Hello,
A month ago we bought a six year old Mazda in a private sale that has had the clutch replaced by an independent garage beginning of March this year. The mechanic did not fit the speedo drive correctly, and as a result gearbox oil has leaked out. The previous owner and myself did not notice this through driving the vehicle. I took the car for an oil change, and as they had noticed the issue, they checked it out.
Not to be dettered, I tried another independent garage, to be 100% sure that the speedo drive had been replaced incorrectly, and this was the only possible cause of the gearbox basically soon to start failing. The second garage confirmed the initial diagnosis: during the fitting of the new clutch by the previous owner a few months ago, the speedo drive was incorrectly refitted, with the gearbox likely to fail very soon, with the garages surprised the car was still driving fine. A look underneath and it was obvious that even with refilling the gearbox with oil, it was just coming out again upon gear change during drive.
The garage who fitted the clutch (Alfa-Romeo garage, incidentally) have said they only warranty work for 3000 miles or 3 months.
My question is: as they incorrectly fitted the new clutch, as confirmed by 2 independent garages who know the work would not be carried out by them even before they found the problem, are the original fitting garage liable in any way for some/all costs? The fact they messed up so badly fitting the new clutch meant that nobody would be any the wiser that there was a gearbox issue unless the gearbox was partially dismantled in some respect. As I am the new owner of the car, I wondered if that affected any work that had been done by the previous garage. The clutch is consumable, so if it had gone again, I would bite my teeth and pay for a new one, but as the garage fitted the clutch badly originally, I can't help but strongly feel they are liable in some respect for bad workmanship. I mean, fitting a speedo drive incorrectly is pretty difficult!
Many thanks for any responses.