Should I get second opinion or just scrap my car?
[2011 Hyundai i10, 108k miles, manual]
Last night my car broke down on the motorway. Was driving along and it suddenly turned off as if it stalled at 70mph, dashboard lit up with all the stuff that would show up if you'd just turned the battery on.
I tried turning it back on but the starter motor would only click once and the electrics would half-dim instead of fully turning off. So, obviously I had to wait on the side of the motorway with my hazards on as it was quite dark already. After about 10-15 minutes the lights slowly faded off.
After a whole adventure with my breakdown cover, we managed to get the car to a local garage. I rang up in the morning and asked them to have a look. Eventually they rang me and said that (paraphrasing of course):
- The lights of the car had been left on so the battery was flat (duh) so they'd put a new one in.
- The spark plugs were missing/broken so they'd fitted new ones.
- The missing/broken spark plugs had destroyed the engine block itself and so I would need a whole new engine block.
All in all, i was told it'd be ~£110 for the labour and spark plugs that they'd put in (which obviously did not fix the problem).
They then told me that it was probably not worth getting a new engine block (which is true given the age of the car) and if I wanted to scrap it as they have a guy around the corner. I was quoted ~£80 (immediately, by the person calling) for the scrap value even though most places online are saying ~£150 average.
So now I'm just very confused, I've spoken to quite a few people and they all seem confused at the "spark plug destroying the engine" thing (possibly due to me explaining it badly I'm unsure) and are outright telling me they are scamming me by saying they'd give £80 for the scrap value.
Given what details I was given, do you think:
- It makes sense in terms of what has supposedly happened to the engine?
- If they actually are allowed to just put spark plugs in without telling me, then charge me despite it not fixing anything?
- is it worth getting a second opinion that could save me scrapping the car?
- Or should I just accept that it's gone and cut my losses with getting some money back?