Gasket, Manifold & Catalytic convertered replaced due to missing bolt

[Hermandp]

Bought our Aygo in 2013 from the Arnold Clark branch in Aberdeen.  Have been very happy with it so far and recently came across the following problem.

When we bough the car there was a bolt missing that would have held the manifold correctly against the engine.  Unfortunately it didn't  The only thing I can work out is that over the past three years it slowly got more noisier and noisier without us realizing it.  At about +- 35000 miles the there was a real loud noise suddenly and when parked up at traffic lights could smell fumes/vapour through the air vent.   Once on the open road again the car was much quieter and originally I thought that there might have been a problem with the exhaust.  Couldn't find a problem and also took it to a local garage whom checked it out, but couldn't find a problem. 

I then booked it in with the Aberdeen branch.  The vehicle was dropped of on the Saturday for them to start working on it the Monday and by Tuesday I haven't heard anything from them.  If you can avoid the garage service in Toyota Aberdeen please do so as they clearly don't care about keeping customers up to date with what is happening with their vehicles.  It seems to be also inherently a Aberdeen problem i.e customer service unless they are selling a vehicle.  Probably related to the oil industry.  Eventually the Aberdeen branch did inform me that they have ordered the replacement parts which was the gasket and manifold.  My answer was that I assume that if they ordered parts without informing me that it should be under warranty then.  At least my assumption was correct.

Still I had to chase them again.  They did however call me back on the Wednesday to let me know that they also had to order a new catalytic converter.  Eventually the car was ready for collection on the Thursday.  Can't remember actually when I picked It up but only then for the first time was I able to get to the bottom of it with the service manager whom told me that it was due to a bolt missing.  I did ask if this could have been removed in a previous service and she said no as they could clearly see that it never was bolted into it's hole the first place. 

I then raised a complaints with the customer services requesting a extension of the warranty of the vehicle.  Again the same old problem where after a week I still had no reply.  My case manager doesn't seem to like to keep people up to date even if it's due to the Aberdeen branch not responding to her.  This complain took about 3/4 weeks to resolve.  What I have forgotten about was that the vehicle has a five year warranty so a extension of warranty was refused. 

What was more upsetting is the fact her attitude by saying your car was repair under warranty and insinuating so what is your problem.  They are now trying to put all the blame on the service manager whom has left and that she was one of the reasons she said it took so long to resolve as well as for the problems in the branch.  The case manager must have tried really hard. 

One of the reasons they say they also can't do anything further is that the Aberdeen garage never took a picture of  the missing bolt before they started working.  Nothing like having slopey shoulders attitude  to say we can't prove where it went wrong and we don't want to take any responsibility.  Not even a apology about sorry for the inconvenience caused or we will see if any other vehicle might have the same problem and keep you up to date.  They should make that the new motto from the customer services "We don't keep you up to date and avoid " and point fingers at everyone else.

I can understand that 1out of a 1000 vehicles or more might have a problem such as us with the bolt missing which was most likely direct from the manufacturer but how I was told there was nothing they could do any further and neither that they wanted to left me gobsmacked.

I waited a few days to write this so at least I am a lot calmer now.  Hopefully this doesn't happen to anyone else.

[FROSTYBALLS]

As with any warranty repair, the manufacturer is reliant on the dealer identifying the issue, to provide an audit trail (which may include photographic evidence) to support the warranty claim. If the dealer didn't supply an adequate audit trail, the manufacturer may not be able to confirm the exact cause of the issue, and further action by the manufacturer may well be limited due to missing information.

As regards the requested warranty extension, the original new car warranty was still valid, the car was repaired under the new car warranty, and it is unlikely this issue will occur again on your car.

[mickburkesnr]

You've described a common problem with the Aygo/107/C1, and that's the catalytic convertor going in to the manifold of the engine. It happened on mine, albeit after 58,000 miles. The weld that joins the manifold pipe in to the catalytic convertor breaks after time, resulting it a horrible sounding engine and fumes etc in the cabin. But you did better than I did and got genuine Toyota parts on your car. I didn't, I bought a cheap replacement from ECP and after a year that catalytic convertor has collapsed.

[DexterousDex]

I have recently experienced a similar sounding problem on my Aygo.  

About 6 months ago, I noticed the engine was occasionally louder, when accelerating.  But it was intermittent.  Then a couple of months or so ago, I noticed an exhaust smell coming from my air vents, but only when stationary.  I had a service coming up, so I decided to leave it until then to sort, and in the meantime kept my air vents recirculating the air in the cabin.  About a month ago, I was in traffic, and I could hear a rattling sound, which I initially assumed was coming from a different vehicle.  Then I realised it was coming from mine!  It sounded like pebbles were being thrown around inside the silencer.  I thought maybe the exhaust had fallen off!  I nursed the car home, let it cool down for a while, and got under it to have a poke around.  The exhaust had some notable play in it towards the front, where it connects to the catalytic converter, and I realised the entire converter was moving up and down slightly!  From above I could see a crack between the exhaust manifold and the catalytic converter.

This was when I noticed the missing nut!  I had assumed the nut had just worked itself loose, but it's also possible it was just never put onto the car in the first place.  I put a new nut onto the bolt to hold the converter down, and this stopped all of the up and down movement.  I started up the engine, and the rattling was gone!  I ordered a new manifold/catalytic converter, which arrived a couple of days later, and I replaced it myself (I happened to have all the tools required, and was interested enough to have a poke around in the engine bay).

Attached photos were taken while I was working on the car.  

The silver nut on the right hand side is the replacement nut that I had put in a couple of days earlier.  Do you know if this is the same nut that was missing on your car?

Here's the broken part once removed from the car:

As you can see, my converter had completed split apart from the exhaust manifold!

The new converter seems to be working just fine (the first test drive after replacing the converter was the sweetest I've had in a long time), and my car has recently passed its MOT, so I'm happy for now...