Kwik Fit broke my car (ESP Light comes on after getting my tracking done)

[HarriBanjo]

Hi all,

I needed a couple of tyres swapping over and my tracking doing & didn't realise how utterly incompetent Kwik Fit are!
I had it done in Wolverhampton about 2 weeks ago and they left the wheel about 15 degrees-ish to the left, so I took it to Kwik Fit Coventry yesterday to get it corrected (which they did for free) and as I drove off towards the ring road the ESP light came on. Pulled over, engine off, engine on, drove off and it happened again as soon as I got anywhere near 40mph.
Took it back to them and they plugged in their diagnostic tool & it was showing a fault with the steering wheel angle sensor so they reset the fault & recalibrated the sensor. The ESP light still came on when I drove off so they tried resetting it & recalibrating it again but this didn't work.
When driving the car back to my house after all this I noticed that my steering wheel STILL isn't pointing straight - it's now slightly over to the right.

I'm waiting to hear back from them this morning about getting their "master technician" for the region to come out and have another go at it. I'm fairly pissed off at this whole thing as it's such a drain on my time and could (probably) have all been avoided if the initial tracking was done correctly.

I'm going to ask them to fix the tracking this afternoon & make sure it's 100% straight to see if that stops the fault, but if they can't get me booked in with their master technician by Saturday (that's a reasonable time frame given that they've left me with no ESP & I've got to do a big journey on Saturday afternoon) then I'm going to calmly request a refund for the money I paid getting the car tracked in the first place and get them to pay for Renault to fix the problem and send them the bill... Which should scare the sh*t out of them because Renault would probably charge a bomb for the work!

/Rant over, any thoughts?

 

[olliewebbuk]

They've damaged an ABS ring.

 

[mr.pink87]

Don't think so as this would trigger the ABS light. Steering angle sensor calibrates itself after a few drives. Had the same after tracking and it dissappeared soon.

 

[Will.]

Don't need traction control. My lights been on for 5 months now.

Get them to sort it though .

 

[is1]

any thoughts?

Yes, you have been a member on here for over two years. Why go to Kwik Fit for anything? They are truly and utterly dreadful.
Your best bet is probably to get a refund and take it to A-Line in Dudley or Pro Tyre in Warwick. Both will get it right first time.
I had this sort of issue with a Hunter-equipped HiQ service centre (which apparently West Mids police use). I changed the front tyres, my car was fine but thought I would get it aligned with the Hunter equipment. Hopeless, it was cross-eyed.
They had 3 efforts, each one bad for different reasons. Took it to Pro Tyre, first time, arrow straight and car's composure came straight back, lovely self centering, I can let go of the wheel at 70/80 on a dual carriageway and it is arrow straight.
Some of these large franchised places are a waste of time with staff who either don't understand what they are doing or don't care.

 

[Sir_Dave]

Bet your abs sensor is unplugged - mine did this after getting the brake lines changes. Simply hadnt been plugged back in again, so 2 minutes later & all was fine.

 

[mr.pink87]

Anything related to the ABS will trigger the ABS and TC light.

 

[HarriBanjo]

Just realised I never updated this old thread:

Thankfully it was just the steering wheel angle sensor.
Ater allowing Kwik Fit to have another couple of attempts at tracking the car over the course of the next few days (they insisted I give them a chance to put it right, which is fair enough) I took it to ProTyre in Warwick and they lined everything up perfectly first time.

After ProTyre tracked it & Kwik Fit reset the Fault Code everything was fine. It's worth noting that Kwik Fit happily gave me a full refund when I showed them the tracking report from ProTyre - not bad customer service in the end, shame they were useless at doing the job!

Also, in my defence, I only went to Kwik Fit because ProTyre is miles & miles away from my place in Wolverhampton & I'd never heard of A-Line :rasp: