Toyota servicing could have killed me. Can I get a refund?

I got my Toyota car serviced at a main dealer (Lookers Rayleigh), and this included an MOT and brake fluid change. The brakes were OK driving to the garage and for the MOT. When I was driving back from the garage I noticed they were a bit spongy, and then about 10 miles later the brake warning light came on.

I saw leaking brake fluid on the driveway and tried to take the wheel off with the supplied wrench, but despite standing on the end, the nuts wouldn't budge.

I then didn't drive for a couple of days but decided to phone the RAC. There was no brake fluid in the reservoir, and the bleed value of one of the brake pipes was loose. The patrol man said the car was dangerous and I could have been killed or killed someone else. He couldn't understand how the vehicle was released in its condition. He did say the car was safe to drive after the repair.

Clearly I have paid for work which was not carried out. I also need to take the car to another garage to fix the wheel nut problem. How do I stand getting a full refund for the service? The Toyota garage is clearly not competent, and must have broken health and safety.

Reply to
243
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the 1st thing you should have done was contacted the Toyota garage as soon as you knew you had a problem & given them the chance to rectify any problem caused by them. not left it for 2 days. now you've had repairs done to it, you now have to prove you had a problem with the garage that carried out any work.

Reply to
reg

I can't understand why,having had the brake fluid changed and also noticing the leak on your driveway,you decided to call the RAC and not call the garage( immediately) who did the work . You should have contacted them and told them what had happened and got them to come out to your place and either sort it there or recover the vehicle back to their garage and bring it back fixed . You say you have paid for work that was not carried out . That is a moot point but it certainly wasn't carried out properly . .

The wheel nut will probabaly have been put on with an air wrench and should be able to be loosened by using a socket and a long tube to give greater rtorque to loosen it . Most of those wrenches supplied in car toolkits are useless ,particularly for overtightened nuts . Get yourself a suitable socket and a bar to fit the socket .or something like this in the proper size

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Reply to
Stuart B

So you continued to drive the car with spongy brakes and a warning light on. Then tried to fix it yourself, then got a third party involved.

You have no realistic chance of any legal compensation.

Reply to
Mrcheerful

You shoud be able to shift the nut with a normal wheel nut wrench ( cross bar type is best) if you use the right technique, get youself in a comfortable position, then apply apply maximum turning force in an impulse. I can certaintly shift nuts which can hold my weight. You should be capable of exerting more turning force than your own weight.

I should imagine you should be able to get a refund, epecially if you mention you will report them to VOSA if they don't.

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A lot of the main dealers are rubbish IMO, there is certaintly no reason for you to get an MOT done there.

Reply to
Lord Turkey Cough

its got nothing to do with VOSA, a brake fluid change isn't part of the mot & if it had been something to do with the MOT, VOSA implicitly tells you on the VT17 appeal form not to have any repairs carried out whatsoever as it might prejudice any outcome of the appeal.

Reply to
reg

if the fluid was changed after the mot test then there is no problem mot wise. if before then why didn't the tester see the leak?

from a servicing perspective there is no need to remove wheels to change fluid, however it would be usual to remove the wheels on a full service, the nuts should be torque tightened appropriately, as to whether the standard wheel wrench with an untrained car owner can remove them is another matter again.

Mrcheerful

Reply to
Mrcheerful

That was the point when you go back & complain

That's when you stop

Tis is the last chance you had to have a go at the garagw

Why the RAC? You might have a chance of complaining with a letter from the RAC & it wouls seem sensible to ensure the fitter who did this ends up in the shit.

Reply to
Duncan Wood

This does not sound correct, modern cars have a dual circuit system and a divided reservoir so that a single failure such as you describe only causes half of the system to fail. At least 1/2 of the reservoir should have had fluid in it.

Jeff

Reply to
Jeff

get a written report from the RAC take it to the garage and tell them that you would like the next service FOC as compensation for your fear, shock, horror, panic attacks, and numerous other unaceptable personal problems that this terrible error on their part has caused, you sound like a man who could thrive on getting your teeth into something like this however if it were me i would have just driven the car back to the garage imediately using the hand brake if required and demanded a loan car while they fixed the problem and endevoured to negotiate a good discount for my next service, you will now say that you would not let them service your car again, but why not just make sure that the same fitter has nothing to do with it

Reply to
Alan

... if they were done up to the correct torque. But if someone in the garage did them up using a pneumatic spanner set too high then he could do them up much too tight and it migth be hard to shift them. The wrench supplied with the car is designed for the correct torque.

Robert

Reply to
RobertL

Err the wrench supplied with the car is the same length across the entire range, despite the torque varying. Which doesn't even vaguely take into account the operator.

Reply to
Duncan Wood

It goes spongy as hell though & doesn't behave at all like you expect

Reply to
Duncan Wood

I'd have called the RAC, to get the vehicle recovered to the dealership, after all you wouldn't drive it back. I'm more shocked that it looks like a dealer that actually changed the fluid in the first place.

Reply to
Depresion

I'm not sure any of the breakdown organisations would have done this on the OP's say-so. They would have left to OP to arrange collection by the offending dealer.

If you didn't want them to carry out a quick and simple repair, why would they carry out a much more expensive recovery?

How do we know the fluid was changed ;-)

Chris

Reply to
Chris Whelan

Perhaps I'm naive, but I'd expect both a main dealer to torque the wheel fixings correctly and the maker's wrench to be able to undo them if this is the case.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

Be sure to have a woman with you, they're so much better at acting on impulse.

Reply to
Ronald Raygun

I'd agree to your first point, but not necessarily with your second point. I wouldn't say with any certainty that a supplied wrench would work with the torque the manufacturer specified. Typically they're so short that the force required to remove the nuts is too high. I have a cross-bar wrench which, when using both ends to undo a correctly torqued nut, can even then be quite difficult. The supplied wrench is about 1/2 the cross wrench size - about the length of one of the arms. If the cross one is difficult, would one half the length would be impossible!

D
Reply to
David Hearn

Jeff ("Jeff" ) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

...not to mention the handbrake...

Reply to
Adrian

instead of wasting your time here either If you belong to the AA/RAC use their free legal advice, most solicitors offer half an hour free, or try trading standards.

the longer you leave it the more difficilt it will be

Reply to
Tommy

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