Car part Warranty claim denied... Legal advice?

"The returned three-piece Clutch Kit has been examined and tested the report is detailed below.

There is heat damage and Carbon dust contamination consistent with the clutch having been allowed to slip. The cover mounting holes are scored. The disc splines have been excessively greased, and this has streaked to the friction lining. The CSC appears dry, and the release bearing turns freely. The residual fluid appears clean.

The Parts have been tested the disc is within specification. The cover has been significantly distorted.

The customers complaint of loosing pressure is possibly due to air getting into the system unfortunately the connecting pipes have not been returned with the CSC. The Judder issue is possibly due to the grease contamination of the friction surfaces even minor traces will adversely affect the friction coefficient leading to slip and judder.

Regrettably, as there are no manufacturing or materials defects, this claim is not covered by the terms of the warranty."

If you bought the clutch and separately you paid a garage to fit it I don't think you have any comeback. If you paid a garage to supply and fit a clutch it's on them. Often the money you save isn't worth it.

Unless you can pay for an independent report and take them to court I don't see any way to proceed

Could someone with much more intelligence than myself help me out please.

No, because you said 'myself' instead of me. Quick, edit it before anyone notices and starts a flaming pitchfork mob.

Someone with real knowledge will be along to help in due course, but as it's been deinstalled now I can't see how you can refute their incorrectly installed diagnosis. And the garage that did it can't because if they say it wasn't installed correctly and agree with the manufacturer they've put themselves on the hook for bodging it - so can't be impartial and of course will say it was installed right - leaving you stuck in the middle. A third party opinion would be the answer but can't do that when it's in bits.

Hate to be blunt, but I'm afraid my advice would be to drop it, as you'll get nothing but stress from this, and it won't be resolved.

It's one of the many reasons a lot of garages Will no longer fit parts they don't supply. They'll both blame each other until you go away, unfortunately.

I think it's best just to chalk it up to experience and learn from it. Sorry

Sounds like you're a bit stuffed due to the points made above.  You have no way of knowing that the garage didn't fit it with too much grease other than their word for it which is worth very little I'm afraid.

Have heard of parts in motion but who are car parts in motion.

Are you certain the clutch was genuine. So much counterfeit import crap on eBay I'd never buy critical items unless I knew the source.

As for claiming labour on parts supplied warranty. Almost every single part I've fitted has always excluded consequential damages.

I’d say you’ve got very little comeback.

Unless it’s a specialist part or upgrade I’d always let a garage supply something like a clutch. If they are reputable they wouldn’t rip you off anyway.

Drop it...

You won't win

This is why I always let the garage supply the bits and when I was in the trade I wouldn't fit supplied by customers parts

You can do small claims court, you would be claiming from the retailer under the Consumer Rights Act, not the manufacturers warranty.

No idea what the likelihood of success is on a wear item installed by a third party.

The report on the clutch doesn’t seem unreasonable. I’ve no idea if it’s true but if you were stood in court what would your counter argument be? Are the garage that did the fitting willing to write a report saying that the clutch was faulty?

Garage statements no use.

You need a proper engineer. Could try Ace in Bradford but I'd just drop it

You have zero change of getting anything for the labour - that's on you.

How long ago was the purchase? If it's over six months then the onus is very much on you to prove the clutch was faulty. Even if it is less than six months, the supplier of the clutch has given what they belive to be a reasonable response. Your only recourse is court - at which point is it really worth it for the cost of the part?

As has been stated above, this is why I always have the garage also source the parts.

Like others have said, if garage supply and fit, then you have recourse - a local garage probably would have charged the same amount for the part - I know our local garage charged the same as I could have got a clutch for when we had one done in the Autumn.

I've just had a gearbox mount fail on the Mrs car. Brand new part fitted 5 months ago by me. Supposed 5 year warrenty. Bought a different make of part, and haven't bothered with the warrenty as the hassle of posting back etc wasn't worth it.

You're stuffed.
As soon as you split the part supply from the fitment supply, you have the problem and 'own' the gap that can occur in between.

(Just like booking separate accom and flights on holiday- it's not the hotel's fault when your flight is cancelled).

Last time I got a new kitchen fitted they would charge extra in fitting someone else's cooker or other appliances- because they knew that they end up having to solve a problem etc. And of course wouldn't warranty the appliance as they didn't supply it.

I know some garages that won't fit parts they didn't supply themselves for exactly this reason too - a risk of getting blamed for no benefit.

Thanks very much for the reply and help everyone.

Very hard pill to swallow again it seems.

I'm not much good at this type of thing, but what would be the chances of getting any money back through PayPal and eBay for the faulty part? Sept 22 purchase.

