Unfair Wear and Tear Recharges at end of Vehicle Lease.

skhwoody

I have had a Vauxhall Zafira on a 2 yr lease from lombard.

I received a month before the end of the lease a guide on fair wear and tear. I looked over the vehicle and accept that a scratch on the roof is to be repaired, but surface scratches on the doors were well within remit of their fair W&T policy (scuffs from other drivers in car parks), but they have sent me a bill for £180 per panel and also a charge for a dent in the bonnet which was not there when handed in....

firstly i am not happy of the extra costs i was not expecting, but what annoys me most is the cost they are charging is not in line with the cost for its repair, and is overly excessive.

Where do i stand on this, do i have a leg to stand on and challenge certain things or am i again going to be stung and just accept that lease cars are not worth it.

charlea

this happend to me with lombard finance in April last year I had a mazda mx5 for 2 years its had done 7000 miles and was in imaculate condition

they collected it and never checked it over ect or asked me to sign anything other than that it was collected

my new car was also with lombard so i left the standing order in place and then 2 months later they took 550 from my account with no warning for damage to the passenger side scuffed wheels and a few bits and pieces

i rang them up and i demanded photo proof and i want the orginal receipts for the work that was supposed to have been done on the car and where it was done and by who
they sent me photos they were black and white on a photo copy piece of A4 paper and you could not see anything ( reciepts)

When sending me the photos they suddenly decided that as the photos were not clear they would make an exception and refund my money which they did f.......
next time i am going to time/date and video /photo my audi before it goes back as im sure they will try it on again

if you are taking out another lease try to get the new company involved as they really dont like this I leased my new audi tt from www.lingscars.com when this happend we rang her and she gave us advice and also spoke to lombard for us as well She was really helpfull, she put me in touch with another client of lombard who was being charged 400 for damage but he had actually got the repairs fixed and had recipts but lombard said it was not up to there standard and we were able to compare notes

i actually think that this is something that lombard dose all the time just think of how many cars they lease if they only leased 10,000 cars and charged an average of 500pounds my math is crap but its a nice little 5mill pot to have.
on a previous lease the driver actually said to us that the cars go straigh to and they dont do the work i dont know if this is true but it seem highly likely

So if i was you i would dispute everthing that they have said if possible
ask for reciepts for the damage /photos and where it was repaired and the name of the garage
make it clear that you are not prepared to pay unless you are sent clear proof of the damage
if they say that they did the work in house ( which lombard said to me) tell them that you will get 3 independent quotes for the damage as you beilve there amount to be excessive
tell them thta you know its something that they do with a lots of there cars and that you have names and addresses of two other customers who they did this to recently ( pm me if you want my name/details and the other person that this happend to )

Ask why the car was not checked over when collected for any damage / as its not how do you know if the driver did not go and take the car and drive it up a bloody mountain

lombard is the only one that i have had problems with tbh i have leased several cars with no probs at all

plane_boy2000

Interesting that they didnt check the car upon return.

My Audi went back to bank of scotland last year with no issues at all and there were a couple of things that were marginal between wear and damage. The guy who collected it was very detailed in his assesment of the car and noted EVERY little thing. He even checked the tyre tread depth and lights etc to make sure the car was leagal before he would take it. Told me that I was unlikely to hear anything from them though as all damage was very minor and he had been instructed to take it straight to Auction, and sure enough all I got was a letter telling me all was OK

Pew_Pew_Pew_Lasers!

If they didn't check the car upon return, its their tough luck. Ask them to prove that the damage occurred while you had it.

emmell

This happened to my BiL with a motability car. The car was exceptionally low mileage and immaculate (for a three year old car). When he handed it in at the Peugeot dealer they commented on the condition and signed it off. Some time later (about two months) he got a letter from Motability Finance with a condition report from Premier Auctions. According to them it had numerous dings (I don't know the technical term) amounting to
£450. Of course he panicked so my Husband wrote a letter on his behalf asking where the car had been in the time between handing in the keys and the report being done.
I know from experience how Auctions and delivery drivers treat cars that don't belong to them.
So if there is a gap between handing it in and receiving the letter, try to find out where the car has been.
ML.

emmell

I forgot to add in my above post that my brother in law had the bill waived.
ML.

charlea

to be honest i think that lombard are the worst for this kind of stuff i have read several post about this on other forums about exactly the same thing happening to people sending back there lease cars
i think they are just trying it on if they wernt so bloody greedy they would probably get away with it
i have sent 3 other cars back over the years and never had a prob (not hired from lombard) but lombard seems to be a big culprit in doing this

Ling_Valentine

charlea wrote: »

if you are taking out another lease try to get the new company involved as they really dont like this I leased my new audi tt from www.lingscars.com when this happend we rang her and she gave us advice and also spoke to lombard for us as well She was really helpfull, she put me in touch with another client of lombard who was being charged 400 for damage but he had actually got the repairs fixed and had recipts but lombard said it was not up to there standard and we were able to compare notes

Charlea!! So glad you got that refund.

