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Anyone remember my forum topic I started 3 months ago called 'cheer me up PLEEESSEE!'?
If not, here is the link Car problems
Well... 3 weeks on and I do not have my car back and the bill is now a whopping 1800 to fix.
I had a quote for 1157 to change the engine and clutch, which I agreed to (as it was the reason my car went pop!)
Yesterday the garage called me to tell me my car is now in the hands of Ford as they have no idea why it isnt working. To better this, they then went onto telling me I needed to fork out a further 650 to sort out a faulty Fuel pump.
No chance! There was nothing wrong with the fuel pump when I took the car in, and they have even told me they needed to tamper with it to try get the car to work.
Any advise anyone can give me in this crappy situation? I have no idea what kind of claim I could put in. Anyone give me some free legal advise on this?!!
Gav
I think the AA have a way, I'll have a look when I get a mo, but hey Gav, you got picture of the week, smile! 
Contact the citizens advice beureau, they will be able to give you advice on this. Often if you have the right knowledge on the situation then the garage will back down, they just try their luck first time round. I'm currently taking RyanAir to court and the CAB have been fantastic in helping me out.
Thanks for the advise guys and I appreciate you looking into this for me K.
CAB is my next port of call.
I don't believe that the garage is taking me for a ride with telling me what work is required. I have contacted a completely different Ford garage to discuss the implications of adding a new engine to a different car.
They told me exactly what was involved. The garage didnt know all these problems they would encounter, but I managed to find these problems within 5 mins of calling them.
Why the garage I took the car to didnt know this, I dont know.
The bit where I feel they are taking me for a ride is with telling me that the price keeps going up and up.
Gav
No way a fuel pump costs that much. Get yourself on the phone to a motor factors place and find the price of a new one, and then tell the garage thats the price. Also why did they have to send it to ford. The fuel pump working or not is a basic thing.
If its a diesel and its a rotary fuel pump, that should have come with an exchange engine. If its a petrol it should cost a few pounds.
I had a similar problem with a car once. It had a problem stalling when cold. Can you believe it but the repairing garage tried to tell me it was the clutch, but by that time they had the gearbox off and removed it. They demanded I paid for the new clutch they fitted without my agreement. I asked to see the bits and then suddenly they went to well its got lots of life left well re-fit it, then they called an hour later to say the distributor had exploded. Its just above the gearbox.... Well eventually I got the car back (dropped off) but with a sticking clutch and new distributor, no charge but car running on only 3 cylinders and clutch sticking. On the way home it started to overheat yes not enough coolant from the earlier fiasco.
I took it to a dealer and paid for an inspection. They came up with, wrong distributor type, insufficient coolant, a clutch at only 20% wear but a broken release bearing sleeve oh and a 20 carb valve that was sticking. One phone call and a threat of a solicitors letter later my car had new clutch, distributor and carb valve plus all costs waived.
I hope it gives you hope that it can all be resolved without costing a fortune. Get yourself some independent advice.
If its a diesel and its a distributor type fuel injection pump did you know that it has to be made to a tighter specification than the engine and probably costs more to make than the engine.
But re-con diesel engines should come with a re-con pump. One possible explination is that the new engine takes a different type of pump e.g Bosch instead of Lucas/Delphi. Also they can be serviced/refurbished, just like a camera. It is possible that your garage has upset all the settings and that stops it working.
So a new one, I doubt it. Also they are lubricated by the fuel so your oil starvation problem should not have damaged it. Ask for the test report that shows your pump is defective. There are pump stands that measure fuel delivery etc to test the pump.
Diesels work by squirting fuel in at the correct time, thats all. If the old engine ran the new one should with the pump. Did they break it?
Which version of the Ford engines is it and what model year?
Yep, which engine? Petrol or Diesel? Zetec, Duratec, Endura, Duratorq? 4 or 6 cylinders?
Ford don't do a diesel engine called a Zetec, so I'll assume that it's a Ford Focus Zetec fitted with a 1.8 Duratorq engine. In that case, I can't offer any help. Of the few Duratorq equipped vehicles we have had in our workshop, none have had this problem/problems.
I do know that if the fuel pump does need replacing, then 600 or so for a replacement sounds about right.
The only advice I can offer is, purchase a V-A-G engined car next time.
I work in the automotive Diesel engine management market, so I know a bit but am not a pump specialist. But here goes if it helps you understand and fight your corner. To the rest sorry if it sounds sad but its no worse than knowing the Canon EF range and it pays my wages..
So if its a TDI its relatively new one but not the TDCI which has the Delphi Common Rail system so its probably a Bosch pump,I would guess its the VP44 rotary spill pump system.
OK so ask for evidence that the pump has been tested at a fuel system specialist, e.g Bosch service center and ask them to justify what has failed on the pump. Its a big coincidence that the engine and the pump failed at the same time. Are you certain that the garage did not muck up something relating to the anti-theft system as the VP44 is relatively intelligent and may think it is experiencing an attempted theft. Or did they break it taking it off the engine. If you fail to connect it correct electrically it will not fire the engine.
Also if you mount it incorrectly the engine will not fire as it has to be timed correctly. If the timing is too far out it may be able to detect that and so protect the engine from a faulty injection condition. The price is correct I think as that pump is built to much higher tolerances than the engine. Ask for the bits back so you can inspect them, that is defense position 1.
Re engines I would not say that the VAG engines are that special. I find they tend to drone at motorway speeds, some are very reluctant to rev and everything happens at low rpm, and have you seen the cost of cam belt replacements on the PD engines. I have not heard any stories about the Ford engines lacking in durability. From looking at the cars we run the TD110 engines are nor more reliable than any others for example. In fact for the first 100,000 miles the PSA HDI engines are probably the least trouble (don't know what happens at higher millage as they tend to be gone by then).
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