Garage ruined engine when car took in for MOT

Glover1862 wrote: »

I think the OP has a good case, if you pay for a service and MOT it's reasonable to expect the service to be done before it goes in for MOT (obvious reasons). I would bet that the garage did something while servicing, ie ran the car with no oil or something similar. A car with only 55k miles in good working order, good service history suddenly dies in the few hours the garage has it while they happen to be tinkering with the very parts that have failed... big coincidence I'd say. Ask nicely first but don't take any rubbish, I'd also bet that they are buying time, hopefully trying to fix it or changing the circumstances to suit them.

Long and short, perfectly good car goes in, they mess about with it and now it's dead. If the service was not carried out then they have a much better case.

I'd argue the opposite. The MOT should be done first, in order to allow any items requiring a fix to be done at the time of the service.

You're also falling into the 'only 55K miles is a good thing' trap. It isn't. It's catastrophically low mileage for a modern diesel-engine. 7-8K a year over 8 years, lots of short trips, only one annual trip to a garage. I would be surprised if the bonnet is lifted more than once a year at that visit.

I know the OP won't share the registration so we won't be able to check, but low mileage cars of that profile with that type of use very often have similar histories when you look at the previous MOT records - lots of fails or advisories for tyres, bulbs, wipers, empty washer bottles, warning lights on, and the like.

Just because the car was running OK when it went in for it's annual bit of care and love, and 'only' has 55K miles on, doesn't for one second mean it was in 'good working order'. It just means it was in 'working order'.

The garage may well want to help sort this out, but I certainly wouldn't expect them to bear 100% provable liability. I've witnessed a Ford Focus blow up in a garage during the MOT test. It was very low mileage, a diesel, did a lot of short runs and suffered from diesel runaway during the smoke test. It went pop, and the owner ended up with a big bill - not the garage's fault.

We'll agree to disagree, if it's an old banger then yes, maybe better to do the MOT just in case it has major faults. On a reliable relatively low millage car that has value (like a fiat 500) then doing the service first should make MOT failure much more unlikely as a lot of the checks would have been done. Saves advisory notes. Also, if the MOT is so stressful, maybe new oil at the right level would help.

I don't buy this 7 year old car with 55 miles will mean it's on it's last legs, it could have been used on relatively long runs just not that often, very often the case in London were public transport is good (and often already paid for) and parking is a pain and expensive. I know several people who only use the car on the weekends, one couple for weddings and parties only!

bottom line, I wouldn't accept this without a good fight, seems very fishy it would die in a very small window when they are handling it.

Glover1862 wrote: »

We'll agree to disagree, if it's an old banger then yes, maybe better to do the MOT just in case it has major faults. On a reliable relatively low millage car that has value (like a fiat 500) then doing the service first should make MOT failure much more unlikely as a lot of the checks would have been done. Saves advisory notes. Also, if the MOT is so stressful, maybe new oil at the right level would help.

I don't buy this 7 year old car with 55 miles will mean it's on it's last legs, it could have been used on relatively long runs just not that often, very often the case in London were public transport is good (and often already paid for) and parking is a pain and expensive. I know several people who only use the car on the weekends, one couple for weddings and parties only!

bottom line, I wouldn't accept this without a good fight, seems very fishy it would die in a very small window when they are handling it.

From an earlier post you must have missed:

Well, we live in London so it's probably had a life of short trips pretty much taking the dog to the park, trips to tescos etc... I doubt she has even ever taken it on a motorway. I think she just gets it serviced once a year along with the MOT.

ETA: Value-wise, it's probably about three and a half grand's worth, four at a push. It's not a Rolls - and unless someone's servicing rigidly to the manufacturer schedule (which I suspect they won't be, even the main dealers don't bother), many potential MOT fail points are probably not being inspected at all in a 'service'. I'd be surprised if a car with 'once a year bonnet lifting service' schedule at that age will be getting more than oil and filter, maybe if it's lucky an air filter and a damp rag wiped over it.

If the car's choked up with soot, has worn out turbo bearings from never being warmed up properly, a clogged DPF, or any of the other multitude of low-mileage faults a modern diesel suffers from, no amount of servicing, before or after the MOT, will prevent it blowing up if it runs away or the cambelt/chain fails.

I'd be extremely suspicious about the engine "just failing" at the MOT time. Makes you wonder what was actually done to it. How it was used, and who by.
Getting any proof though is a different matter.
Without proof it's their word against the car owner.
I'd see what they offer first.