I am always very happy to do my best to minimise this sort of thing, I agree the finance companies can try to cheat people. It costs nothing to take loads of good quality photos of every panel and wheel atc.

I really have very few of these issues, I would say 99% of customers have no complaints at all - but when it does happen, I jump in as hard as I can.

Ling_Valentine

Pew_Pew_Pew_Lasers! wrote: »

If they didn't check the car upon return, its their tough luck. Ask them to prove that the damage occurred while you had it.

Most cars are collected with just a cursory check, and then inspected fully when they arrive at disposal centres. However, anything significant should be spotted on collection. But hard in the snow, rain or dark, of course.

By the way, you are Pew Pew! I made a quick page to have fun with someone who referred me to that Pew Pew squirrel site.

Ling Pew Pew

hahahaha, took 3 minutes and is just a pi55 take Fun!

Ling_Valentine

skhwoody wrote: »

I have had a Vauxhall Zafira on a 2 yr lease from lombard.

I received a month before the end of the lease a guide on fair wear and tear. I looked over the vehicle and accept that a scratch on the roof is to be repaired, but surface scratches on the doors were well within remit of their fair W&T policy (scuffs from other drivers in car parks), but they have sent me a bill for £180 per panel and also a charge for a dent in the bonnet which was not there when handed in....

firstly i am not happy of the extra costs i was not expecting, but what annoys me most is the cost they are charging is not in line with the cost for its repair, and is overly excessive.

Where do i stand on this, do i have a leg to stand on and challenge certain things or am i again going to be stung and just accept that lease cars are not worth it.

I would suggest to anyone to get all damage repaired before car goes back and then have no arguments over a perfect car. Or over cost of any genuine repairs.

If you use cheap smart repairs or a proper valet company, they will do it cheap and after a couple of polish/small repairs will be happy to write a letterhead to say "all panels, wheels and paintwork examined and absolutely no faults found". If you enclose a copy of this with car on collection, it will pre-empt any "over zealous" inspections. You also have evidence if they are stupid enough to challenge you.

I will also advise:

As soon as last proper payment has been made, STOP THE DIRECT DEBIT as they are inclined to automatically charge to the DD and then argue later. You are in much better position if you have not paid the "repair" money. Do not stop the DD before the last lease payment made, and you should accept reasonable costs or extra days charges and pay them promptly by cheque or card. Don't keep them waiting for genuine payments, as they are finance companies and they are not slow to mark any default on credit files.

Hope this helps. I really wouldn't send a car back with damage, this is asking for high charges and a nit-picking inspection. For instance, a 2-year old car with just 20k miles should be hard to fault.

penny.pincher_6

We returned a Dodge Nitro to Mercedes Benz financial services at the beginning of December last year (one month early) after 14 months of having it from brand new. I was confident there was not any excessive damage to the car, and as it was a "wet" collection, a full inspection was not possible. The guy who collected it barely spoke to me, and really didn't say anything about any damage, and as I was confident there wasn't any I took that as a good sign.

We heard nothing from them until one month later, when we got a bill for nearly £500 for alleged "major damage" to the front bumper... a photo was included (though it was a close up, so no actual certainty that it was the same vehicle.

Now had there been some charges some some petty things I probably would just accept this as another bill that just has to be paid, but I feel GUTTED about this, as I am SO certain it was not on the vehicle when collected, and sure we would have seen it (a long scratch across the front of the enormous bumper), and given that we still had (and had paid for) another month on the lease, would have definitely taken the time and effort to investigate the cost of repair ourselves, as we'd had a good look at the return of vehicle standards.

I phoned them an d disputed their claim, they said they'd get back to me... nobody did, they just sent a payment reminder. I phoned again... same again... I phoned again, the adviser told me I needed to email my dispute... I did... heard nothing for a few days, then had an email saying "we acknowledge your email" then nothing else until today, where I received another, more threatening demand for payment.

I just phoned them and he said there is nothing I can do about it, except cough up!!

Is there anything I can do?!:eek: