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Sonia agrees to compensate TIS

11th January 1996
Page 12
Page 12, 11th January 1996 — Sonia agrees to compensate TIS
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

by Miles Brignall • A Midlands haulage firm has won compensation from truck manufacturer Scania after the company supplied a wrong engine piston. It was fitted to an engine which failed after just 200 miles.

Scania (Trucks) GB has agreed to rebuild the engine at its own expense after a longrunning battle with West Bromwich-based haulier Taylor International Services over who should foot the bill.

The owners of the firm, David and Adrian Taylor, claimed they had been supplied the parts by a main dealer and the failure of one of the pistons had caused the damage.

Scania engineers had at one stage claimed the part was spurious after taking it away to their headquarters. They eventually revealed the part was genuine but was not the right piston for the engine.

The Taylors' problems started when they bought a set of pistons and liners from Midlands Scania dealer Keltruck to rebuild their Scania 142 tractive unit. Adrian Taylor, who says he is a Scania-trained fitter, rebuilt the engine and 200 miles later it failed. Scania engineers claimed the fitter should have noticed the different shape of the piston when it was being fitted. Scania offered to replace the wrong part but refused to rebuild the engine.

"At this stage we were furious," says Adrian Taylor. "We had several conversations with executives in Scania's Swedish head office as well as their UK counterparts and only after I explained I felt we had been shabbily treated, did they offer to put it right.

"There is still the matter of the cost of recovery and the loss of work, currently standing about £16,000, to resolve and we are taking legal advice," he adds.

A spokesman for Scania says there is no evidence that the piston was packaged in the wrong box: "This is purely a goodwill payment. We have conducted a thorough investigation into the matter and cannot see how the wrong piston was supplied. We know that one of the eight pistons was bought separately and this may have been where the error occurred."


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