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Advice - car died after being serviced and MOTd by KWIK FIT


WinchesterDave
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Hi everyone, 

 

Bit of advice needed really.. 

 My car is a VW  Golf 1.6 DIESEL, DSG. It's 5 years old with 37,900 on the clock. 

 

Service and MOT were due together two months ago in August. At the time it wasn't the best to get it done at the Vw dealership so decided to get them both done at Kwik Fit.

 

Picked the car up, happy with the service they provided and thought that was it.

 

All was great until the other week when I noticed steam / white smoke coming out of the engine. It was very faint and initially I thought it was coming from the exhaust from the car in front.

Anyway, this persisted at random times and decided that it was coming from my engine and I was going to have a look. 

 

Opened up the bonnet to find the dipstick hanging out and the entire engine bay covered in oil!!! 

 

Sunday night driving, warning light appears - 'Battery not charging.' Got home and power steering started feeling a bit odd..  

 

Next day at 17:00 hours I was going to work and car was fine initially but then 'Battery not charging' light came on.

I got to work no problems but as I was reversing into a space, the power steering really felt like it was going and the warning light for that came on too. 

 

Fast forward to 6am the next day, car really struggled to start. 

 

Almost home and the gearbox kept fluctuating in and out of gear.... every single warning light and warning sound the car has popped up, I lost all drive and the steering froze solid!!! 

 

Fast forward to today; VW have said my alternator is broken and it could've been replaced if it was drenched in oil!!

This is now a hefty bill because of a serious rookie error made by Kwik Fit! 

 

Where do I stand with this and what should I do? I am fully aware Kwik fit aren't going to have it that they left the dipstick unattached. But, is there anything I can do at all do you think? 

 

Just an added side note - VW Assit were superb. With me within half an hour - gave a road side diagnostics of damaged Alternator and gave the battery a bit of juice and followed me to my dealership. Then took me to the courtesy car depot which was 35 mins away! 

 

Can't fault the service from VW just that from Kwik Fit. 

 

Cheers in advance, 

 

Dave! 

 

 

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think you've been very unlucky there dave...im no car expert by far but from the way things progressed I would hazard a guess that you'd be wasting your time with kwik fit.... more than likely  I think they'd say 'the car was fine when it left here and when you drove it away' etc etc...its a hard one to call..think you might have to bite the bullet and accept it...id like to think I was wrong, hopefully a more learned member could shed a different light on the situation...good luck but personally I wouldn't hold my breath with anything positive from kwik fit...was it the Ormskirk one by any chance...atb...misser      

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1 hour ago, WinchesterDave said:

Hi everyone, 

Bit of advice needed really.. 

 My car is a VW  Golf 1.6 DIESEL, DSG. It's 5 years old with 37,900 on the clock. Service and MOT were due together two months ago in August. At the time it wasn't the best to get it done at the Vw dealership so decided to get them both done at Kwik Fit. Picked the car up, happy with the service they provided and thought that was it.All was great until the other week when I noticed steam / white smoke coming out of the engine. It was very faint and initially I thought it was coming from the exhaust from the car in front.Anyway, this persisted at random times and decided that it was coming from my engine and I was going to have a look. Opened up the bonnet to find the dipstick hanging out and the entire engine bay covered in oil!!! Sunday night driving, warning light appears - 'Battery not charging.' Got home and power steering started feeling a bit odd..  Next day at 17:00 hours I was going to work and car was fine initially but then 'Battery not charging' light came on.I got to work no problems but as I was reversing into a space, the power steering really felt like it was going and the warning light for that came on too. Fast forward to 6am the next day, car really struggled to start. Almost home and the gearbox kept fluctuating in and out of gear.... every single warning light and warning sound the car has popped up, I lost all drive and the steering froze solid!!! Fast forward to today; VW have said my alternator is broken and it could've been replaced if it was drenched in oil!!This is now a hefty bill because of a serious rookie error made by Kwik Fit! Where do I stand with this and what should I do? I am fully aware Kwik fit aren't going to have it that they left the dipstick unattached. But, is there anything I can do at all do you think? Just an added side note - VW Assit were superb. With me within half an hour - gave a road side diagnostics of damaged Alternator and gave the battery a bit of juice and followed me to my dealership. Then took me to the courtesy car depot which was 35 mins away! Can't fault the service from VW just that from Kwik Fit. 

Cheers in advance, 

Dave! 

Not sure how you will ever get Kwikfit to even consider doing anything, the fault has been a very long time developing. Did you not look under the bonnet throughout any of the growing list of faults?

