Isuzu Trooper Owners Club UK™

[Remy]

Hi all

I've owned my first Trooper since march this year, it's a 2.3TD 86 reg with a fairly high milage, but I love it. I'm a 24 year old non mechanical female so please help if you can. Since buying the car the rear diff went which because of another idoit(being polite) mechanic took 13 weeks to repair and me having to find a rear diff through the net.
At the beginning of October I thought it might be wise to book my car in for a full service and cam/timing belt change. It has had to be returned to the garage twice since then as the normally great engine has developed a few problems to say the least. i wrote a letter to the owner of the garage as follows:


I brought my Isuzu to your garage on Saturday 4th October to have a new timing belt and a full service. I would have expected the vehicle to be performing better then before the work was carried out. Before this time although the vehicle is not in perfect condition, as is to be expected of an older vehicle, the engine was always sound and ran very smoothly. It would start perfectly every day first time. I am sorry to say that since your garage serviced my vehicle the following problems have occurred:

·The engine takes between 5 and 10 minutes to start
·The revs are very low
·The engine stalls
·When driving on an incline the vehicle is now only capable of being in 2nd gear and manages on average 18mph
·There is a clanking sound from an unidentifiable source in the engine
·The emissions from the exhaust seem to be a great deal darker then normal
·The engine when finally started seems to be either misfiring or out of sync

These are problems that have all occurred since the vehicle was serviced. I am now extremely worried that the engine has been damaged in some way. I am not a trained mechanic so I hope the information I have provided you with will rectify the obvious problems my vehicle is now experiencing. I am sure that you can appreciate that I need to be mobile in order to get to work, without my Isuzu I have no means in which to get to work and therefore risk loosing my job. I hope that you can find what is causing the problems that have occurred since it was serviced.



I have been told tonight by the mechanic that he had got the timing wrong when he fitted the new belt, but not only that from what I understand there is another belt(tensioning belt?)attached to this. The mechanic is now saying that there is a key for this that needs replacing? So my questions are:

1. What damage would the wrong timing on the belt do to my cars engine?

2. Why was the error missed if a full service was carried out?

3. I have been sent a bill for £230.00 for the full service and cam belt change, am I right in witholding payment?

If anyone can help a very stressed and seriously angry girl it would really be appreciated any advice given.

[Google]

[skoly]

Hi Remy

It does sound like you have been led astray with that Garage.

You are right to withold the money from the garage until you are satisfied that all the problems have been rectified which they have caused through their malpractice.

You could threaten them with trading standards, but only as a last resort. It does sound like they have not followed the correct proceedure in changing the cam belt. All garages have their little bible which is very easy to follow and gives illustrations of where all the drives and pulleys should be so that when changing the timing belt no damage occurs.

Obviously this has not been the case, and your Isuzu is out in the timing. This can cause many things to happen. The valves could be damaged, the piston could be damaged. I suppose in a lucky way, for the garage that is, the timing is not too far out otherwise when they first started it, it would have been totally written off(Engine).

Also you could get a second opinion from another garage and charge it to the garage which did the damage. But inform them of your planned action.

I hope all this helps. Keep us informed.

Best Regards.

Skoly
_________________
Work hard, Think Fast N You'll Last.

[gutterrat]

Remy,
If you don't get any joy from the garage and they are an MOT station you could consider contacting the Vehicle Inspectorate. If you do decide to use this route or Trading Standards don't rectify any of the *beep* work that you have had done on the vehicle. They will need to see it in the condition that the mechanic at the garage left it in. Most importantly don't be fobbed off. Certain garages give the entire motor trade a bad name. If they can't do the job right why do they try? Don't pay. You will only be rewarding poor performance and they will go on to rip off some other unlucky motorist.

Ok, I've had my rant.....

Good Luck
Steve Burgess