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Hello,
I own a rather old Toyota Estima Lucida, a Backpacker-car. After losing lots of coolant we brought it to a workshop and they diagnosed the water pump was leaking and had to be exchanged. I had the repair done (250NZD), drove home and parked the car without a larger testdrive.
Now, one week later I went for the first drive as a test and well, after a few km the coolant was literally flooding the floor below the car - one of the connections of a tube to the overflow bottle was broken and I got towed by AA.
I brought the car to the same garage and they of course want to be paid for the exchange of the overflow bottle.

I have the feeling that the garage had diagnosed wrongly last time and exchanged the waterpump without any need. Basically they didn't fix the problem at all, it's rather worse than before. On the other hand it's hard to prove whether the connection was already broken when the car was in the workshop or not.

Is there any chance the garage can be held responsible for not repairing the correct part? And connected with that, is there a chance they have to bear the expenses (or parts) of the following repair?

Thank you,
Chris

Hi there,
It is common practice to pressure test cooling systems before and after fixing any coolant leaks. If this was carried out, it would have 1/ Located the leak that needed repair and 2/ Held pressure indicating the leak was fixed or show up any other potential leaks.
It is possible with older vehicles that once one leak is fixed, another could eventuate as hoses and fittings are old and brittle.
Your situation is a hard one, and would require solid proof that they miss-diagnosed. However generally one look at the old water pump should tell you if it had been leaking or not in the first place.