My car broke:(

Mark909

Okay so i had my car in at a garage a couple of days ago. The fan belt was making a right racket and I asked them to have a look at it. They told me they'd adjusted the fan belt and also that a tyre was worn below legal limit and another had a couple of nails in it so i paid to get it replaced.

Driving to visit some friends it broke down on the motorway. Discovered that the fan belt had snapped and water stopped being circulated around engine causing engine to overheat and now I have a dead engine!

I'm pretty useless with these things and was wondering if anyone knew if i could make some sort of claim against the garage for negligence.

I'm particularly pissed off as i'd just managed to save up enough money for a new bike which is now going to have to go towards a new car!

CraigXXL

I'm assuming it's a fairly old car as most modern cars have self adjusting pulley to take up slack. If they have adjusted the slack on the belt it will be usually by moving the alternator mount. The belt should ideally of been replaced as it was already stretched and nearing it's limited life. Due to the nature of belts snapping I wouldn't think you had any comeback on the garage since the belt was worn already. If they'd fitted a new belt and it snapped then it would have been fitted with too much tension and giving you comeback against the garage.

Mark909

Okay thanks craig that makes sense! Ah well thats my new bike and tv out of the window!

Does anyone have any recommendations on best car to buy for £1500-2000.

Im not bothered about anything sporty. Just good miles per gallon and can fit my bike in the back!

CraigXXL

Have a look for a Mondeo, a lot of car for not much money.

The aux belt for your car would gave cost less than £20 and easy to replace. Try some basic mechanics and you'll be surprised how much you can do yourself and how much it will save you.

cooldad

BMW obviously.

butcher of bakersfield

Scrap the 2k budget. Lower it to £400. Put the TV on hold and buy that new bike.

Sorted.

CYCLESPORT1

Look for something like:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/CITROEN-C5-HD ... 3a6e5e21f9

Mark909 wrote:

Okay thanks craig that makes sense! Ah well thats my new bike and tv out of the window!

Does anyone have any recommendations on best car to buy for £1500-2000.

Im not bothered about anything sporty. Just good miles per gallon and can fit my bike in the back!

snotty badger

Be wary of high mileage diesels, they have dual mass flywheels which seem to let go.

A lad at work has a 52 plate Mondeo with just over 100k and his clutch and flywheel have pooped themselves, going to cost him £500+ to get it sorted. Apparently a known fault too.

Briggo

snotty badger wrote:

Be wary of high mileage diesels, they have dual mass flywheels which seem to let go.

A lad at work has a 52 plate Mondeo with just over 100k and his clutch and flywheel have pooped themselves, going to cost him £500+ to get it sorted. Apparently a known fault too.

A known fault? Don't be silly, next you'll be telling me parts over time and use wear away and need replacing.

£500 for a new clutch and flywheel after 100k miles is a bargain when the rest of the car is pretty much bullet proof. 100k miles for a clutch is fine, some last longer some don't and the dual mass flywheel can be evaded from replacing so long as you catch the clutch in time.

Gazlar

Cheap and cheerful? You can pick up a decent mileage Chevrolet Lacetti estate (or hatch for that matter) for under 2k such as this 05 plate

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/ ... ?logcode=p

and theres plenty to choose from on Autotrader

If you really aren't bothered about looks, then how about an 05 plate Tacuma with 45k on the clock for 1200 notes
http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/ ... ?logcode=p

Plenty of room in one of them for bikes

Beatmaker

We've had two alternators go in the last seven days, one in my V50 last week which has cost £450 to replace and my wifes Saab yesterday which will cost a similar amount. I also got £1,000 of data charges on my mobile phone bill from a recent trip to the USA and my Reba Team borked at the weekend costing another £100 to sort. January has proved to be a bad month for unexpected bills.

stubs

If you like the car and its not too old and knackered why not see if you can get the dead engine sorted or fit a 2nd hand engine. A mates cambelt snapped at about 80mph and the engine was only good for weighing in for scrap, luckily he managed to get an engine and transmission with roughly similar mileage for £800 and we did the swap with the help of some borrowed scaffolding to make an engine lift. We split the duff unit and he sold the transmission on ebay.