Mechanic broke my car - Now refuses to pay

dan_uk_1984

First of all hello to the forum, I've found the info on MSE invaluable over the years, but now I have the need for your collective advice:

On Saturday I had a mobile mechanic come to do some work on my car (I've used him before and found him to be very good). Whilst he was under my bonnet he was wiggling some hoses about and managed to break the shoulder of the pipe the hose was attached to. I noticed it and pointed it out to him as he was about half way through the job.

I asked when he would be able to come back and fix it (not wanting to get his back up I didn't pass any blame) He said it wouldn't be until the following weekend, at the time I said that really wasn't good enough as I need my car to get to work during the week. He then said that it could be glued back together, I was dubious but he said it may do as a "quick fix".

Then when he leaned over to have a closer look, he was kneeling on a box housing various ECU's and his knee went through the lid! Again he suggested gluing it back together but this has only partially worked and looks terrible.

I was so angry I couldn't speak to him, I paid him his money for the original job and he went on his way. I fear this may have been a mistake, because I presume by paying him I accepted his service?

Anyway, the bodge repair lasted for a day and by Tuesday the hose had fallen off and the engine was running very rough (was a vacuum hose, not oil or coolant or anything critical)

I then booked it into a garage I have used before, as well as ordering the part which arrived the following day. I dropped the car in on Thursday and picked it up on Friday after paying £234 for Labour (5.2Hrs) and £60 for the broken part. Not including the lid of the box which costs £25.00 but I can replace that myself.

I sent him a text on Friday saying I'd just spent £300 on repairing my car, and was there anything he can do. He has been very unhelpful, see texts below:

I said:
Hi Jason,
The Range Rover has cost me over £300 to repair the broken pipe because the glue only lasted a day. As much as I appreciate that it was an accident, it wasn't my accident and I am now out of pocket £300 + the lid that your knee went through.
Is there anything you can do for me regarding this as obviously having to pay out £300 to repair something that I didn’t break I think is a bit unfair.
Regards,
Dan

Jason said:

Im sorry to hear it cost that to repair.i did ask you to let me know if the repair never worked.

I said:

Hi Jason,
Unfortunately I needed the car so I had a limited time to get the car fixed so after the glue failed on Tuesday I rang round to get it sorted on Wednesday. Obviously when I asked you about repairing it, you said it would have to be next week as you're so busy.
Regards,
Dan

I said:

Hi Jason,
Would you be able to meet me half way in terms of the cost of repair & parts?
Dan

Jason said:

Sorry Dan,you should have told me the repair had failed before you got someone else to do it,I would had then had to make time to sort it.I probably would have been able to do the repair cheaper than you just paid for it.



Then I said:

So is that you saying that you wont pay it for it at all? Just so we know where we stand before I take this further?


I would really like to sort this amicably, but on the other hand I could have done without having to spend over £300 (plus the £40 for his original labour) and am prepared to take this to the small claims court if anyone has any advice on whether that would succeed or not.

As far as I see I have several options:
Threaten him with small claims court - proceed if he doesn't pay but could get expensive
Threaten him with Trading Standards - costs me nothing to report him and speak to them?

Sorry for the super long post! But wanted to give as much detail as possible.

Thanks in advance,

Dan

LandyAndy

Small claims won't 'get expensive'. Max £25 for a claim up to £300 or £50 for a claim up to £500.

reehsetin

the only issue is that he could argue you did not mitigate your loss (I think the law suggests that you give him an opportunity to fix rather than going to someone else first), though if you are only claiming for half of the amount then wouldn't be as much of an issue

karenx

Really you should of just contacted the guy again and said how much it was going to be to get fixed elsewhere and hopefully he could of at least offered to pay

dan_uk_1984

reehsetin wrote: »

the only issue is that he could argue you did not mitigate your loss (I think the law suggests that you give him an opportunity to fix rather than going to someone else first), though if you are only claiming for half of the amount then wouldn't be as much of an issue

Thanks for your reply, I did ask him to repair it at the time, but he said he couldn't look at it for over a week, I asked if he could shuffle other things around to fit me in but he said he had some "big jobs on". If I had a spare car then it wouldn't have been an issue, but it's my only method of transport etc. That's why I was happy with him just meeting me half way with the repair costs. At the VERY least I would have expected him to offer to pay for the broken parts if not the labour.

Dan

Pew_Pew_Pew_Lasers!

You could argue that by breaking the pipe, and also breaking the lid of the electronics box, he was clearly incompetent and you did not trust him to undertake the repairs.

If it were me, I wouldn't have paid him. Let him take you to court.

dan_uk_1984

Pew_Pew_Pew_Lasers! wrote: »

You could argue that by breaking the pipe, and also breaking the lid of the electronics box, he was clearly incompetent and you did not trust him to undertake the repairs.

I think that will be the argument I'll try to use in the future. It is certainly true after all. If I'd had him fix this he may have broken even more things.

I wish I'd just done the work myself, then I could have saved myself a small fortune. But I thought getting a mechanic to do it would be quicker, easier and less hassle, how wrong I was!

Dan

Hintza

I suspect your biggest problem in chasing this is you (possibly) didn't give him the opportunity to sort out the problem.

vaio

He did give the mechanic the opportunity to fix it, the first attempt lasted a day and the second attempt couldn’t be done in a time scale that was acceptable to the OP

dan_uk_1984

Thanks, I wonder whether the court would use the term "Reasonable" though as in I should have given him reasonable opportunity to resolve. Who knows what "Reasonable" is!? I consider a week reasonable, but the FSA considers 8 weeks a reasonable time for Barclays to consider our complaint! (different story!)

vaio

Seems simple to me, people use mobile mechanics because they can’t be without their cars, he broke it though carelessness, bodged/repaired it, the bodge failed almost immediately and the mechanic couldn’t return to repair properly for a week.

Options are either get it repaired elsewhere and mobile boy picks up bill or mobile boy pays for hire car until he can come and fix it.

Range Rover hire for a week would be more than cost of repair so to mitigate costs the OP got it repaired elsewhere. Mobile boy pays or ends up in small claims court.