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 :D

[narberth]

Yep living in narberth not Australia tho :)

[Bernard LPG]

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!:pillow:

[Bernard LPG]

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!:pillow:
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!

[narberth]

I asked the court for an adjounment for 30 days (which they granted) to allow time for the conciliation service to offer a solution.
As the conciliation process has progressed the garage seem to dig a deeper and deeper hole for themselves when they answer the questions raised by myself and the conciliation man. They have yet to respond to Bernards (many thanks :)Bernard :)) suggestions as to how the coil failure may have occurred and their servicing suggestions seem a bit desparate but most interestingly they have produced a job card for the service but NOT for the jobs in dispute! I have asked the obvious question via the conciliation service but I suspect that job sheet has been "lost". My hope (desparate perhaps) is that I will get an objective view of the technical aspects from the conciliation man and the judge will agree with me that somewhere along the line the garage failed in their duty of care to me. In a civil court the test is "balance of probablility" so I live in hope. I should add that I have never felt the need to go to court with anyone before and I have had garages looking after my cars for over 30 years.

Thanks to you all for support :)

[Simon]

Names of the Parties involved in this issue should not be disclosed whilst civil or legal action is being pursued. Discussing the case as you all have been to gain help is fine but in the interests of not ruining your case against them or lending yourselves to legal repercussions you should not name the Parties until the dispute has been resolved fully. Thanks everyone.

[narberth]

You are absolutely right Simon and thanks for saving me from myself and my too speedy typing fingers.:o

[narberth]

The conciliation people have come up with the suggestion of a settlement based on 1/3 rd of the cost. The logic is 1/3rd betterment (ie I got a better car out of the incident) and 50/50 on the remainder. I am minded to refuse and proceed to court. The logic of the settlement is:

1. Just becuse the car goes wrong in the hands of a repairer it does not mean the repairer caused the fault.
2. Coil packs do just fail of there own accord.
3. There is evidence of both ecu failures and coil failures on the MG ZT

If any one is interested in the detail of all of this I will PM the documentation.

[BigJacko]

Hmm... sounds a bit lame, in terms of the settlement, but the difficulty is the burden of proof. Going to a court MIGHT result in an even lower settlement, plus costs (because the proof will need to be that much stronger).

Item 1 may be true, but one needs to weigh up the likelihood of such coincidence, versus the likelihood of damage caused by incorrect procedures being followed. Unless the repairer can PROVE he followed the correct procedures, I'd say he was on pretty dodgy ground.

Item 2 is also true, but then lightning also strikes twice in the same place, sometimes, and people DO win the Lottery... every week. Again, the issue here is the likelihood of such coincidence, versus the STRONG PROBABLITY (imho) of the same failure happening as a result of improper procedures being followed.

Item 3 is irrelevant, frankly, and should have no bearing at all. Most ECU failures on the MG-ZT are probably due to the 'plenum-full of water' problem, and thus has nothing to do with the coil at all. And most coil failures (I would wager) are caused by the turning-on of ignition without the coil attached, followed by the MOSFET failure, followed by the coil being damaged by the now-damaged ECU. In short, the so-called 'history' (vis-a-vis the coil damage) is, if anything, an indication of the particular necessity of following the correct procedures to avoid damage. It is NOT an indication of a 'problem' with the car itself, but of those who are often called upon to repair it, not RTFMing...

However, all of this is going to get even harder to prove in a court of law, and will likely cost yet more time and money, and may still end up winning you nought. But then again.... who knows for sure? Certainly if there's any sort of 'right-of-appeal' within the conciliation system itself (such as pointing out the irrelevance of point 3 in terms of it being a 'defence' to the garage, in any event, and if anything, a 'point' FOR your side, rather than against it), then I personally would have a crack at that, but I'm not sure I would press much further, simply thru lack of tangible, hard evidence.

Annoying - but that's life - at least you've won something back, and frankly, that's a victory in anyone's book. Not 'full justice', I know - but against crooks and rogue traders, we're often lucky to get anything at all these days, aren't we?

Good luck with whatever you decide to do, and here's hoping nothing like it will happen to you again.