Terzo 333

I'm posting this on behalf of someone who is severly p1ssed off.

Earlier this week someone came to pick his V reg impreza up to chip it. I'm not sure what sort of chip, or what sort of gains he was expecting, or the name of the company (think it was like a one man band type of thing)

Whilst he was doing his thing to the car my friend was busy at work. Next thing he gets a phone call saying his car has blown up whilst he took it for a test drive [img]images/smilies/mad.gif[/img]

I'm not sure of the exact details but apparantly he's offered £500 as a gesture of goodwill [img]images/smilies/mad.gif[/img] He's found out it will cost £2000 to get put right [img]images/smilies/mad.gif[/img]

I'd be extremely grateful if someone could let me knoes where he stands. Does this cowboy have to pay for all the damage to the car by law, or will he get away with it ?

Regards,

Matthew

Danny B

Of course the tuner should pay for it, if he doesn't take him to court and settle it that way.
DO NOT accept the £500 gesture of good will

rossyboy

iTrader: (8)

Test driving it my ****. Test pilot more like. Thing is, I doubt he had insurance

johnfelstead

£2000 if he is lucky!

It's a dificult situation to be in, try and come to an amicable agreement once you know the likely costs then you will have to take it from there regarding action. £500 is not enough.

Terzo 333

I've just been giving it some thought - obviously the bloke chipping the car didn't want it to blow up, but is it his fault the engine couldn't cope with the extra power ? He just chipped it to the required spec

Flat 4x4

Anything in writing, any leaflet from the bloke saying what he could do - is he a registered business ?

rossyboy

iTrader: (8)

Yes, but surely you'd have to be really hammering it to blow it up? I'm pretty sure they're unlikely to blow up at less than 6,000rpm? If thats the case then, thats not really test driving it I would have thought.

Robertio

iTrader: (1)

Don't know what the legal view of it is in the UK, but who in their right mind lets someone they don't know take their car out to map without them in it?

Ultimately I'd guess taking the money will be the easier way (unless the mappers insurance covers this). The mapper can claim that he hadn't done anything to the car, just driven it, so it would have happened to the owner the next time they drove the car. Without anyone else being in the car with the mapper there is no proof whether or not this is the case - if it can't be proven to be his fault there is no reason he could be forced to pay.

Even if the car had gone bang during his mapping, I still can't see the owner having any comeback, it's a risk you take IMHO.

chiark

Don't think you've got a leg to stand on mate. Have a look at the disclaimer that comes from Ecutek (as an example) which basically says "if it blows up, tough, we don't warrant this work whatsoever".

Sorry to be a harbinger of doom, but I really can't see how the mapper could be expected to stand this, especially if it's a one man band.

smellyvag

Its not really "the mappers" fault imo. I think £500 is a good gesture from him and you should take it. This will buy you some nice shiny forged pistons

NotoriousREV

It would all depend on whether the car blew up due to the mappers work or whether the failure was due to something else, which is going to be difficult to prove

Gez

Mapping requires the car to be rev'd quite high if im not mistaken, to map the fueling at high revs. It is common practise that mappers are not liable if the engine blows up BUT they do say that the car should be serviced and checked over prior to the mapping session to make sure its in good shape. A car would pop for one of two reasons, either it has a fault with it which is no fault of the mappers ie low on oil, bad oil pump etc OR the mapper was just crap and he mapped the car to run REALLY lean. Either way, it would be a good idea for your freind to get a full report on the car to try and ascertain on why the car popped. If its found that the oil pump is buggered or low on oil then its your freinds fault. If its found that the map on the car was just plain stupid then i would tear the garage appart.

Cheers

Gerry

Markus

hmm, interesting.

A few more details are needed I think.

For example, was the car modified at all? Has it been well maintained? What fuel has it been run on? What was the chipping meant to achieve?

Lets say, for example, the car was already running lean, a new map is made which causes more leaness, leads to det, bang.

As to whether the tuner can be held responsible, hmm tricky one that, if they did not know the condition of the car beforehand and it was not in good health then it's not really their fault, on the other hand, they should maybe investigate the cars health before chipping it, and then possibly advise the person that this could cause damage.

I would have thought the tuner would have had some form of disclaimer claiming if it blows, not my fault mate. He's obviously a pretty good chap, as he is offereing some form of compensation, he could easilly have just shrugged his shoulders and said "tough luck"

greasemonkey

For starters, none of us you or your friend for sure where he stands, as none of us is in possession of the full facts. You haven't given us anywhere near enough information to make an informed decision.
Was the "chipper" an employee of a recognised business or a one-man band? Did he offer any warranty on his work? Did he offer any warranty against engine failure as a result of his work? Why did your friend trust him enough to give him charge of the car? Did your friend give him permission to drive the car? What did the chipper say about the cause of the failure? Was the car known to be in perfect running order prior to the modification? Was it regularly and properly serviced? These are all pertinent points.

What we can say is this:

1) It is impossible at this stage to tell whether the damage to the engine was actually caused by the car being chipped, or whether there was already underlying damage which the increase in engine output simply exacerbated. It could be that the chipping overstressed an engine that was already on the way to failure, in which case the chipper can't be blamed.

2) Has your friend read any small-print the chipper offered? As has been said above, in such situations, there is normally no warranty if the engine self-destructs.

The short answer is that your friend is likely to be up a creek. His only chance of respite would be if he can prove that negligence on the part of this third party was directly responsible for the failure.

Doing so will be somewhat difficult, and expensive, given that he'd have to have the engine examined by an engineer and get a report written. Then it'd be down to court action. Even then, if the engineer's report wasn't clear as to the cause of the failure, your friend would be very unlikely to win the case.

If the chipper told him beforehand that there was no warranty on such work though, then it's end of story.

I'd suggest that your friend refuse to accept the £500 goodwill payment until he's decided which way he's going to proceed, as doing so could be taken as a full and final settlement of the contract. If it was offered "without prejudice", the fact that the offer was made doesn't in itself constitute an admission of liability by the chipper.

[Edited by greasemonkey - 11/27/2003 10:38:24 PM]

Terzo 333

Right, thanks for the replies.

The reason I know so little is because its my ex g/f's boyfriends car He wouldn't want her speaking to me (dont ask long story ) and she just rung to see if I could dig a little deeper, find out as much info as I can off trusty old Scoobynet (they don't have internet access)

What I put down in my initial post is all the info I found out.

I will try and find more info out of her tommorrow.

Matt