car faulty after garage work

[aka719]

I recently took an 03 plate rover 25, deisel, to a small local garage to have a new alternator fitted,

when we got the car back the battery was flat and the alarm soon started sounding,

we got the car started with jump leads, and i took it for a short run to put some charge into the battery.

 

On my return we noticed that the boot light would not go off so i disconected it,

also the boot open light on the dash stayed on even though the boot was firmly shut.

 

Later that night we had to use the car to go to the hospital as our baby was not well,

after starting the car i noticed that the boot open light was still on and the oil light was now staying on aswell,

after returning home I said i would check the oil the next day.

 

I didnt check the oil the next day as our child took priority over everthing and i also thought that it might only be an electrical fault.

 

The next time the car was used was a day or so later by my girlfriend the car broke down

 

after I investigated i found that oil was gushing out, we managed to get it back to the small local garage who looked at it the next day,

they informed us that an oil pipe had corroded,

we told them to fix it even though the oil loss may have caused some serious damage.

 

I have now found out that it was the 'vacum pump oil pipe' that is conected to the alternater that had supposedly corroded !

surely if this was the case this should have been seen when changing the alternator ?

 

The garage has told me they have had difficulty finding a new one so have welded the old one and re fitted it,

again surley if it was corroded how have they managed to weld it ?

 

I have not collected the car yet so have not seen the work done, but i do know the engine is sending a lot of smoke out of the exhaust so i assume a lot of damage to the engine.

 

Where do i stand, should the corroded pipe have been seen ?

if not would they have been able to weld the corroded pipe ?

or have they just not fitted it back properly when fitting the new alternator,

is it worth getting an independant inspection ?

thanks

[afcwben]

Surely depends on what you want them to check, it seems you wanted the alternator replaced and they did that. If they should have checked the pipework that leads to it then it could be said they they should check all things that connect to the oil pipe and so on and so forth in the end check the whole car over. I think you will have a problem on pinning this on the garage

[traffer]

The pipe that appears to have corroded does contain oil under pressure. The garage is probably right that it is not readily available. The pipes would have had to be detached/disturbed when the alternator was removed and refitted. If corroded, then the pipe would have failed soon anyway. It would be difficult to detect if the pipe was abusively broken or kinked by the alternator replacement as this would be nicely covered up by welding!

Leakage due to corrosion may be just a pinhole that is not too noticeable.

If there is no sign of welding of the pipe then it is fairly obvious that it was not refitted correctly.

 

Running an engine with the oil light on is not a good idea at all.

 

The boot light switch issue is a common problem. it may be the switch leaf in the boot latch or shorting wires where the wires pass form the body to the hatch.

[Andrew-P]

I suggest you register on www.mg-rover.org to get advice on where to get parts and about the cars generally. They have saved me a fortune on my Rover 75

 

Very few parts are hard to get (with the exception of some body parts) although the pipe you mentioned seems to be on back order or unavailable right now.