OK, my other car came home last week with all the instruments dead ( '99 Xantia HDi). I asked wifey if there was owt else, but she said no, then telling me later that the engine didn't get hot

I drove it only to find that it's the heater fan not working too.

Fuse? you say? You'd be right. Fuse No.12 gone, (heater fan, instruments, stoplights, rear side lights), so I replaced it and it all worked again...............for about a minute, then it went again.

Now there's no way I'm doing fault finding on an 8 year old car in the cold and wet, so I phoned around and NO-ONE was interested in looking at it, "take it to a Citroen dealer", they say. (Bloody Citroen, no-one wants to know. I'll NEVER have another!)

That's what I did, except I had to drive 30 miles to my nearest one

Anyway, that was Friday. They fault found, charged me £60 +VAT diagnostic, said it was a rear light leaking which caused the fuse to blow,(), asked my permission to replace the corroded bulb, and reseal the light, another £30 inc VAT.

They did the job, I paid up and away I went, thinking "needs must".

Half way home it went again

So back it goes today, they give me a loaner and say they'll fix it.

So far I've had two phone calls, one from the service receptionist telling me I'll have to pay ANOTHER diagnostic charge, to which I responded no way, you had that charge to find the fault and haven't, so I shouldn't have to pay again.

The second call was from the service manager who tells me that "as a gesture of goodwill" they'll waive the "second hour's" diagnostic charge, (there was no mention of it being £60 a HOUR previously, just a £60 charge), and after that if they hadn't found the fault, I'd have to pay again.

Now I reckon they think they've seen me coming.

So far I've paid a charge for them to find something and they didn't find it. (What they DID find was about another £500 worth of work I "ought" to have done). Then I paid for work that didn't need doing.

I reckon I'm owed an hour and half's work, and I DON'T reckon that my first hour's work was ALL spent fault finding, not if they came up with that many niggles too

What do other Scoobynetters think?

Alcazar

 

If they did not fix the problem that you paid them for-they should do the job properly for no extra charge. You should not have to pay them for defective work in the first place.

Les

 

They obviously thought the initial problem was the only one in terms of your fuse blowing. They should have carried out further checks around that fuse circuit in my opinion to make doubly sure - I suppose that's hindsight!
If they found other "faults" which didn't relate to the fuse blowing then I'd ask them why they decided to scrutinise the rest of the car when you had not asked them to. I personally wouldn't mind them identifying other faults if I knew the initial problem was resolved but clearly it wasn't..

Nick

PS - I've had 2 Xantias as 2nd cars to my then Subaru. Good motors. I only had to change spheres which are a common fault.