AA Recovery damaged car

Not mine, someone I work with lol

Motorway driving, noticed engine starting to overheat so she pulls over and calls AA. Recovery man comes out, finds a split in a hose (top rad I think) and a coolant leak. Fixed up the leak with some tape, said it was Ok to drive on with even though the remaining trip was ~2 hours, but should be taken to a garage next day. Repair report states the same.

She drives on, engine starts overheating again a few miles down the road. Pulls over again, calls AA man (the guy who came out first) who tells her it could be an air lock and to rev it hard to remove the air. She does this, and drives on for a bit more.

Car overheats again. Calls AA and gets a second recovery man out who inspects the car and says the head gasket has gone. She gets given a courtesy car to drive home in, and the AA stick her car on the back of a loader and bring it back to her house.

Next day she takes the car to a garage and lodges a complaint with the AA saying their advice to drive on caused excessive damage (i.e. being told to drive on, rev it etc). AA send out an inspector to view the car, who (in his written report) states that yes the head gasket has gone and standard damage is there, but the head itself visually appears intact. However the report also states further damage beyond requiring a simple skim could potentially be there, e.g. warped head. AA offer £250 as a goodwill gesture, then increase this to £390 to cover cost of a head gasket repair (which isn't the full cost but still) and admit that their initial recovery man gave bad advice.

Garage have since told her that yes the head is warped so requires replacing, pushing the bill to something over £1k. Now the AA are saying that due to the cost, they would write the car off as a book price of £1,000 and offered her £100 'salvage value'.

From what I've seen, the AA have pretty much admitted liability, in writing, that their man gave poor advice and didn't follow their procedures properly. The inspector who viewed the car at the garage states, again in writing, on his report that any damage beyond a simple head gasket pop would be the responsibility of the AA. But still they're refusing to budge on their initial offers of £390 repair, which doesn't meet the full repair cost, or £100 salvage.

Any ideas on the best way to persue this?

My Mrs noticed a waterleak in her Mondeo when she returned after shopping, and called the RAC. The RAC guy looked at it and condemned the radiator (which was the correct diagnosis it transpired).

However, he then suggested - drive it home gently and ill follow you. If the gauge goes into the red, pull over. Given the drive home was 15 miles, and via the motorway my Mrs refused and insisted he towed the car (which after a load of moaning he did). I replaced the radiator the following day and all was good.

My thoughts though (as above) - if she had driven the car home and the engine had cooked, would the RAC pay the bill and the answer is probably not so thankfully in this instance in didnt happen.

I think the AA should be fully liable, and it exposes how poorly trained the operatives are - with many offering advice that defies all logic to people that (often) do not know any better.

A further example would be the old Cavalier we had (ex Baxter) that was lowered on 17" rims and a CV outer seized up on the motorway causing hurrendous vibration at all speeds - the RAC diagnosis was a seized shock absorber...

Clearly the only avenue to pursue in via a solicitor I suspect.

a) is the head warped so far a skim wont save it?
b.) find similar cars and prices (if over £1K) and persue a better write off price to then write the car off and not take salvage, they can keep it.

I've also had to call out the AA over a split top radiator hose many years ago, which they just taped up, which naturally didn't last very long. It really surprised me, as at the time I assumed if you called them with exactly what was wrong, they might turn up suitably prepared to fix it. I was also hours from home too, on a Sunday evening, ended up taping it up myself (a whole lot better than they did), borrowed a big water container and kept stopping and topping up with water every 15 minutes or so.

If you keep complaining you should get a result in the end, just need to be persistent. About a year ago my mums car broke down and the AA too about 12 hours to take her home. They made her swap tow trucks 3 times for some dumb reason and forgot about her between one of the swaps. Took a fair bit of complaining but she did get free upgraded membership and some money too.

