 Dodgy diagnosis
I have composed the following letter, which explainds in full what my complaint is, can anyone give me any advice if there is anything I should add/omit.
I am writing because I am somewhat disappointed with the way the breakdown of the above vehicle was handled by your company. Initially my car had a breakdown in June 2006 and was recovered to ******** Volvo. This was sorted quite quickly, no parts were replaced and no definite fault was found with the car. I suspect very little was actually done to the car despite being presented with a bill for over £70. On collection I was informed that as it was an intermittent fault the ‘repair’ could not be guaranteed. Within two weeks the same fault reoccurred, the AA were called and the AA tech investigated the problem and came to the conclusion that the cam shaft sensor was at fault but should be tested before replacement. The car was again recovered to Bridgend Volvo Specialists, the finding of the AA technician were related to the reception staff. This was on the 26th July 2006. I was told at this point that their diary was full and the car could not be looked at straight away but would be looked at when they could. I telephoned on Saturday 29th July and asked if any progress had been made. I was told no but they would call be back on Monday, nobody did. I telephoned again on Wednesday 2 August and was told ‘we think it’s the ECU as the computer wasn’t able to communicate with the ECU on my car’ I again mentioned the Cam Shaft Sensor and was told that it had been tested and was OK. I was then told that the next course of action was to wait for another T5 to come into the workshop and see if the ECU from my car worked in that. I heard nothing after that until 22nd august when my wife received a telephone call asking if the car could be collected as it was taking up space in the workshop. I called back in the afternoon and asked to speak to Jason. I was told he was out on a test drive and would call me back on his return. He didn’t call back. I telephoned again the next day and spoke to Jason who told me that they had done as much as they could and unless we had a new ECU then could do no more and they needed the workshop space so the car had to be moved. I called another Volvo dealer, related the story so far and they agreed to have the car to see if they could locate the fault. I called Jason back and arranged to collect the car on Friday 25th august. The car was recovered to Stratstone Volvo in Cardiff at considerable expense as the AA has said that because the car had been recovered to a garage that I nominated they were unable to recover it a second time. On booking in on the 25th the service desk clerk told me that they would be able to look at it on Tuesday 29th August after the bank holiday. On Tuesday 29th Stratstone called me and said they had carried out a full diagnostic and the fault code 3-1-4 was retrieved from the ECU, camshaft position sensor signal absent, permanent fault. The faulty camshaft position sensor was replaced and the car was now starting and running fine. I collected the car the next morning and it is indeed running fine.
What I am finding it difficult to understand is that although *********** had my car for 31 days you were unable to diagnose the fault as you computer was unable to communicate with the ECU in my car. Even though the fault had already been diagnosed by the AA. Yet the diagnosis equipment at Stratstone diagnosed the fault straight away. If I had taken your technicians diagnosis and advice at face value and had the ECU replaced which I am informed would have cost between £600 and £700 depending on the type of ECU, yet this still would not have cured the fault and more expense would have been incurred. So in summary it appears to me that ******** Volvo had my car for 31 days based on a computer misdiagnosis. So the question I need answering is, is your computer diagnosis equipment malfunctioning or is there some other explanation?
I am very annoyed at he fact that I have lost one month of my road fund licence, paid for on months insurance not to mention the loss of use of my car due to a fault (that had already been diagnosed) that was never going to be diagnosed by a faulty computer. In addition when the car was collected on the 25th August the battery was flat and not capable of turning the engine over, both front window were left open and the interior was covered with a thick layer of black dust, as was the exterior and the near side door trim had black grease smeared on it. As you can imagine I am extremely disappointed with the level of service from *****************. | 
