Answers to your car questions

QUESTION

Hello Dennis,

I am, like many, an avid reader of your column. I have been looking for a location to lodge a complaint to the MOT (Ministry of Transportation) regarding a company that certified a used vehicle that I had purchased in April. I have not found a site or contact to register my complaint. The issue that I had was that a day after my vehicle was delivered to my residence, I noticed an oil leak on my driveway. When I looked under the vehicle, there was a substantial amount of oil on the undercarriage at the left front of the vehicle. After calling and texting the sales manager for three days, they finally had a service technician call me, who said that they couldn’t have a look at it for about a week. After my insistence, that I would have to return the vehicle, if this was not fixed, they booked it five days later. I drove the vehicle back to the garage in Toronto. When I got there, the salesman said that he did not have any record of my appointment but since there was no one waiting to have the car looked at, he took it in. He said that he remembered this vehicle so I was now aware that he had certified it. His name was Saber. He put the car on the hoist and took off some covers and the left front wheel. After fifteen minutes, he put everything back and said that the problem was just a broken clamp so he put on a new one. He never started the vehicle to check that the leak was fixed and did not clean up the oil spill. As I was about to drive away, he said that there might be some leakage still due to the collection of oil under the car, which made me immediately suspicious. I drove the vehicle home and sure enough, the same large leak that was there from before, was still there. I called the dealership back and they said that they would get back to me. In the meantime, I was concerned about how well the safety was done so I was able to take it to the mechanic who we use for my wife’s car. By five o’clock that night, our garage called and say that the problem was a transmission coolant leak in the rad and that it was going to be about $1,000 to repair. They said that it was not safe to drive so if the other dealership was going to fix it, they would have to tow it back to their garage. Since I didn’t want to wait another week, I authorized my garage to order the radiator and check out the car to make sure that there was nothing more wrong with it. The original sales manager called me the next day and I told him that I was getting the car fixed at my dealership. They complained about it and said that they would have towed it back to their shop and had it fixed. I told them that I did not have any faith in the company that did the original certification and I wanted to get a second independent opinion. I sent the invoice off to them, for which I knew that they would complain. They called me about it and were offering 30% to 40% payment of the invoice. I said that was not reasonable to which they finally agreed to pay 50%. They also said that there were other options on how the vehicle could be fixed, which made my decision to take it to my garage, a good idea. After getting the rad back, I noticed it was packed full of dirt so it would not have been doing its job adequately anyway.

My issue is not the money but knowing that there are people licensed to certify vehicles who clearly should have seen the leak when it was certified and failed to correct the issue. My garage said that vehicles with any leaks would not pass a safety. They also said that the vehicle had new brakes but they used cheap pads, which will probably squeal in the future. Even though money is not an issue, I think that the dealership should be paying the full bill on this and that the shop that certified the vehicle should be investigated by the MOT. Sorry for such a wordy email but any information that you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

Paul from Guelph, Ontario

ANSWER

Under the Passenger / Light-Duty Vehicle Inspection Standard Manual, fluid leaks are put into three categories:

Section (1) 2.3. Categorization of Fluid (Liquid) Leaks

“Every reference to a fluid (or liquid) leak listed as a reject condition is categorized with respect to the level of severity of the leak: either level 1, level 2 or level 3. Each category is defined below. A vehicle with a leak that meets the defined level, or leaking more severely than this level, will cause the vehicle to fail inspection.

“level 1 leak” – means seepage of fluid that is not great enough to form drops.

“level 2 leak” – means seepage of fluid that is great enough to form drops but not great enough to cause the drops to fall during inspection.

“level 3 leak” – means seepage of fluid that forms drops that fall during inspection.

This kind of ambiguous wording makes it very difficult for the technician to make a call as to which level of leakage is present at the time of the safety. Seepage today may turn into a full-fledged leak after a few kilometres and according to this wording, the technician could be called out on it. The leak in your vehicle however, clearly would have been defined as level three and the technician should not have signed the safety until the leak was repaired. I fully understand your reluctance to take the car back to a garage that first passed the safety and then after an attempt to repair the leak, did not. Completing the repair however, has prevented the ministry from seeing first hand the level of leakage that your car had just after the safety. If it was determined that the leak was obviously at level three at the time of the safety, they would have been able to make a case against the garage and also been able to question the technician who had done the safety. The Ministry of Transportation cannot force a garage to do a repair but they certainly can stop them from doing any other safeties based on a blatant misread of an oil leak. Any attempt to go after a garage, based on a failed signed mechanical safety inspection, should be done prior to the completion of the questionable work so that the ministry can see first hand what was or was not done properly. If one has a complaint against the garage for a questionable mechanical safety being done, they can contact cvor@ontario.ca. The ministry will then email you back for information that they need and then log the complaint for their officer to investigate.

To my readers: Please indicate the town, city or village that you live in. Be advised that not all emails can be answered. Send your questions (including address) by email to: dennis.osullivan@cogeco.ca