suspension

A lightened photo shows me that, imho, the springs are back to front.

thanks david if i take it back to the garage can he make me pay again ???????? down to my last now, thanks for any advice.

Definitely they should change them over for nothing. If the springs are not correct, you could argue that the car is not safe to drive.
With their equipment they should be able to swap them over in a hour....The mechanic should be able to take one look at the car and see that there is a problem with the work they have done.
If they try to make you pay, refuse and say you will take it further.
I remember having an issue with a Triumph Spitfire years ago. One call to the Office of fair trading and it was sorted in a day, however they are not an institution anymore, so an appeal to the Ombudsman, or CAB would be in order first, they would be free to contact.
Final solution would be a strongly worded solicitors letter.
I would be thinking about getting another garage to do the work, however, they making the first garage pay for it if it goes that far.
One final solution is to swap them yourself. It would be an easy job now that the original garage has removed the old shock absorbers...but its not really on if you have to do it...I would still want some compo off the garage.

Sundance

thanks sundance, if all fails with the garage can i lift the car sideon its and change the front to the rear and vice versa, i mean the shocks themselfs without having to dismantle them?,

also i am in the mg car club do you think this would help against the garage?

graham1 wrote: thanks sundance, if all fails with the garage can i lift the car sideon its and change the front to the rear and vice versa, i mean the shocks themselfs without having to dismantle them?,

This will depend on whether the spring and shocker were fitted as a unit or individually.
Did you supply the units ready to be fitted or did the garage assemble them?. In other words is it just the springs that are wrong or spring/shocker unit that is back to front.

If you just need to swap the complete unit then you could raise one side and swap them over easily. If you need to start figuring out if you have a mix, i.e. a front shocker matched to a rear spring etc. It could get more complicated

thanks i supplyed the springs and they swopped them over, but i sprayed them the same color as the car,

I have to partially side with the garage.


They did not purchase the springs, so should they be aware they are different?

Was it reasonable for them not to know the springs were different if the markings were painted over?

Is it reasonable that they should have measured the spring diameter before fitting?

Is there a difference in length that they should have noted?


An MG specialist should have known, but an independent garage...not so sure. A civil court, which is not technical, would be asking these questions.


Would go there nicely and see if you come to a satisfactory arrangement before getting the weight of the law involved. Its expensive to loose! :nonod:

Unfortunatly shocks are different front to back, so you will have to establish which are the front shocks, and which are the rear before just swapping around.

Doing springs on the TF is very easy (once they are out!) and no spring compressor is necessary, as spring is released before the top strut nut comes off thread.

is this the same for the rear.thanks

AFAIK, the only difference between front and rear springs is the rears are slightly thicker. Length is the same.

Removing and refitting both front and back doesn't require spring compressors.

Painting them won't have helped the garage. Also, I suspect that most non MG Specialists would tend to put the stronger spring on the front as 99% of the cars they deal with will be front engined.:dry:

thanks,been back to the garage, he said he would get a set of springs to compare with the ones i have,going back on friday, don't want to have to pay out on this any more than i already have, £2000 nearly. but she runs realy nice, and she gets the looks from lots of people, i am now back up and running after 3 days, :clap:

the garage said i would not be able to do ther rear springs myself as you have to move the tortion bar for the shock to come out is this correct?