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10 minutes ago, bruno22rf said:

Never thought much would come out of the dipstick hole - only Oil mist surely and that normally gets routed back into the combustion chamber?

I dont know , some cars it literally chucks it out, some virtually nothing.
Depends on the dipstick tube and type, and also crankcase pressure.

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5 hours ago, misser said:

think you've been very unlucky there dave...im no car expert by far but from the way things progressed I would hazard a guess that you'd be wasting your time with kwik fit.... more than likely  I think they'd say 'the car was fine when it left here and when you drove it away' etc etc...its a hard one to call..think you might have to bite the bullet and accept it...id like to think I was wrong, hopefully a more learned member could shed a different light on the situation...good luck but personally I wouldn't hold my breath with anything positive from kwik fit...was it the Ormskirk one by any chance...atb...misser      

Ormskirk mate yes. 

Cheers all for the replies. 

Picked my car up today and it's sorted. 

Edited by WinchesterDave
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Do be aware that some of the DSG gearboxes (and by that I mean that there are a number of different gearbox models, some of which are a lot more fragile than others) are notorious for problems - especially if they don't have the (very expensive) gearbox fluid and filter change at 4-5 years old.

Gearbox service  is £400+ done right (by a VW dealer), or a new gearbox is £thousands. 

 

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15 minutes ago, Stonepark said:

I wonder is they overfilled the engine oil and once heated up it expanded and kicked dipstick out to escape.

It is possible, some recent Ford Focus engines used to do it with the correct amount of oil. We had one at work about 3 or 4 years ago that they finally took back in and sorted.

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6 hours ago, Stonepark said:

I wonder is they overfilled the engine oil and once heated up it expanded and kicked dipstick out to escape.

My mate had this, over filled after a service caused him loads of bother.

My brother used to work at Nissan, in a nut shell don't use Kwik fit unless your desperate.

 

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7 hours ago, Stonepark said:

I wonder is they overfilled the engine oil and once heated up it expanded and kicked dipstick out to escape.

Interesting thought I hadn't considered...

8 hours ago, robbiep said:

Do be aware that some of the DSG gearboxes (and by that I mean that there are a number of different gearbox models, some of which are a lot more fragile than others) are notorious for problems - especially if they don't have the (very expensive) gearbox fluid and filter change at 4-5 years old.

Gearbox service  is £400+ done right (by a VW dealer), or a new gearbox is £thousands. 

 

Cheers for that Robbie :good:

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Wifes Passat needed pads, we went to Kwik Fit in Elgin, wife dropped me at road , I followed her in shortly after with my brekkie sandwich,she (as A lone woman) had been told car needed new discs & pads both sides (it did not) & they would not let it leave unless work was carried out! I asked them politely in rather broad Geordie to get the car off their ramp rather quickly, they did this & later at a "proper" garage only pads were needed.I would not trust them to change my cats litter tray.

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21 hours ago, Stonepark said:

I wonder is they overfilled the engine oil and once heated up it expanded and kicked dipstick out to escape.

 

14 hours ago, WinchesterDave said:

Interesting thought I hadn't considered...

Cheers for that Robbie :good:

Did you not dip the oil once you found the dipstick out & oil in engine bay? That would be the first thing I'd have done.

If it's not been checked I'd still do it now to make sure all is ok.  

 

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9 hours ago, misser said:

glad you got the car sorted dave  🙂🙂...atb...misser

Thanks mate!

2 hours ago, decoy1979 said:

 

Did you not dip the oil once you found the dipstick out & oil in engine bay? That would be the first thing I'd have done.

If it's not been checked I'd still do it now to make sure all is ok.  

 

All okay :good:

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9 minutes ago, Dougy said:

A tad late,, but why in this world of pigs puddin someone who has a bit of Grey matter uses quick-fix I will never know. 

Personally I wouldn't trust them to put air in my tyres. 

 

In future find a decent, honest car mechanic, and stick to them. 

+1:good:

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44 minutes ago, Dougy said:

A tad late,, but why in this world of pigs puddin someone who has a bit of Grey matter uses quick-fix I will never know. 

Personally I wouldn't trust them to put air in my tyres. 

 

In future find a decent, honest car mechanic, and stick to them. 

Yep, noted. 

 

I've come to that conclusion!

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I used kwik fit to do the tracking on my van after sliding down a hill one winter and busting a wheel. Only place open on a sunday. So tracking all done. Well they took 40 quid off me. On the monday after, i had it re tracked at my local garage and a replacement track rod end fitted as it was impossible to track it with being soo damaged. Total waste of space at kwik fit. I will never spend a penny more there! 

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