Bit of advice needed RE dealerships

BeatTun

without going into a mad long story, the engine on my 01 fiat bravo (bought from new) blew up on me a few months ago, it was a few months out of warranty and i feel that the reaosn it went was due to lack of servicing and my own negligence, so i didnt approach fiat about it.

after several months, tracked down the exact same engine in england (it was the bravo SS, unfortunately a unique and rare fitting all around), 900 sterling, grand got it, got it put in by a mechanic i know.

a week later (monday just gone), the car started running VERY badly, chugging in 3rd and 4th gear until the revs got up to 5000, and the engine management light came on.
upon checking with several mechanics i was told that the only thing to do is to bring it to a fiat garage, where they hook it into a computer, that can tell them exactly what the fault is.

so i rang the fiat dealership i bought my car from, and explained my situation, and asked if i could bring it down for them to tell me whats up with the car, and get it fixed.

their reply was "we wont touch the car now that its been touched by someone else"

as i explained to them that it would have cost me too mch to get a new engine from them, and i pointed out that i wasnt looking for anything done under guarantee, i was simply a paying customer who needed a FIAT specialist to check out my car, but they refused.

can they do this? and / or has anybody got any suggestions?

thanks

DMC

They should take the work regardless. You are a willing, paying customer, after all. Ring them back and complain to the manager.

But ring another Fiat dealer, is my advice. Ring them before you go over asking them will they do the work necessary. It'll save you (and your car!) a journey if they dont look at it.

nanook

you got your self into a funny situation here, youi see the thing with garages and affilliated ones at that are they dont like hastle.
Basically what you have is a genuine car (origionally) and now it is out of guarantee, this by the fact of the engine was fitter by a non fiat recongnised mechanic, so they want to you put you to the effort of getting it fixed, to make you realise if you went to them in the first place none of this would have happened.

My opinion, for what it is worth, go to another fiat garage and say nothing about what happened, explain it sluggish unitll you get to 5000 and take it from there, without the background knowledge they will gladly take your car and charge you an astronomical amount, but this way you know you are getting it fixed.

Hope it goes well

Chimaera

You should probably have gone to the FIAT garage on day one - they'd have been able to tell you for definite why it failed, and you might have been able to get a reduced cost replacement, or a free one. Dealers will usually be ok if they think it's a fault of the car/manufacturer.

A few years ago my parent's Ford Escort died after the engine took in water while driving through a flooded road. The engine was replaced by the insurance company as it was damaged in circumstances beyond our control.

At worst, the FIAT dealer could have told you that you'll have to pay for a new engine yourself, but you are under no obligation to buy a new engine from them just because your car has been taken there initially. You would have been quite within your rights to source an engine elsewhere, and asked them to fit it. Legally they can't turn you away if you ask them to carry out a repair - they can refuse to do it under warranty, etc, but if you are willing to pay them for the work carried out, they can't turn you away afaik.

Hellrazer

It all depends on the dealership.
Two weeks ago we got a car in here which had been "repaired" in the least meaning of the word by a back street garage.
It still wasnt repaired and the owner brought the car to us(a main dealer)to get it looked at.He never told us that someone else was at it and it took us almost 6 days to repair the damage done by this other garage.(Needed an engine in the end)
What Im trying to say is that this guy then wouldnt pay for 6 days labour and then tried to make out that we had done the damage at the start and wanted all the work for nothing.
My point???
A main dealer will not touch a car that has been seriously messed with by someone else.
Beatun we are not a main Fiat dealer but if you want to Pm me Ill get our service manager who is ex-Fiat to have a look at the car for you.We are located in Dublin.He even has Fiat diagnostic equipment in our workshop.
Richie

Mercury_Tilt

This post has been deleted.

BeatTun

thanks for all your replies, the update....

i brought it to a different fiat garage today, explained my situation, explained that the other fiat dealership that i went to wouldnt even look at the car for me, and they told me that that was very bad form btw...

anyway,they hooked it up to the computer, found 10 faults in the system, most of them just things that needed to be reset after the new engine going in, but the main problem was that the joker who put my engine in, didnt put new spark plugs into it, he just left the (rotten) ones that were already in it, which made the engine run on 3 cylinders, causing the misfire, causing my problem

96 euro, its all fixed, car is like new