My sister has a mate who has a Puma and it's been away getting modded for quite some time now, originally just a superchip, then a couple of other bits(a few months I'm talking!!) Apparently the other day, the 'Tuner' was rolling road testing it and blew the coont up!!!!!!!!!!!

The thing is she has never actually had the car back since she gave it to them. Now they are expecting her to pay even more money to get it sorted!!!!!!

I am just seeing what everyone else thinks, as the problem in no way can be attributed to her as she's never had it back, so it's obviously something they've done wrong.

I'm no 'expert' but surely it's got to be quite a feat to blow up an N/A modern engine these days, and not spot it whilst on the rolling road!!

What do you think??????

By the way the 'tuner' is nobody from PF!!

 

Personally i'd tell them to fix it or i'll be taking them to court. Its clearly 100% their fault as your sisters mate hadn't had the car back to do anything wrong to it. Also its a puma with a zetec, how the hell do you wreck one of those unless you've done something wrong? I had a 1.25 fiesta and it took 60K of abuse without missing a beat.

 

fook thats bad shit ,i would be going mad but what did she request other than the chip

 

I'm not sure exactly what else she had done, but they said to her "it made 200 bhp, before it blew!!!" I do think she's had a fair bit done...

In my eyes, whatever she's requested to be done, hasn't been delivered!!!

 

Not enough info to really give an opinion sorry Kev. I know everyone is going to say its the tuners fault but there may be alot more that we don't know. Also over 200bhp is a pretty serious state of tune for a 1.7 n/a motor

Get the facts though, as it does sound interesting

 

I agree with Lee (Porkie), need ALL the facts first.

Its all too easy to side one way or the other !


Having said that,
IF a car in my care went wrong, I would feel honour bound to sort it out.

 

As said I'm not sure on all the facts, but I'll get on the case and find out!!!

 

Yes but if the tuner has kept the car and the engine has gone bang while they have it,surley it cannot be the owners fault.

Fair enough if they had the car back and was using it,then you would be fooked.


Dave.

 

true, but then what if it was an underlying problem?

 

What about if the owner said, "get me 200bhp"... the tuner said "it will need to rev to 9k and I don't think the standard rods are upto it, you need better internals" The owner said "no, they will be fine, I want to risk it!"



whose fault then?

I know hardly anything about the 1.7 Puma engine, or the facts or this case.... but then again nor does ANYONE on here (the case facts that is)

It really might not be the tuners fault, innocent until; proven guilty!

 

Porkie is right here, we need all to facts to get some fair advice!

 

Right, I have an update.......

First off the car went in for a super chip, even so they had it quite a while...

she then had it back for two weeks........

Then it went back in for NOS to be fitted

It was then that they melted it on their rolling road whilst setting it up!!!!!

So they have now said they need another Ł1500 to fix what they broke!!

I still think they should sort it!!!!!!!!!

 

id be thinking that id expect the company to put it right aswell.

if they melted it whilst setting it up who's to know how far out it could have been on the fueling or even NOS at any point other than them, they could have well and trully mucked it up.

its an awkward one, but hope it works in her favour as a final outcome!

 

If they claim to be NOS installers and take on that job then I would expect that a nitrous installer of average skill level to be able to setup the system on a rolling road without melting the engine. I also view the melting of the engine to be completely down to the nitrous installers incompetence and they were not operating the rolling road/monitoring the engine properly at the time.

This obviously relies on a few things, did they supply the nitrous kit brand new? Did they say they were able to install it? Did she make any special requests that they were not sure they could fulfill?

From the facts you have said then that's how I would expect a court to see it anyway.

Edit: This is how I remember my Engineering Law lecturer putting professional negligence at uni. If a defendant claims to possess a skill or profession of any kind, then they must excercise the average competance of a member of their profession/trade. Failure to do so is negligence on their part. This applies to all skills such as plumbers, brain surgeons and car tuning companies.

