Vote for Church Road Garage in the 2011 competition

Church Road Garage has again reached the regional finals of the Golden Garage competition, voted to this position by our valued customers. Voting for this section of the competition finishes on the 13th March. If you haven’t voted please vote for us and encourage friends and colleagues to vote to.  Follow this link where you will find we are one of five in the midlands region.

Audi A3 - Air Conditoning Compressor Electrical Connector

The Air conditioning was not working on this 2003 Audi A3. Diagnostics revealed that the Air Conditioning compressor was not operating.

Careful investigation revealed that although the switch, fuses and relay were OK the electrical feed was still not getting through to the compressor.

The fault was traced to the feed cable close to the plug that connects to the compressor itself on the front left hand underside of the car.  The insulation had been damaged for some time thus exposing the copper strands to the elements. These corroded eventually breaking the electrical circuit.

This was simply repaired by a soldered joint finished with heat shrinkable sleeving over it. The image shows the cable ends prepared prior to the spliced joint being made.

Mitsubishi Shogun - Brake shudder

This Mitsubishi Shogun came in with a shudder under braking.

LHS Front Disc after re-surfacing

The front brake discs both looked OK and measured well outside there minimum thickness.

It was decided to re-surface the discs on the vehicle using our specialised tool that is attached on to the brake caliper mountings.

Brake Disc re-surfacing tool

The left hand side disc re-surfaced fine with only a minimal amount of machining.

RHS Disc webs have corroded through !

When attempting to machine the right hand side one it was noticed that the outer side of the ventilated disc looked true but the inner side looked like it was running out.

After investigation it was found that the ventilation webs have corroded through all the way round  and the inner face was therefore not running true to the outer face. Pity we didn’t choose this one to start re-surfacing first !

This was obviously the cause of the brake judder solved by a new set of discs and pads.

Vauxhall Vivaro – Filter

The majority of lease vehicle companies subcontract their service, maintenance and repair arrangements to a management company called “1 Link” who arrange and authorize the necessary work at a local garage to the vehicle’s location. It has become increasingly common that when servicing these vehicles they are unwilling to authorize new parts according to the manufacturers service schedule normally stating “The filters were changed at last service, so just blow them out” !

An example is this air filter from a Vauxhall Vivaro booked in for a 20,000 mile service and below is an example of a new Toyota one for comparison. It would appear this is the original filter which has now done some 60,000 miles having been “blown out” by other garages at its previous services. On some occasions having not subsequently convinced “1 Link” to authorize replacement the vehicle  has been delivered with new filters at OUR cost!

So when you see that ex lease vehicle with full service history bear in mind that that garage stamp in the book may indicate an oil and oil filter change only. For this reason we always undertake a full service and MOT on any ex-lease vehicle before sale.

2007 Mazda MX5

Anti Roll Bar Linkage

This 07, 21,000 mile Mazda had its first MOT and was found to have broken anti roll bar linkages. The ball joints are fitted with a plastic cup with four plastic pins on its base. These locate through four holes in the linkage cup at each end and are “heat riveted” over !!!

As seen below the ball joints had broken free of the linkage bar. A bit of a weak design fault we think.

Audi Q7

This customers vehicle was found to have “siezed on” valve caps and is fitted with a Tyre Pressure Monitoring System (TPMS). As replacements are only available as a very expensive new assembly and require re programming of the vehicles electronic control modules we found and sourced replacement valves.

As can be seen below the old valve on the left is heavily corroded on this 3 year old vehicle probably due to this winter’s salted road’s !

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RHS Front Spring

Mercedes E Class – Vehicle came in for a suspension problem. This side looks a bit dirty but otherwise OK…

LHS Front Spring

…but I think we are going to need more than a new spring this side. The top mounting has completely broken. Those pot holes have a lot to answer for !

LHS Spring Mounting

A customers 2001 Rover 25 recovered from a motorway breakdown was found to be uneconomic to repair despite having only done some 51,000 miles. Initial investigation revealed no water in the radiator and evidence of overheating.

After dismantling the upper part of the engine the overheating had caused excessive combustion temperatures and pre-ignition, commonly referred to as “Pinking”, resulting in a rather large hole in No. 1 piston.

This electrical speed connection from the gearbox sender to the ECU had a small pin hole in its insulation allowing ingress of moisture leading to corrosion and eventual failure.

We had a 2005 Mercedes C Class in with a noisy front brake problem. Visually the pads were worn but still looked OK. After the pads were removed for further inspection the left hand side pair was as detailed in the pictures above.    As you can see here the brake pad material has broken away from its backing plate and the only item stopping it from being ejected was the wear indicator. A bit worrying !!!