Recently my nearside near wheel nearly came off - lost one nut altogether, another one sheared off and I lost control at 50mph - very scary - all this just 3 weeks after a garage had changed all my tyres They claim the time period is too long for it to be their responsibility. I can't find any other explanation. I'm at the point of going to arbitration to get the cost of the repair work back. Does anyone have experience of these matters? Will I end up with a big bill?
~Bilboboots
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Who (which garage) did it?
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Can't say as we're not supposed to 'name and shame' on this forum. Perhaps it's ok to say its a Nisan main dealer somewhere in the UK?
~Bilboboots
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About 15 years ago I had 4 new tyres put on my Fintail Merc by a "specialist" dealer at Beaulieu
We went for lunch a short distance away, but when returning to the museum it felt like I had a flat tyre, but after checking, found all tyres were OK.
I returned to the dealer - it turned out they hadn't tightened the wheel nuts on one side of the car. If we had gone straight-off down the motorway, I dread to think what would have happened once we'd hit a bend.
I made enquiries then about the garages behaviour - the summary was, that as there had been no accident, trading standards etc weren't interested.
I'm sure the dealer failed to do the job properly, but I doubt you will be able to prove anything after 3 weeks. Also, I bet somewhere on the receipt it will say you should check the wheel nuts after 1 week or similar.
MVP
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I checked my invoice and nowhere did it say that I should check the nuts at a later date nor has it been mentioned in any of the 3 letters I have so far received from the garage regards this issue. I understand now that checking the nuts after a short period is 'industry best practce'. I feel they have failed in their duty of care towards me as a non-expert customer - a blonde one at that! But I am wary of running up more costs to try and get my money back
~Bilboboots
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What cost have you incurred so far?
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Approx £70 plus I need a new wheel coz the holes got extended. I know it doesn't sound much but i'm a single mum and part-time teaching assistant so all the pennys count!
~Bilboboots
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Do you have motor legal insurance cover on your insurance policy?
With regard to industry best practice, I had my oil changed at Kwik Fit a couple of weeks ago. They took my wheels off, which I subsequently discovered - they didn't warn me or tell me. Their view (with which I do not concur) is that checking wheel nuts 50 miles after taking wheels off is not necessary.
I took the car back in, and watched him torque up the nuts again, and the bloke said he'd never done it for anybody before.
Oh yes, and get hold of a second hand wheel, won't cost you much.
Edited by Mapmaker on 05/08/2008 at 16:24
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yes I do. Just off to give them a ring...
~Bilboboots
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part-time teaching assistant so all the pennys count!
I hope you don't teach any child that the plural of penny is pennys!
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I hope you don't teach any child that the plural of penny is pennys!
L'escargot - I fear you may be out of touch with teaching English modern Britain
see
www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinio...l
and
tinyurl.com/6gpne6
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Welcome to the Forum bilboboots ! few enough female members (allegedly)
Don`t let these well meaning `old Meldrew types` put you off ;)
;);)
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thanks again everyone for your helpful comments. I'm newly resolved to get back to my letter writing (with a spell checker!). I'm writing to the Retail Motor Industry Federation's National Conciliation Service and will keep you posted if i get any joy.
~Bilboboots
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I hope you don't teach any child that the plural of penny is pennys!
I hope she does teach children the word 'that' is generally superfluous and should be left out.
Try it with L'escargot's sentence above.
Edited by ifithelps on 05/08/2008 at 23:05
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Had new brakes at National Tyres and on the receipt it states 'check the nuts after 100 miles'.
What I find worrying is that they offer this warning in the first place.
It appears no garage seems to want to accept responsibility for putting wheels back on and tightening the nuts sufficiently. Why not? Is there some inherent design fault with all wheels and nuts?
I've had all manner of cars over my driving lifetime, had the wheels off and swapped tyres backs to fronts etc and never once had a wheel nut come loose. When I put a wheel on, my nuts stay tight!
(stop sniggering you at the back!)
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Had new brakes at National Tyres and on the receipt it states 'check the nuts after 100 miles'.
We had this dicscussion the other day - fast-fit tyre places always seem to say this, main dealers never do.
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>>Is there some inherent design fault with all wheels and nuts?
Yes.
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>>Is there some inherent design fault with all wheels and nuts? Yes.
In that case I thank my lucky stars and I'm grateful for small mercies or whatever. In 50 years of motoring I've never yet had a wheel nut come loose.
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