Damp
I'm after advice as to how best to approach a dealer who has serviced our van and failed to identify cause of damp. We own a 2009 van that we have owned from new, we put the van in for servicing, a few odd jobs and to sort out the motor mover that wasn't
working correctly. Whilst it was in the workshop we decided to look round for another van as the layout no longer worked for us. When we collected our van we was told they had found damp in the rear corner to the levels of 18-30 which we was told was at an
acceptable level and that we it seemed to be coming from the awning rail. They implied that if it needed sealing they would have done it. Not experienced in this they told us to bring the van back in 2-3 months. They told us they had repaired the motor
mover. We paid £450 for the whole job and went to hitch up but the mover kept jumping of and it wasn't engaging properly. As we were taking the van straight to another dealer for the part ex and they would be switching it to our new van we didn't go back
in as we knew it just needed adjusting. We drove straight to the other dealer which was only about 20 miles and went about sorting out the part exchange. We were upfront with the dealer and showed them the service paperwork and what it said about the damp.
Unbeknown to us they were sister companies. The checked the van in our prescience and the meter showed 98% damp and straight away they found a 3 inch crack in the roof! The crack is so bad that if we had left the van 3 months as we had been advised the damage
would have amounted to thousands of pounds worth of damage. the repair is going to cost £450 which has been negotiated of price of part ex. (Not under warranty as we had forgot a previous service our fault) my point is do you think we can claim the £450 that
we were charged for service and mover repair from the dealer who did the service as they had not completed work satisfactorily to identify damp, the cause and repair the mover. If we had not part ex we would have been none the wiser with things getting worse!
We are very angry but want to approach this in the best way. Please can anyone help?