Are garage deliberately trying wind me up?

danielson81

Hi there,

On Sunday the speedo cable on my Fiat Cinqeucento 93/L snapped on the M25, so I didnt know how fast I was going, so I drove carefully (I followed a slow car!) back home.

On Monday I phoned the garage down the road to book the car in and on Tuesday I took the car to the garage for a new speedo cable to be fixed.

On arrival I was told "no worries mate, should be done by 5pm"

- Tue 5pm, rang up and told "Were waiting for a part, we will ring you tomorrow morning, first thing".

- Wed 3pm, rang up again and asked if ready told "We spoke to Fiat and they don't make the part anymore, were going to ring Fiat HQ" I then said I will get the part from the internet and bring it round.

- Thursday 12pm - Part arrived in the post and took it down to garage and told again "will be done this afternoon mate". Phoned at 5pm and told not done yet.

- Friday 12pm - Phoned again, "should be done today mate"

Ok, ok maybe they are busy and I am impatient, but why do they keep fobbing me off. The place wasn't exactly heaving with cars when I went in.

Also, if I managed to find a part why couldnt they? I have seen several Cinquecentos in there before when I walked past, so they must know places to get parts from.

Your comments would be appreciated.

wazza

could be they have other cars to repair and don't have time to look at yours.

are you good at diy? you could fit it yourself

Hintza

Depends on your relationship with garage. assuming you don't know them would go and pick up car and tell em to stuff it. They are taking the mick.

Now where is my car its been in the garage for 3 months...and its a mate...which makes it worse!!!

manda1205

Yeah I agree with above, I'd go get car and tell em to stick it. No way would I wait a week for a speedo cable, they're having a laugh. Find someone else or as said before try and do it yourself with a haynes book.

alwaysonthego_2

At the moment I am training to be an adviser for the cab and we have covered a similar senario. The garage told you it would be ready by 5pm on tuesday, so therefore a verbal contract has been formed (harder to prove though) Time to complete the repair was an expressed term in the contract. What you must do is give the repairer a reasonable deadline in writing. This is known as making the time of the essence. If the repair isn't carried out in the reasonable time given, then the garage owner will be in breach of an implied term of the contract.

Also you could quote him The supply of Goods and Services Act 1982. That he carries out the repair in reasonable time. You can pursue the garage owner through an alternative resolution (ADR) or county court, but go to the cab for further advice

Conor_3

And in the real world.....

You'll be told to sod off somewhere else and the local Trading Standards won't give a toss.

Mr_Grinch

alwaysonthego wrote: »

At the moment I am training to be an adviser for the cab and we have covered a similar senario. The garage told you it would be ready by 5pm on tuesday, so therefore a verbal contract has been formed (harder to prove though) Time to complete the repair was an expressed term in the contract. What you must do is give the repairer a reasonable deadline in writing. This is known as making the time of the essence. If the repair isn't carried out in the reasonable time given, then the garage owner will be in breach of an implied term of the contract.

Also you could quote him The supply of Goods and Services Act 1982. That he carries out the repair in reasonable time. You can pursue the garage owner through an alternative resolution (ADR) or county court, but go to the cab for further advice

Excellent advice there. I'm going through a similar but extended problem to the OP at the very moment.

Driving through Wales, 6 hours from my home town of York when the radiator busts taking the cylinder head gasket out with it (confirmed by AA on scene). Only had a little bit of battery left so I called the garage I usually go to who said they didn't do cylinder head gaskets but would pass me on to someone who would.

Long story short, this garage I've taken it to is pretty dodgy it seems (I couldn't tell at the time, I needed to get my car somewhere and that's the only place I had!). They've had my car for 3 weeks and 4 days now and have continually fobbed me off. Initially they told me it'd be a week, when I phoned up at the end of that week they said the cylinder head gasket had come back from being skimmed (or whatever happens with it!) and they just needed to put everything back together. It'd be the end of the week. I continue phoning and being fobbed off and it's now coming up to 4 weeks later.

I asked for a deadline but they told me they didn't give deadlines in case anything went "t*ts ups" and that they had "jobs all over the yard at the moment". I asked why they said they could take on my car when they were clearly busy and they told me these jobs had come in in the mean time.

I contacted Trading Standards and, as above, they recommended I write them a letter with a deadline (they said a week). I have set said deadline and, on Wednesday of next week, this deadline will be up.

When the deadline is up, I'm not quite sure what I do but I'll be calling Trading Standards back to get some advice. It's not like I can take my car to another garage either, as it's currently in bits.

Another suspicious thing about the garage is they'll only accept payment in cash. No cheque, debit card, credit card...only cash. That's £770 cash I had to raise.

As for the original post, I had an old Metro where the same thing happened, the Garage I took it to then (different to the above) was able to fix it within a day. If they haven't done any work I'd take it elsewhere.

mattymoo

Mr_Grinch - sounds like that garage has cash flow problems hence the need for cash. Probably not being supplied with parts by their usual suppliers due to non-payment of accounts and probably heavily overdrawn at bank and trying to avoid charges.

Come wednesday I would have my car out of there if nothing has been done. Last thing you need is the business going belly up with your car held in the locked yard while the receiver sorts things out.