Sparkplug Hell!!!!

[mark__uk]

My partner has a massive problem with her car; it is a ford escort P reg and only done 55,000 miles
The car has been working fine since new and yesterday it started to get very jerky and you could smell petrol, so we took it to a local garage and he said it was the sparkplugs.
So we thought that’s ok (a nice easy job) about 3 hours later we get a call from the garage saying that 1 of the sparkplugs have snapped inside the engine and all that’s left is the tread and now they want £600 to get it out because they have to strip down the engine.
I could not believe this.
Can someone please tell me is this a total stitch up by the garage or will it really cost that much to put right?
The only problem is now the garage said the car is not drivable now, so the car is now stuck up at the garage.

Can someone please help me?

 

[Belle427]

i think they should have contacted you when they realised the plug was siezed and informed you of the consequences if they carried on,not sure where you stand now but yes 600 sounds way over the top for a partial stripdown

 

[andyandy2]

It might be worth speaking to an engine reconditioning specialist, sometimes it is possible to remove them without a major strip down, but can be a trial and error process, (i.e. it may or may not work) depending on which engine it is the plugs may be quite difficult to reach though, £600 does seem high though, its basically the same labour for a cylinder haed gasket change ( + the time taken to remove broken plug from head ) Broken spark plugs are more likely with the long change interval of modern engines i.e. 40,000 or 60,000 between plug changes, corrosion between dissimilar metals steel and aluminium alloys causes the problems over time

 

[Stivino]

Also, because of the design of modern engines the plugs are usually set down a long hole making them a inaccessible by hand. This leads to difficulty for some people when refitting therefore a cackhanded person might have no problem cross-threading a steel plug into an alloy head. That's ok if it goes in but when it comes to getting it out, ouch!

 

[^neo^]

The older fords were well known for this, the spark plugs rust and sieze into the head
Not really any other way out of it other than taking the head off unfortunately

 

[John M]

My partner has a massive problem with her car; it is a ford escort P reg and only done 55,000 miles
The car has been working fine since new and yesterday it started to get very jerky and you could smell petrol, so we took it to a local garage and he said it was the sparkplugs.
So we thought that’s ok (a nice easy job) about 3 hours later we get a call from the garage saying that 1 of the sparkplugs have snapped inside the engine and all that’s left is the tread and now they want £600 to get it out because they have to strip down the engine.
I could not believe this.
Can someone please tell me is this a total stitch up by the garage or will it really cost that much to put right?
The only problem is now the garage said the car is not drivable now, so the car is now stuck up at the garage.

Can someone please help me?

Lets see here, they want you to pay to rectify their mistake ? ......... Get your self down to the Citizens advice, & see what swhat from a legal standpoint