return pipe work for instance, re con refurb turbos can sadly vary in quality as we've seen, whichever way you look on it its sadly happened.

Question is under the microscope if this goes too far the turbo could be inspected especially if they being held accountable. Chances are once pulled apart the truth will be there to see, therefore you may well find the issue of the failure may well centre on component related circumstances or even something like oil starvation due to the oil feed/return pipes