Obviously she would then need to find some professional witnesses to say that they do not melt every car they fit nitrous to

 

A mate of mine took his Vectra to a main Vauxhall dealer once to have an ECU fault sorted. Admittedly it did have issues namely a MAJOR oil leak which caused it to lose nearly a litre of oil a day, it wasn't burning it, it was dropping it straight on the floor which you'd have thought they'd of noticed seeing they had it for over a week, anyway they got the ECU fault sorted, took it for test drive and seized the engine (obviously forgot to check the oil). They washed their hands of the whole situation and admitted no responsibility whatsoever, leaving my mate severly out of pocket. He tried to take legal action but was told that he stood no chance and would just be a waste of money on legal fees

 

StevieP, this is a very different case to the Puma one! I agree with the legal advise he was given and that the ECU fault was the least of his worries if it was losing a litre of oil a day

 

The point of it is though, that the car was the responsibility of the dealer whilst in their custody and as such the test driver should of checked the fluid levels before carrying out the test drive, regardless of what the vehicle was taken in for especially as it was so obviously losing so much.

 

dont some tuners make you sign a disclaimer when putting your car on the rollers?????????????? to protect themselves from people putting a old smoker on the rollers then trying to claim when it goes pop??????????

 

i would not fit nos on a n/a car or a turbo car dont trust it,its a cheap way of getting
more bhp

 

Added to my original post.

 

Well this sounds like its between the garage doing the work and the Nitrous kit supplyers and not the customer with the Puma. If the garage are saying its the kits fault, thats slander as nitro can be fitted long term reliably, if he doesnt blame the nitrous company, then he is liable as the car should have been checked thoroughly for worthyness of that sort of work first, fuelling correct, engine running corretly, etc, such as MSdevelopments etc would. Surely not the customers fault if the car was fine? Any other input guys??? This is just my opinion and not a legal lawwrite up thingy

 

That's exactly what I thought, but in this case, the car has been modified (nos added) before it went on the rollers.
It might be that the only way to prove it's the tuner's fault is to take the engine apart and prove that it mechanically failed due to the nos installation.

Tough one as always though.

BTW, when someone states a car is "the responsibility of the dealer whilst in their custody and as such the test driver should of checked the fluid levels before carrying out the test drive", do you really expect a dealer to check everything in detail before taking the car for a spin ? Surely that would take hours (fuel pressure, plugs, oil, gearbox oil, diff oil, AFR, etc.....) and add ŁŁŁ's to every job they do.

My tuppence - good luck Kev.

 

kjc300, Does she now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So ive even LESS of a chance gettin her now then?!?!?!

Pete...

 

i'm gonna take a wild stab in the dark and guess at 2 things...

1) the rolling road place has no practical working knowledge of nitrous

2) they leaned off the fueling coz their metering stuff was reading really really rich.

3) it was showing good AFR

4) suddenly it melted

5) they suddenly realise that if they knew how nitrous oxide worked that their monitoring equipment was useless and they leaned it off waaaay too much



like i say thats a guess, but its actually quite common for people to do this that dont understand nitrous... lol

the other posibility is that it was a NOS, NX, etc. kit and the pars are so shite they failed again, thats quite common too

 

if it was me in this suituation i would found out the law with the tuner/garage being covered by public liability damage for any work they undertake that goes wrong or any damage that occurs.

Then have the engine inspected by independant engineering firm and a report filled out on condition of the rest of the engine and probable reason for engine failure. Present the report to garage who were fitting the Nos kit and supposed to set it up and see what they are willing to do about it. (as from info given it does seem t be their fault)

If not then its solictor and small claims court, but you would have to pay out for the engine rebuild before you could try and claim it back

 

Hopefully she's gonna kick up a stink about it!!!

It's nothing to do with me as she's a friend of my sisters, fair play to her though wanting to have all that done to her motor!!! shame she weren't a bit better looking!!!!

 

id be straight down to the nearesy citizens advice (free ) see what they say. if they say get a specialist solicitors, id do that. obviously speak 2 the garage 1st, but sound like they dont want 2 accept responsibility.

was it 200bhp b4 or with the nos? i think its quite easy 2 get the puma engine 2 160ish-170, but 200

 

with Nos!!

 

A lot depends on how the engine went "pop".
In motor-trade law "the condition of the motor vehicle is the owner's responsibility at all times, unless separate warranty is entered into".
It's all down to "duty of care", whether with or without negligence.
"With" would have been a situation such as Jim mentioned.
"Without" would be if there was an underlying problem with the engine that the tuner wasn't aware of.
The arguments in court would be based around whether the tuner "being an expert or specialist in his field, SHOULD have known or ascertained"

Hope this helps