Warning Lights After Dealer Repair, Lookign For Advice Please.

[tartangear]

I would be very grateful if anyone could give me some advice, I have warning lights on my dashboard after a big dealer body shop (Arnold Clark in Kilmarnock, Ayrshire) made a repair. My issue is explained below.

The garage repaired a door, bottom sill (the long bit under the door which runs the full length of the car) and replaced an electric wing mirror. This repair took them 7 working days. My wife picked the car up and it was a few days later before I drove it. I noticed that there were 3 lights on, the engine management light, VSC Light and TRC light. My wife had noticed them on as she drove away from the garage but a salesman said they were nothing to worry about (which made me a little mad when I heard).

Anyway - I went down to see the garage in question but the Service desk was closed as it was the weekend. The Sales Manager that I spoke to said I'd need to get an engine diagnostic done, at my expense as it was likely nothing to do with them - he was not interested and went straight on the defensive.

So I'm going to go back down to the garage when the Service department opens on Monday or Tuesday - however I feel as if they will try and palm me off like the Sales guy did 'It's nothing to do with us' - now putting this into context the repairs cost £2,500 (insurance paid).

My question is, is it feasible that the repairs that the garage did could have caused these lights to come on? I suspect that they would have had panels open (where cables might have been running) and also might have disconnected the Battery to change the electric mirror.

I am not very car minded and I feel that the garage will probably not take responsibility for this, any advice anyone can give to support my argument when I go down to see the service department would be most most most gratefully received.

Many thanks

Barry

[cabcurtains]

The 3 warning lights could have been triggered by many different things, as simple as knocking a sensor or fitting the mirror without disconnecting the Battery. It will have recorded a fault code in the ECU which can be read and put out by a £20 eBay code reader. It would be good to know though what has caused it, is the car driving the same as before? Hopefully it is.

The dealer will want to charge you to read the code, personally i would speak to the bodyshop manager and press home the message that the car didn't have these lights on when it came in. And ask them to read the code at no cost to you.

Worse case scenario pop to a local independent garage and ask them to read the code, or if you have AA/RAC ask them to come out as your car has a warning light on....Just dont mention the light was on when you left the bodyshop.

PS Welcome to the club.

[tartangear]

HI Dale,

Many thanks for your reply. The fact that the fault code gets logged should hopefully backup my claim that they may have caused this, especially if the code pinpoints a fault area - although I wonder how close it gets to highlighting the fault area, for example - if it was caused by insertion of the wing mirror I can't imagine it would be so precise as to say this. If it also stored a timestamp then this would be helpful, do you know if it does? Because this would prove conclusively if the timestamp was within the period when it was in the bodyshop.

Funny that you mention if the car is running normally , my wife did mention that it was juddering a little - like when you put the foot down it doesn't react the same - this is a little subjective though and I just cannot think why bodywork and the changing of an electric wing-mirror could cause such an issue (unless it could be related to the reason for the lights being on). I don't know my way around an engine so it's a little alien to me, which is why I will be on the back-foot with the large dealer.

I suspect I've got an uphill battle trying to get them to look at this, i've had really poor service from them thus far, so if I had to pay i've got a local gargage that I use who I trust and always use. I will also approach the insurance company to complain, hopefully they can put some pressure on them.

Thanks for the welcome to the forum, it's seems like a very useful place to come for advice and to learn and share information.

Many thanks

Barry

[cmcgugan]

Hi Dale,

I had the same 3 lights come on while driving along the road. It was finally traced to the Glow plugs needing replaced. Try disconnecting the Battery, leave for 10 mins and the lights should go out ,they will probably come back on after a couple of weeks. It's amazing how many things seem to go wrong as the car comes out of the garage, got mine back today after MOT and it has now developed a whooshing noise when I accelerate. I stopped using Arnold Clark Ayr after they overcharged me by £200 for parking sensors.

Toyota Verso 2.0D4D 2005