Mechanic legal advice needed

SNes73

Is there anything i can do?

My car started to smoke from the exhaust when my friend/mechanic/owner of a garage said the head gasket had gone i said give me a price (£820) which was fine by me. He phoned later to say the head needed skimmed and would cost (£60) more, which again i was fine with this, A few days later i drove my car away with out a problem, me very happy...

A few days later i noticed a small oil leak which again was fixed free of charge and i'm still happy...

Then a few days later some smoke started coming out of the exhaust and it was more than the original problem to which my friend/mechanic/owner of a garage said he didn't replace some rings and it was his fault and he would repair free of charge on the 15/01/14 and said the car would be ready 17/01/14 then the fun begins...

The 15th was the last time I've seen my car, he said it would be ready the next day then the next day then the next day and still went on until the 26th to which he said "your car is prone to head gasket faults and he said the block has cracked and now the car won't start you will have to pay someone to collect your car because i'm moving premises...

Is there anything i can do? i'm £880 short in cash I've had to buy a cheap runaround £750 and need to pay someone to fix it

DUTR

Well you say he is a friend, however overall it would seem you would have been better from the off buying a runaround rather than throwing more money at your current mystery vehicle.

SNes73

He is an ex friend now. Can i take him to small claims court?

phill99

There's a lesson here somewhere.

DUTR

SNes73 wrote: »

He is an ex friend now. Can i take him to small claims court?

I suppose you could , that will cost you another few hundred quid with no gaurantee of success.

Retrogamer

SNes73 wrote: »

He is an ex friend now. Can i take him to small claims court?

Maybe.
Is he the owner of a registered business and is the business changing names or just changing location?

Do you have any of the work he done down in writing?

What kind of car is it, the year and value?
If the block is cracked and you really want to keep it, it would be best to replace the whole engine.

SNes73

It's a limited company.

i don't know about name changes. only got text messages nothing in writing.

fivetide

SNes73 wrote: »

It's a limited company.

i don't know about name changes. only got text messages nothing in writing.

Text messages count... If he's admiting to not having done the job right then it helps.

arcon5

DUTR wrote: »

I suppose you could , that will cost you another few hundred quid with no gaurantee of success.

No it won't, costs won't hit a few hundred and will be added to the claim.

Mark_Mark

arcon5 wrote: »

No it won't, costs won't hit a few hundred and will be added to the claim.

It will be added to the claim but he still has to win.

Retrogamer

Might be tricky to progress via the small claims.

A cracked block often gives the same symptoms of a cylinder head gasket failure.
A lot of the time these cracks can't be seen very easily as well.

The mechanical suspected it was head gasket failure as most would and replaced the head gasket and got the head skimmed as most would as well.
It was only when that didn't resolve the fault that the mechanical has investigated further and discovered the block is cracked.

I think to be successful in small claims you need to prove the mechanical was negligent in their diagnosing of the fault or in fixing the fault.

The possibility remains as well that they never done the work correctly the first time and on realising this they can't be bothered to do it again and are using the "cracked block" excuse as a scapegoat.