Coil Pack short curcuit

[narberth]

I am in dispute with a garage about a coil failure. The car was collected by the garage for the inlet manifold to be replaced. At that time it was running perfectly apart from a noise from the inlet manifold (hence the repair) while at the garage a coil short curcuited and damaged the ECU leading to another huge bill. The garage say it is just bad luck that the coil happened to fail while they had the car. Is it usual for a coil to fail with no warning?

[Bernard LPG]

They probably switched on the ignition with a coil not connected. The ECU doesn't like this situation and the MOSFET driver fails in ON state. When the coil is later connected then it is energised all the time instead of being pulsed. It then burns out.
Don't ask how I know this, it's too embarrassing.

[narberth]

Thanks Bernard that sounds like exactly what happened to my car. Do you know of anywhere I might find documentation to support this diagnosis?

[black olive]

can't help you with your query but are you from narberth, passed through there a couple of times on route to Folly farm with the kids whilst on holiday, I alwasy think it sounds like an Australian place name

[narberth]

Yep living in narberth not Australia tho

[Bernard LPG]

Originally Posted by narberth

Thanks Bernard that sounds like exactly what happened to my car. Do you know of anywhere I might find documentation to support this diagnosis?

No, unless a report on my company letterhead would serve?
The stupid part of all this is that we knew about this sort of problem 30 odd years ago and designed it out of the circuitry. As so often happens, a new generation of designers comes along who only have disdain for those who have gone before and so make the same mistakes all over again.

In my opinion, it's really a design shortcoming as a component really ought not to fail due to a disconnection which could happen at any time, connectors being the weakest link in any system. Your mechanic could well argue that there was a faulty connector, which would lead to the same result.

[narberth]

Thanks again Bernard A report on your headed notepaper would certainly be usefull At present the argument is going to National Conciliation Service and, if that does not resolve it, Arbitration or court. If you have no objection to those bodies I would be gratefull for your help

[narberth]

Having been backwards and forwards with the conciliation service we are due in court on Tuesday 15th. The latest suggestion from the garage is that my car was not maintained properly because I instructed them to carry out an "A" service and the car should have had a "C" service. I have no idea what the difference is between any particular type of service. I ask the garage to service the car and i expect them to do what is required. Is that unreasonable??

We shall see what the great british justice system makes of it all!

[Bernard LPG]

Originally Posted by narberth

Having been backwards and forwards with the conciliation service we are due in court on Tuesday 15th. The latest suggestion from the garage is that my car was not maintained properly because I instructed them to carry out an "A" service and the car should have had a "C" service. I have no idea what the difference is between any particular type of service. I ask the garage to service the car and i expect them to do what is required. Is that unreasonable??

We shall see what the great british justice system makes of it all!

Service is a complete red herring but unfortunately those sitting in judgement will most certainly not have any technical savvy whatsoever, or even common sense, and will nod their heads in agreement and find against you!

[BigJacko]

If you (as you say) have no idea about what type of service you require, you are, by definition, placing yourselves under a duty of care of the service-provider (ie, the garage) to use their professional skill to tell YOU what service you require!

Surely, they are not idiots, and can tell you, by virtue of the age of the car, its mileage, and the history you provide (in terms of knowledge of past services) when you brought the car to them for a service.

It then falls to them to show due care to ensure that you get the RIGHT service, appropriate to the car's particular state. That is, after all, what one would reasonably expect of ANY garage, surely?

If they are arguing that you specifically requested a "TYPE A service", not only does this suggest you have knowledge of the various MGR service nomenclature (which you don't) this also implies that you're instructing them to cut corners, and provide a service level inappropriate for the car's state - in which case, their duty of care should have made them ALERT you to that shortcoming, BEFORE providing the service. They're still guilty, imho.

You could also argue that when you asked for "a service", they've rather stupidly interpreted this as a request for an "A service" - and if they were stupid enough to provide an A-level service on that basis without warning you of its shortfall, they're still failing in their duty of care, imho. They should have clarified the exact requirement, and alerted you to anything that was at odds with their professional expectation.

Frankly, it looks like they're just wriggling on a 'side point' in an attempt to distract from the fact that they've screwed up on the 'main point', and are attempting to blur the issue. Whether you asked for an A-level service, a B-level service, a C-level service or a punch up the bracket is frankly IRRELEVANT. The issue is whether an appropriate level of care was demonstrated in the completion of the task of an INLET MANIFOLD REPAIR - which has nothing at all to do with any sort of standard mileage/time-related maintenance service.

It's a repair - and should have been carried out in such a way as to not have blown these coils. Clearly, the fact that the car has been returned after said repair, with this 'follow-on damage' which can very easily be linked to a failure to follow the appropriate and documented procedure for the repair, is damning evidence, circumstantial or not. I think any reasonable conciliation service need to be told that the chance of such failure happening 'out-of-the-blue' are far, far less than the chances of such a thing happening as a result of an inappropriate procedure being conducted. Statistically, they've been caught 'red-handed', to all intents and purposes.

Moreover, I have every suspicion that most likely, you probably didn't even NEED a replacement inlet manifold chamber at all. I'd lay money on it being a blown/damaged VIS motor as the principle cause - and that would cost a mere fifty-to-a-hundred in terms of parts (plus an hour of labour, I expect) to verify as the cause of your inlet manifold rattle. I'd also be interested to know whether they actually bothered to change the VIS motors when they changed the manifold, or whether they reused them (because if they reused them, chances are you'd be back with the same fault inside six months).

I hope you manage to nail it to these scumbags (if I'm allowed to say that in this forum), cos I think you're being given the shaft. I would dearly love to know who this garage is, so I can make sure I avoid them but I expect you're probably not allowed to do that on the forum (or due to the fact you're still in conciliation) - so I guess you'd better keep schtum... at least in public, for now.

Good luck!