Ok back story.

Had a judder at >2k revs driving home Tuesday so limped back into town and garage stuck it on their reader. P228C low fuel pressure.

Prior to this I told them I ran the tank almost dry on my way in that morning before filling up. Confirmed my thoughts that I've probably dragged crap out of the tank into the filter.  Garage cleared the code and booked me in for a new filter today.

Car drove home fine Tuesday evening, didn't go anywhere yesterday and car plays up again on way to uni today. Left with garage.

As an afterthought I asked them to fit a full set of Bosch wiper blades as well. They said no problem.

5pm (left with them all day) picked up the car, all done, taken for a spin and seems good. Also out additive in the filter after first prime to help flush out the crap. Also said wipers were done. £184 for diesel, air filter, fuel additive, wipers and code read Inc vat.

I go outside to the car and notice that the rear wiper is still an "old" style wiper abd the front are "aero" style. This was the config it had had before but I expected them to replace them all as aero style. I lifted the drivers wiper and ran my fingers down the blade and they came out black. Same for other wipers.

Went back in and asked "did he remember to fit the wipers?" Told yes and asked why and explained as above. Front desk guy says "fair point" and goes outside to have a look. Cones back and says the wipers are definitely new and he remembers putting them in the lads hands at the time.

Foolishly not asking to see my old wipers or the boxes the new ones came in or the receipt from their supplier, I shrug and drive home. They do seem to clear a bit better than before but are quite smeary and leave trails in certain places. I had valeted the car the day before, including an aliens blood treatment on the windows.

Are they telling me porkies? I think I've got dash cam footage which I'll trawl through but I wasn't aware that new wipers have crap on them to start with? 

I trust the garage and don't think they'd stiff me (though they did charge £40 plus vat for them and fitting!) But think they've genuinely forgotten to do it...

Oh another thing I asked them to check was under the engine cover at the back left corner, there's a squarish plate with four bolts in the corners and it was covered in oily crap. When asked if they'd looked I was told "yes, it's just vapour" I'll get a pic up later.

Thoughts?

The rubber of the wiper blades contains graphite. It is perfectly normal that touching new wiper blades results in black fingers.

Were they genuine blades?  I paid just under £30 for a genuine set from eBay so the price doesn't sound too bad.  They have a little black dot on them that turns yellow over time as a change reminder.

 

Thanks peeps.  Wilco I didn't know about that - always assumed that new wipers would be clean!

Just been through my dashcam footage, which typically isn't constant but cuts in, just as the lad is obviously comparing two blades for length then fits one to the car.  A Later video shows the wipers and wash being tested.

So they definitely removed wipers, then put wipers on, but I can't see any boxes or anything to be sure they are bosch ones.  Are there any other indicators on the wipers themselves? it was dark when I picked up the car so couldn't really see anything.

Bosch windscreen wipers always have the Bosch logo or text casted in either the plastic end caps or the mounting point.

 

The rear Focus MK3 wiper has always a normal wiper blade. There is no proper aero wiper blade for the original rear wiper arm. 

If you want a flatblade or aero rear wiper you need to change the wiper arm.

 

 

I installed a new OEM Ford Escape rear wiper arm and wiper blade to my Focus MK3. As expected the Kuga/Escape wiper arm is a perfect fit to a Focus MK3. The wiper blade of the Kuga/Escape is 11 Inch while the one of the focus MK3 Hatchback is 12 Inch. In the future I may possibly change the wiper blade for a 12 inch version or maybe even a 13 inch version.

 

Thanks for that, I will check tomorrow!

Is it difficult to change the wiper arm?

A little over the top on the price they charged you but somebody has to pay for all the staff that they have working at the garage. would have been 45mins work for all the little jobs you had done, fuel filter around £24, wiper blades £21, additive £5 (if they popped redex in) hope fully your car will be trouble free now the filter has been changed, i always get mine done every 2yrs.

Yeah well I know they charge £40 for an mot...

I would have had it done sooner (oil and filter done a couple of weeks ago) but the last stamp in the book was only 10k ago. Of course it was from Evans Hawkshaw who I bought it from so of course they didn't bother doing any actual work...

18 minutes ago, Phil21185 said:

Yeah well I know they charge £40 for an mot...

I would have had it done sooner (oil and filter done a couple of weeks ago) but the last stamp in the book was only 10k ago. Of course it was from Evans Hawkshaw who I bought it from so of course they didn't bother doing any actual work...

Stamps aren't particularly useful tbh, mine has stamps from Trust Ford at 3k ago, and 3k before that (3k in 12 months...poor DPF!)...  Pretty sure this air filter hadn't been changed at either of those services.  I tried asking at that dealer for the invoices to see what had actually been done but they wouldn't.

Harder to see but the pollen filter was thick with muck as well.  And there was a fair bit of water in the fuel filter too.  Just oil changes done maybe?  But without any proper record I have no idea.  The VAG service books are much better where they have a check list of what's been done at each service.

 

 

looks like they squashed your air filter into the houseing looking at the state of it. just changed all my filters few days ago so thats out the way for another yr. i`m sure ford say to change air-filter every 2/3yrs. but i always do it yearly and there cheap enough anyway 

pollen filter often gets missed been replaced at the dealers as it`s to hard for them and you`ll never know if they replaced it or not. (unless you check yourself lol )