I once broken down in the yellow turbo on the roadworks on the M1 on the way back from PVS. I got the free recovery to their roadworks depot. While i was waiting for my green flag or spmeone to arrive their was an RAC guy their awaiting for another car to be recovered. Even though i wasnt with the RAC, the RAC guy helped me to fix the car- gave me spare hoses and losn of his tools. Before my recovery turned up I was on my home with my fixed car. The RAC are great.

Inthis instance though surely the AA must pay?!

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Originally Posted by Stuart

a) is the head warped so far a skim wont save it?
b.) find similar cars and prices (if over £1K) and persue a better write off price to then write the car off and not take salvage, they can keep it.

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Yeah, its shonked - garage are saying the head is banana shaped lol

Its a Mazda 6, not sure what the values of those are (forgotten the mileage/age!) - when the AA say 'write it off', I assume they are talking hypothetically here, as its not like an insurance write off where they buy it etc.

i dont know how an AA man is supposed to play this in future. The chances are in the first case the Head gasket was the original and primary cause of the hose failure.

If every AA man was forced to assume that every burst hose was head gasket failure, everyone would be annoyed that they couldnt be helped at the side of the road.

It's a tough call, obviously there are going to be times where the poor guy gets it wrong, but id have thought the frequency of it happening being relatively small, the AA would take the hit and shell out in full when it does go wrong.

if people are in doubt, or think they can do a better job themselves they should just refuse help and ask for the car to be dropped off at the nearest garage or at their home.

i agree with Stuart, yes the damage 'may' be worse than a skim...but is it?

surely you could buy a second hand head and skim it for £350?

Well she's got a second hand head for £160, but even with that the bill is still up round the £1k mark. Not sure how, as surely to replace the head its no different to refitting the original one? Aaaaanyways lol

I can kinda see her point in that the AA have said policy is for their guys to recommend driving to the nearest garage only, and the inspection report reckons its unlikely the bendy head was caused prior to the first call. So her argument is whilst the AA may not have caused the original overheating issue, they made it worse resulting in said bendy head, so should pay for the excess costs to repair. Hmmm

Of course the garage will say it needs a new head.....

And if a car is beyond economical repair due to their excessive screw ups then they should put her back in the position she was in before the call out, eg give her a grand and they take a ****ed car off her hands.

Failing that, have it repaired and sue the AA for damages

sounds like the AA just employ anyone with no motor vehicle qualifications then lol

i mean what kind of idiot says just drive it? with a overheating problem

free cover with bank yes, yearly subscription no

mrs merris old man is a recovery driver, so no need for the AA for me, and if my ****ter breaks down , the only place its going is down the weigh bridge!

my birds aunti had a stop ligbt come on for low oil pressure on her passat, she calls the aa and he says its ok to drive gingerly to the narest garage the aa guy told the garage what he had done and said. turned out to be a common fault with the oil pump which she pays for but soo as that was fixed the turbo went because of lack of oil and even tho the garage stepped up and said she drove it in on the recovery guys advice they still wouldnt stump up the £800 bill f u c k i n g t o s s e r s

iirc, recovery men for rac & aa do not have to be qualified mechanics.....

jack, any chance of you obtaining this warped head & putting a straight edge on it for the fun???? my guess is that it is nowhere near goosed, & they were fully prepared to clean it up & claim it was a new head, oh & the engineer disposed of the old one....... cos thats never happened before..........

advice for anyone with a turbo vw.... never ever run it dry or run it with the oil light on.. the turbos are made of pastry as far as i can tell...

advice for everyone.... buying a car that baxter has owned is always a risk.. replacing the body & running gear is a must lol lol lol lol

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Originally Posted by mowgli

advice for anyone with a turbo vw.... never ever run it dry or run it with the oil light on..

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good advice.

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Originally Posted by mowgli

jack, any chance of you obtaining this warped head & putting a straight edge on it for the fun???? my guess is that it is nowhere near goosed, & they were fully prepared to clean it up & claim it was a new head, oh & the engineer disposed of the old one....... cos thats never happened before..........