Looks like I've got to write the labour cost off though is the general consensus.

How do you know the part was faulty rather than just installed incorrectly?

I spose I don't really know, other than the track record of the business and my previous experience with them is very positive.
Doing the same job 3 times a day or more is more difficult to get wrong I think

Doesn’t the manufacturer/supplier report give you something to challenge the garage with- they messed up the installation. I assume you got the garage to remove it rather than yourself.
Obviously the garage could argue that the report is biased but worth seeing what they say.

The warranty on mechanical car parts which require substantial installation, aren't worth the paper they're written on. Manufacturers and resellers will always wriggle out of warranty unless the parts are fitted at an approved (main dealer/specialist) garage. BMW have done this with me in the past.

Everyone loves to hate Euro Car Parts but I bought some driveshafts from them - refurbished, I think - and fitted them myself. They displayed all the same symptoms as the old worn ones leading me to think something else was wrong at first. They have a guarantee on parts, so I took them back and they swapped them for some brand new ones absolutely no questions whatsoever, and me clearly a DIYer. I refitted them and they were fine.

I was quite surprised, and I have a feeling that maybe since they were refurbished they weren't bothering to test them and let the customers effectively test them out themselves, hence the no quibble. Had they been new parts I might not have been so lucky.

I spose I don’t really know, other than the track record of the business and my previous experience with them is very positive.

Any garage can make a mistake, or it's the new hire who's messed up etc. I'd take that report back to them and see what they say - if they do a lot of trade on their reputation they might well offer you something. I would!

but what would be the chances of getting any money back through PayPal and eBay for the faulty part? Sept 22 purchase.

How did you pay for the clutch? Credit card or debit card. If credit card you could claim under them as they will offer buyer protection. Debit card (usually) offers less protection.

Standard basic warranty for motor trade repairs is 3 months or 3000 miles, especially on anything involving a friction lining (even original vehicle manufacturers won't warranty friction linings beyond typically 10'000miles except in quite specific circumstances)

Certain things do get longer warranties, and some garages will give longer warranties, but in this case, chances of getting anything back is pretty slim.

From experience with these, there's probably been something not installed correctly causing the loss of pedal.
Juddering has likely been contamination.

However as you've got no third party report on any of that, and no chance of getting one now, chances of getting anything back is pretty slim.

I’m not much good at this type of thing, but what would be the chances of getting any money back through PayPal and eBay for the faulty part? Sept 22 purchase.

Its not faulty though - the report states as much.

Juddering, losing the pedal and poor gear changes

There's two separate faults here. Juddering is either warped flywheel or contamination - neither to do with the clutch and not present with the replacement clutch. "Losing the pedal" is the actuation side of the clutch and not the clutch itself.

Coupled with the report of the returned clutch - in my line of work I'd now be calling into question the competency of the person who did the work. What qualified them to do their job? Time served? Factory trained? What SOP/instructions were they following? Specialist in this brand/particular vehicle? This is clearly where the fault lies despite their "reputation"

But then nobody has died and we are talking £600 so it's not worth taking any further. I think the biggest issue you have is why you haven't sold the French POS yet?

A previous gearbox failure and a second clutch????? It would have long been scrapped / sold on if that was mine.

I agree with everything above, but I think I'd at least be going back to the installing garage and asking for comment. Not in a "blame" way but in a "does this sound plausible?" way.

I agree with everything above, but I think I’d at least be going back to the installing garage and asking for comment. Not in a “blame” way but in a “does this sound plausible?” way.

That’s so reasonable. Have you been hacked? 😂😉

Shush. :-p

The surprising bit is that a garage has agreed to fit parts they didn't supply. Most garages will refuse to do this for exactly the reasons above.

You could try the PayPal guarantee. But it's virtually impossible to argue who is at fault. As someone else suggested, the only real thing would be show the report to the garage. Even the best mechanics make mistakes!

The disc splines have been excessively greased, and this has streaked to the friction lining.

Not sure on Sachs (I only ever fit LuK clutches) but there are loads of warnings about greasing the splines. LuK did, or perhaps still do supply a tiny packet of special lube for the splines. None in the T5 clutch I did last week BTW.

As for supplying your own parts the garage should have either refused to fit them or made it clear that if there was a problem then you, the customer would be paying twice. When I worked on the coal face full time I only ever fitted customer supplied parts that were hard to find and they had to be very good customers as well - no point pissing off a good customer with 5 or more vehicles in the family.

How did you pay for the clutch? Credit card or debit card. If credit card you could claim under them as they will offer buyer protection. Debit card (usually) offers less protection.

If on a CC too long ago IME.