Last week I took my 1997 Mitsubishi Carisma (34,000 miles) to the main dealer for its major service.
Having got the car back from the service I have noticed that sometimes it is impossible to get it into 2nd gear. It was absolutely fine until I took it for the service. It does not seem to make any difference whether the car is hot / cold.
I therefore took it back today and asked them to look at it.
They took it for a drive and admitted it was sometimes hard to get into 2nd gear and recommended that they stripped the gearbox to find the problem (they guy said it could be a syncro hub worn???). He said it would be 4 to 5 hours work to strip and will cost about £300 to investigate (plus the cost of rectifying the problem).
As part of the service the gearbox oil was changed - might this have anything to do with it?
The cam belt was also changed - do they have to lower the engine / gearbox to change this?
Call me a cynic, but I am convinced that something they did on the service has caused this problem.
I have told the garage that I will let them know whether I want them to go ahead.
What do you think I should do??
Regards
Jason
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Take it back again, politely, but firmly, inform them that it was OK BEFORE they got their grubby mits on it, and that you want it sorted, and no, you are not paying! Ask them if they adjusted the clutch cable, or bothered to refil the gearbox after they had drained it (or refilled it with used sump oil or something!). They may well have had to move the engine about for the cambelt, and may have bent or disloged a gear linkage.
I think it is very very unlikely that the synchro hub is at fault at only 34,000 miles - unless you make a habit of changing up into second at full power, or down at 60mph.
Would you trust the garage to rebuild the 'box anyway?
Richard
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I share your cynicism. Not on a Mitsubishi, but I cured a severe gear selection problem by changing the gearbox oil using the recommended oil. (Car had been owned from new so gearbox had factory oil in it) So, conversely, I would imagine that a fault could be created by using the wrong oil. Another (unlikely) possibility is that they disturbed the linkage to the gearbox. Although they'll probably deny any wrongdoing, it's worth asking them what oil they used and check this with the handbook. Is a change of gear oil part of the service? Most manufacturers dropped this from the service schedule years ago.
Hope this is of some help.
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I was speaking to a lady in a Ford service department a while back, she put her Ka into the bodyshop for repairs and when she got it back the gearbox wasn't too good and the cluctch felt different, at first they tried to deny any knowledge but then admitted that the car had fell of the ramps whilst they were working on it!!
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If they lowered the engine/gearbox then they would have disturbed the gear selector linkage. It is possibly not been refitted correctly or if they didn't remove it they may have strained/bent it.
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