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lol I did think of that, but she got the replacement head herself. Its in the back of her other car at the mo (its either that or the old one, but theres deffo two floating about!)

I'm guessing only a very very minor bend would be enough to make it useless?

I think a 10thou deflection over the length of the head would be about the limit but will depend on the head and what the clamping force distrobution is. I wouldnt want to skim much more than that to correct a deflection without having to consider checking for clearence else where. Remember that if the face is warped then then whole head is warped by the same amount, i.e the cam journals are now forever out of line and the skimming will only restore the sealing face. If the head is cooked, the metalaurgy changes and the face softens and the firing rings will recede into the head and it will never seal regardles of how flat it is.

I still think the original issue was possibly due to head gasket failure, the system became rapidly pressureised and popped the hose. No one is ever going to know if the head was warped before or after the AA mans intervention.

Its the chance you take. Where do you draw the line with liability with something like this? People would complain if the AA wouldnt repair a simple burst hose, but then get upset if he makes a judgement call to get them moving and then turns out to be something else.

The compensation offered by the AA seems reasonable to fit a second hand head and new gasket set and restore the engine to where it was before, even if the head damage wasnt a result of their actions and occurred before hand.

Even if it wasnt head gasket failure, if the hose had ruptured and the coolant poured out, it is highly likely the damage to the head was done even before the temp gauge finally responded, then how long before it was noticed after that?

Its a tricky one on both sides. Im just playing devils advocate for the purpose of discussion.

it is well documented about my opinions over head damage... it usually gains new members too....lol lol lol lol

but having seen a ferrari testarossa(classic racer from the 60's??) head that had shed some valves, at a local race engine builders many years ago, and they aluminium welded it to build it up, then re machined it to get the ports & valve seats in.... and then saw it racing at donington.... i have a feeling that heads can take rather a lot of abuse... but then i'm not an nvq mechanic who got told at college that you should always skim a head no matter what....

I've had a kseries head anneal and collapse when some goons ran it lean and waaaaaaay over advanced to cause the coolant to soda stream lol cue one millington worked head going in the bin :(

ok, i'll give you that. given the fact that the k series engines simply weren't developed enough for production, and then they decided to use a tiny amount of coolant compared to all their rivals, means a std one is iffy, but a well modified one with a really bad map is bound to eat itself.

I think what the AA have offered is reasonable and even though they have admitted liability it might not be all their fault, i had a bottom hose split on my 1.7TD Nova, before the temp had even changed the head gasket had gone, the head was cracked in 3 places aswell as warped and the piston rings had melted simply because there was no water to get a temperature reading from.

I'd say you win some you lose some, feel sorry for her but unlucky.

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Originally Posted by mowgli

ok, i'll give you that. given the fact that the k series engines simply weren't developed enough for production, and then they decided to use a tiny amount of coolant compared to all their rivals, means a std one is iffy, but a well modified one with a really bad map is bound to eat itself.

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The fact I could heat it detonating though 3 walls and the fools doing a calibration lesson didnt notice was more annoying.

there is an awful lot to this engine mapping... the carb/dizzy advance retard setup was a product of several decades & 2 world wars worth of development

do you ever read dave walkers column in PPC??? i was reading an old one the other night where an expensively mapped race car was put on his rollers & checked.. he found out that it had the same exact ignition setting, no matter what engine speed, or throttle setting was checked... then his opinions on simply relying purely on 'on the road' mapping are suitable grumpy too.

This was in an engine calibration lecture/practical session that I had taught the tutor the week before lol.

I have read most of daves stuff, along with many more months of work with far more qualified and experienced folks in the oem industry ;)
On road calibrate for 80% of the setup and then the rest in a cold cell and rollers.

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Originally Posted by Stuart

This was in an engine calibration lecture/practical session that I had taught the tutor the week before lol.

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surely they would teach basic mapping on a standard engine, so they can get repeatable results & when it blows, they can get one from the scrappy

Calibration for **** sake.

It was what the uni had to hand when we needed to build an engine.