new part fitetd on car, breaks 2 weeks later leaving me stranded

paullea

I had a wishbone replaced on my car 2 weeks ago this then snapped leaving me on the hard shoulder. I then had to get this fixed by a friend who charged me £145 for parts and labour. Also i had to pay £200 because of this faulty part to be towed home. what is my legal stand point to reclaim any of the above money?

Any help would be greatfully recieved.

motorguy

paullea wrote: »

I had a wishbone replaced on my car 2 weeks ago this then snapped leaving me on the hard shoulder. I then had to get this fixed by a friend who charged me £145 for parts and labour. Also i had to pay £200 because of this faulty part to be towed home. what is my legal stand point to reclaim any of the above money?

Any help would be greatfully recieved.

Why did you take it to a friend for a repair the second time around? I think you should have taken it / had it recovered to the original garage.

Do you still have the part that was fitted that failed?

I'm not sure of your rights or if you have any because of that.

kwaks

Eh? what sort of car was this? Unless it was an Alfa 147 then that is one hell of a price to supply and fit a wishbone (alfas being notoriously difficult to change them on).

In addition £200 just for the tow home? Or £200 for the tow home plus 1 years membership to the breakdown firm?

Wishbones do break, so unless you could show the part had a manufacturing fault I think you could be whistling in the wind.

paullea

I have taken the part that had broken back to the original garage. They say they will get back to the manufacturer of the part and see what they say. In the meantime i have to provide them with the invoice for the work done on the car and take it from there. The £200 was for the tow home and 1 years membership which i was forced to pay upfront.

kwaks

It will be down to the honesty of the manufacturer then if a fault does exist, seeing as they are inspecting their own part.

gaz_jones

paullea wrote: »

I have taken the part that had broken back to the original garage. They say they will get back to the manufacturer of the part and see what they say. In the meantime i have to provide them with the invoice for the work done on the car and take it from there. The £200 was for the tow home and 1 years membership which i was forced to pay upfront.

If the garage to give you a refund on the faulty part, don't expect a refund for the breakdown membership.

If you are lucky they may give you a token payment for the recovery of yoru vehicle, but as you get another 364 days use out of the breakdown cover, they could in theory give you 1/365th of the price of the breakdown cover and that would be considered fair. If you get any money for it at all.


A wishbone shouldn't fail after 2 weeks unless you have absolutely thrashed your car. And even then I think it would be hard to do.

paullea

all motorway miles about 200.

gaz_jones

In 200 motorway miles there is no way in hell a wishbone should break. I assume you haven't had any minor crashes in the mean time? Haven't hit a kerb or something?

anewman

It is however possible the garage used a low grade mild steel bolt (as opposed to a hardened one) which would be unable to support the weight of the car and would just snap.

paullea

sorry I meant the lollypop bush i think they are known as, which attaches to the wishbone and keeps the wheel straight. Which had compleatly snapped right across the diameter.

vaio

Your contract is with the people who sold it to you and any compensation will come from them and not the manufacturer.

It’s stating the bleeding obvious but wishbones are designed to last a number of years and to deal with the day to day knocks without failing catastrophically. If you hit a kerb they should bend rather than break.

I think I’d be tempted to write to them telling them you hold them responsible for all costs on the grounds that either they fitted a defective part or they defectively fitted a good part (depending on what the manufacturers report says) I’d also tell them that I wanted the broken parts back whatever the report says.