Dodgy dealings with a garage re company vehicles

Tiddlywinks

Sorry to hear of your probs, could you just give a bit more info......

What did the police do with the 4x4 - seized or taken into storage? Have they issued a penalty notice or asked for any documents to be produced?

The woman's husband abused his position and this is not acceptable - I would pen a quick letter complaining of his behaviour (particularly his temper / verbal abuse) and also ask for the whole incident to be reviewed. This may then clarify exactly what happened and any written response should then contain a summary of events.

How did your OH get back and what did the company say about the events?

How large is the company? How large is its vehicle fleet? Are vehicles pooled with anyone taking them out or are they allocated to individuals / teams? Are there written procedures advising drivers what to check when taking over a vehicle. Is your OH in a union?

SarahLou

Thankfully they are insured (hurrah - they have done something right!)

However, get this for an update.... I've just got off the phone to my hubby and on asking him "I take it you've had no prangs today?" he said "not quite". I said "what do you mean?!" to which he went on to tell me about todays farce....

Turns out the project officer came down today with the replacement vehicle and drove away in the dodgy 4x4 that resulted in the accident yesterday. (Idiot for even risking it, but again, goes to show how silly they are).

The replacement vehicle had a service its MOT about 2-3 months ago - no problems picked up, it "passed" with flying colours. *ahem*

This time hubby and colleagues thoroughly tested the vehicle (by which point project officer had headed off back with the dodgy 4x4). About 10 minutes into testing, guess what happened?? (Its like a bloomin' soap opera....).... yup, you guessed it, the brakes failed. Thankfully they were testing it on the caravan park which, thankfully, is empty apart from them. So it didn't really matter but fact was they failed. Over and over. They ended up having to slowly get it back to roughly where they needed to park it and on checking underneath the vehicle could see loads of fluid dripping out from underneath.

How the heck the project officer drove the 3 hour journey in it is beyond me.

Guess where the vehicle had its MOT? Yup, same garage as usual.

So hubby rang into the office, again, and explained the problem (and played merry-hell about how ridiculous this was). Whilst on the phone, it turns out the dodgy 4x4 had never actually been in for its MOT and therefore was being driven illegally. (But the ultimate boss blamed someone who has left the company months ago as he was meant to book it in for its MOT, despite yesterday saying it had only been done approx 3 weeks ago).... :mad:

So thankfully my hubby and all the colleagues he is down on this job with have all made a pact and said they all refuse point blank to drive any works vehicle from now on UNLESS it is a works HIRE vehicle (which are all serviced, MOT'd, etc, by teh company they hire them from - i.e. are presumably safe and legal to be driving).

I now have the name of the garage in question and will be giving VOSA a ring tomorrow about this. :mad:

SarahLou

Tiddlywinks wrote: »

Sorry to hear of your probs, could you just give a bit more info......

What did the police do with the 4x4 - seized or taken into storage? Have they issued a penalty notice or asked for any documents to be produced?

The woman's husband abused his position and this is not acceptable - I would pen a quick letter complaining of his behaviour (particularly his temper / verbal abuse) and also ask for the whole incident to be reviewed. This may then clarify exactly what happened and any written response should then contain a summary of events.

How did your OH get back and what did the company say about the events?

How large is the company? How large is its vehicle fleet? Are vehicles pooled with anyone taking them out or are they allocated to individuals / teams? Are there written procedures advising drivers what to check when taking over a vehicle. Is your OH in a union?

Thanks for taking the time to read my enquiry. I'll do my best to answer.

What did the police do with the 4x4 - seized or taken into storage? Have they issued a penalty notice or asked for any documents to be produced?

They said they would not allow the vehicle to be drive any further than the nearest garage (to which hubby and colleagues said they'd have to direct them as none of them know the area) But then hubby asked if they could drive it back to the caravan site (which was apparently nearer than the nearest garage) and then it'd be collected by the office. (Which is what happened - but I suspect the police didn't think "collected" meant actually driven away. (As my hubby didn't suspect this - he thought that once he told his bosses about what'd happened, common sense would prevail and no one would be stupid enough to drive it 3 hours back to where the office is.... :rolleyes:)


The woman's husband abused his position and this is not acceptable - I would pen a quick letter complaining of his behaviour (particularly his temper / verbal abuse) and also ask for the whole incident to be reviewed. This may then clarify exactly what happened and any written response should then contain a summary of events.

Good idea - thats what I thought about abusing his position. My hubby was already shaken up about what had happened and having a police officer (albeit off duty) yelling at him didn't help.

How did your OH get back and what did the company say about the events?

