Wing Mirror Dilemma - Who should pay...

Bongles

societys_child wrote: »

Just maybe the friend doesn't drive, has no experience whatsoever in the noble art of "wing-mirror-folding-in"

There's no noble art of wing-mirror folding-in. It's much simpler than that. It was in the mundane, everyday, basic ability to handle stuff without breaking it that the OP's friend spectacularly failed.

societys_child wrote: »

Just maybe the friend thought, "this is awfully stiff but the driver said it folds, so it must fold" . . . doesn't make them an idiot.

Of course it does. That's the very definition of idiocy. A less idiotic friend would have thought, "this is awfully stiff, but the driver said it folds so I'd better ask them to do it because I'm not sure I'm not going to break it".

nearlyrich wrote: »

If I broke it I would offer to pay however if I was the OP I would not ask a friend to pay for accidental damage

Exactly.

Bongles

YoungBusinessman wrote: »

meaning you have electric mirrors so why didnt you use the switch?

Presumably because it's an electrically adjusted mirror, not an electrically folded mirror.

shaun_from_Africa

A less idiotic friend would have thought, "this is awfully stiff, but the driver said it folds so I'd better ask them to do it because I'm not sure I'm not going to break it".

"Awfully stiff" compared to what?
If the person in question wasn't a driver and had never been asked to move a mirror before, how would they be expected to know how stiff it should have been?

photome

shaun_from_Africa wrote: »

"Awfully stiff" compared to what?
If the person in question wasn't a driver and had never been asked to move a mirror before, how would they be expected to know how stiff it should have been?

You cant tell Bongles that....he cant be wrong

Of course he is though and your post makes perfect sense

if the driver asks passanger to move it, the passanger says it wont move its to stiff, the driver says keep pushing...whos fault is it if it breaks

arcon5

photome wrote: »

Not surprised!

you asked her to move it, you should have done it yourself!! you didnt so you pay for it.

your name is sengcheek, i think it is apt

BAsed on that logic, if I ask my friend to use my car to collect something from the shop and he runs in to the back of someone, should I pay simply because I could have done it myself?


This person has a duty of care.


Everybody is having a go at op here, but any decent friend would offer to at least contribute. Being friends doesnt have to mean you can't ask for help paying for their mistake. No doubt it was an accident, but so are most car crashes.

kaya

Get a life, accidents do happen and this clearly was an accident

arcon5

kaya wrote: »

Get a life, accidents do happen and this clearly was an accident

Thats not being disputed though is it. Accidents happen all the time in all aspects of life, doesn't mean you should help resolve it - out of courtesy if anything

If I bump in to you knocking files and folders out of your arms, the fact it was an accident doesn't mean I should walk on rather than helping pick them up

Wongsky

arcon5 wrote: »

BAsed on that logic, if I ask my friend to use my car to collect something from the shop and he runs in to the back of someone, should I pay simply because I could have done it myself?

This person has a duty of care.

They may well have a duty of care, if you lend them something, and in the example of a vehicle, they're actually in charge of it for a period (both legally and morally).

But if you ask them to do something that either you couldn't be bothered to do, and they may have no experience of doing, what duty of care do they have?

I've damaged a wing mirror on one of my own cars, before now, by pushing it closed, when I was fairly experienced at doing it - but perhaps in a bit of a hurry at the time.

arcon5 wrote: »

Everybody is having a go at op here, but any decent friend would offer to at least contribute. Being friends doesnt have to mean you can't ask for help paying for their mistake. No doubt it was an accident, but so are most car crashes.

I'd say the mistake was the OP asking the friend to do it, rather than bloody walking around the car and doing it themselves - then expecting that somebody who may have no experience, whatsoever, of doing this, nor probably had any need, expectation or requirement to, did so, and caused damage in the process.

If your car is being worked on by a garage, and in the process of doing some work - say they're working on the brakes, and say one of the nipples on the caliper is siezed, and it brakes when they try and free it, they'd be perfectly correct in billing you for all of that.

You wouldn't get away with saying "Well I asked you to do the job, but not do any damage - therefore any damage you did do, whether accidental, or not, comes out of your pocket..." - different, I'll accept, if they scrape the bodywork moving it around, or crash it whilst driving, but if something breaks whilst they're doing a task, that's entirely their fault, and at their expense.

The hypothetical bleed nipple, and the (presumably) real wing-mirror may have just been an accident waiting to happen - or indeed asking somebody to do it, when you couldn't be bothered yourself, and not knowing whether they would be a bit mechanically unsympathetic, or whether the wing mirror was about to break if being folded back.

Wongsky

arcon5 wrote: »

Thats not being disputed though is it. Accidents happen all the time in all aspects of life, doesn't mean you should help resolve it - out of courtesy if anything

If I bump in to you knocking files and folders out of your arms, the fact it was an accident doesn't mean I should walk on rather than helping pick them up

So, if I ask a friend to get my car and pick me up, and whilst doing so, they drive the car perfectly reasonably, but the car breaks down - cambelt snapped, or some other significant mechanic issue.

I should bill them, or expect them to make a contribution? After all, what's the salient difference between this, and the door mirror scenario?

Not sure I'd have many friends left if I kept behaving like that.

RegWorts

This looks like a "troll" question to me