Paging people wot knows Consumer rights

Ross is having problems with his car (Citroen C3 slushy box - serves him
right I suppose!)

For a while now the gearbox has been getting confused and refusing to change
out of 2nd.

At first I found out that disconnecting the battery and letting all its ECUs
reset cured it.

That worked for few months.

Then the fault got worse, and rather than sticking in 2nd, it got stuck in
2.5th. And the engine shut down.

The breakdown man managed to get it going again by pushing it a few feet, it
clonked into a gear, turned key, ECUs reset themselves again and all was
well.

Citroen garage said the ECUs said all was OK, no faults...

Anyway, happened again, pushing car for a few feet trick did not work this
time, so car went into garage for 5 days.

The garage first changed the fuse box, claiming it was corroded and that was
causing the problem.

(I've examined the old fuse box, *very very* slight corrosion on a couple of
fuse terminals, basically **** all wrong with it that a bit of contact
cleaner couldn't sort out)

They then said that the gearbox ECU had blown (it was fine when the car was
working prior to going into the garage) and that they needed to replace it.

They claim the corroded fuse box must have shorted some wires out which blew
the ECU (just how a 12V feed shorting to another 12V feed can blow anything
I'd like them to explain)

(I've examined the old ECU, it does look as if one component has let the
magic smoke out though)

After this little £400+ bill, the car has now broken down again in exactly
the same way, gearbox stuck, gearbox ECU confused, engine ECU shuts down
everything.

I'll bet a months wages that the clowns in the garage were simply poking
round looking for something obvious, saw the tiny, tiny bit of corrosion in
the fuse box, changed that to knock up the bill, blew the ECU when changing
the fuse box (most likely because they couldn't be arsed to disconnect the
battery or plugged it back in wrong), and have wrongly billed Ross for their
incompetence.

I suspect they haven't got a clue what they're doing, and they're just
changing components at random until the fault goes away.


My question is how can Ross prove that the ECU was working before it went
into the garage and get the money he paid for that back? And can it be proven
that the fuse box is in perfectly good order, and didn't need to be changed?


I really do loath places that try to take you for a ride, especially when its
a member of my own family they're trying to rip off.



And personally I certainly wouldn't take it back to the same place, they've
proven they are idiots who can't fix it. Any good independant Citroen places
round MK?

 

based on the number of times the oil leak on my C2 has been examined and
"fixed" you have summed up my experience of Citroen service. I had a reply
from the area manager which was of no use. This is for a car still in
warranty.