They very carefully drove back to the caravan park (a matter of minutes from where the incident occured). On initially phoning the company he spoke to one of the project officers who wasn't in charge of the job but knew all about where they were - he was very sympathetic and obviously asked how everyone was, etc. When my hubby asked to speak to the project officer who is in charge of this job he heard the project officer say "tell him I'm not here!!!" and unfortunately t'other project officer did just that. On later ringing to speak to the project officer in charge of the job, he didn't give a toss about anyone and seemed miffed about having to go down to "collect" the vehicle himself today. :mad:
His ultimate boss was very sympathetic and rang to see how everyone was.

How large is the company? How large is its vehicle fleet? Are vehicles pooled with anyone taking them out or are they allocated to individuals / teams? Are there written procedures advising drivers what to check when taking over a vehicle. Is your OH in a union?

Unfortunately there is no union. The company varies in size massively from month to month due to taking on temporary staff. At any given time there tends to be between 10 full time members of staff (usually permanent - my hubby is a permanent member of staff) and it can sometimes go up to about 40 - usually with 25-30 or so being on temporary contracts. There are 10 of them (consisting of some permanent members of staff (approx 5) and approx 5 temporary staff on this particular job. The vehicle fleet consists of (so far as I'm aware), two 4x4's (one being the one the accident happened in yesterday) and one being the secondary one dropped off today that I've just posted about a few minutes ago that has had a brake failure issue today also. The remaining vehicles are (thankfully) hire fleet - not sure how many of them there are, probably only 1 or 2 at any given time. But these are obviously owned and serviced (etc) by the hire company and not the company my hubby works for.

They are allocated to teams basically or sometimes individuals - depends on the jobs really. Temporary staff aren't insured to drive them so the driving usually falls on the heads of permanent staff members. In this case, the works vehicles are to be driven by those permanent staff on this job. I don't know what the written procedures are (if any!) with regards to checks that should be made prior to driving a vehicle. I shall ask him and find out.


I am utterly shocked and appalled that the vehicle yesterday hadn't even had its MOT done as per originally we'd all thought (when I was posting yesterday) and then to speak to hubby tonight and find out vehicle number 2 is just as bad - I dread to think what the brake pads are like on this current vehicle - the only diagnosis made so far by my hubby and collegues is that its "cr*p, doesn't stop when you need it to and there is lots of fluid dripping out from underneath the bonnet" (none of whom are particularly into cars!!)

:mad:

Tiddlywinks

SarahLou wrote: »

The replacement vehicle had a service its MOT about 2-3 months ago - no problems picked up, it "passed" with flying colours. *ahem*

.... vehicle could see loads of fluid dripping out from underneath.

...... the dodgy 4x4 had never actually been in for its MOT and therefore was being driven illegally.

I now have the name of the garage in question and will be giving VOSA a ring tomorrow about this. :mad:

You need to think a bit more logically about this - the original vehicle did not have an MOT (Company's fault NOT the garage as they never saw the vehicle or issued an MOT).

The replacement has not been seen by the garage for at least 2 months (and then you only have the word of the company - who lied about the MOT for the first vehicle). Cars go wrong and just because it achieved an MOT pass 2-3 months ago does not ensure 12 months trouble free motoring - it was leaking fluid, that fault could just have developed - these things happen.

Your complaint appears to be with your OH's employer and their seeming inability to schedule maintenance and MOTs for their fleet.

You shouldn't jump to conclusions and complain about the garage without getting the facts straight first.

SarahLou

True - couldn't agree more in fact, but the worrying thing is that time and time again, their company vehicles (the owned ones) are being serviced, repaired, MOT'd, etc by the same garage and this is easily the 3rd (and possibly 4th - thinking back even longer - about 2 years ago now) vehicle that has had problems with its brakes. Before now, a colleague of my hubbys nearly ended up in a verge on the side of a road following a complete failure of the brakes in another vehicle (now sold for scrap metal). My hubby has never personally had a problem until the incidents of yesterday and today but other colleagues have and all of which have involved brake failures and all of which have involved vehicles seen by the garage in question.

My worry is sooner or later this garage is going to "pass" a car or conveniently not look at a car thoroughly and someone is going to have a serious or fatal accident. The garage is in a rural location so presumably they have a good turnover of local people using them. It is worrying to think how many vehicles this garage seems to "pass" out as being OK that then go on to have complete brake failures within short spaces of time.

Some of these other incidents, although not happened to my hubby, have been as recent as the last 4-5 months with other vehicles. It is bad fluke that it has happened twice in the space of 2 days to my hubby and indeed true enough that the garage can't be blamed for the accident yesterday. Indeed it is a stupid oversight on the company itself for not getting it to its MOT in the first place. But can you see where my worry is coming from with regards to it seemingly being more than just a coinicidence with the other vehicles seen by this garage?