What would you do?

MamaMoo_2

My husband was in a non-fault accident and had his car repaired by the third party's insurers through one of their authorised repair centres.
The repair centre took forever to do the repairs which were replace back doors (doors were on back order until we decided to have the van back and take it to the family mechanic when all of a sudden the parts materialised!), replace a step (they ordered the wrong step and didn't realise for weeks, but we accepted the different step due to being fed up of waiting) and replace the damaged brake/reversing lights etc.
During the 5 weeks they had the van, the tax expired, but my husband's boss who owns the van hadn't received a V11, so was unaware.
Last week, we finally got the van back. When I was inspecting it, it transpired that they hadn't changed the bulbs in the lights at the back, had sent it back with quite a bit less fuel than it left with, and had driven it back untaxed!
As soon as they arrived I spotted all of the issues, and they went to halfords and got bulbs and replaced them, but said nothing about anything else.
We obviously notified hubby's boss who taxed the van at a post office within the hour, but we're a bit miffed overall.
There's £10+ of fuel less as they kept moving the van from garage to garage, and I can't believe they drive an untaxed van with broken lights around! Especially after we were told not to drive it anywhere by our insurer due to it not being road legal due to the non-working lights!
The van supposedly went through quality control TWICE, and yet basic safety checks that drivers do every day like checking the brake lights weren't done?

What would you do? Would you let it lie?

huckster

Make a complaint to the Insurers about the claims service and you may get some compensation for problems you experienced. But it is probably not worth going overboard about this.

InsideInsurance

Your insurance wouldnt have anything to do with it. If the garage was driving it then it would be under their trade policy.

As you claimed from the TPI then your options are more limited as you have no contract of insurance with them so blocked from using the FOS.

You could simply put in a claim for uninsured losses including £10 of miscellaneous expenses including fuel, calls, postage etc unless you can explicitly evidence the fuel separately.

MamaMoo_2

Thanks both. It's not so much claiming the petrol etc. That bothers me, more about how awful the service has been and I don't think they should be able to get away with being so useless, especially when the repairs etc. Cost so much to the insurers. I cannot believe they were stupid enough to drive an untaxed car with half the back lights not working! It's not just putting our van at risk, but other people too and that's what annoys me so much!
I've spoken to the TPI who are going to incestigate the incident and take "reasonable steps to ensure it doesn't happen again".

[Deleted User]

Demand they pay for an MOT as you have no faith in their repairs.

RuthnJasper

MamaMoo wrote: »

Thanks both. It's not so much claiming the petrol etc. That bothers me, more about how awful the service has been and I don't think they should be able to get away with being so useless, especially when the repairs etc. Cost so much to the insurers. I cannot believe they were stupid enough to drive an untaxed car with half the back lights not working! It's not just putting our van at risk, but other people too and that's what annoys me so much!
I've spoken to the TPI who are going to incestigate the incident and take "reasonable steps to ensure it doesn't happen again".

I can understand your frustration. I suffered a similar (though non-accident-related) series of events years ago with my first car. The garage firm were part of a national chain, so I complained to the head office and got a small 'goodwill gesture' payment.

However, you may like to report the firm and their antics (and/or lack thereof) to your local Trading Standards office (which you can usually find on your local borough/county council's website).

vaio

I'd have thought the responsibility to tax it is the owner/registered keepers and not the garage

Along the same lines (sort of) I'm not sure that driving it back to you with a brake light not working is particularly putting either the van or anyone else at risk.

You can complain at the lack of checking before giving it back to you and the loss of fuel.

MamaMoo_2

vaio wrote: »

I'd have thought the responsibility to tax it is the owner/registered keepers and not the garage

Along the same lines (sort of) I'm not sure that driving it back to you with a brake light not working is particularly putting either the van or anyone else at risk.

You can complain at the lack of checking before giving it back to you and the loss of fuel.

If they'd phoned and said "we can't drive this van back as it's untaxed" then it would have been taxed within the hour. At no point am I suggesting it's their reaponsibility to tax it, that was the owner's job, and I'm not disputing that, however had that van been seized by the police, I would not have been impressed. It's illegal and they shouldn't have done it.

We were also told by our insurance company not to drive the van due to all the lights on the right hand side at the rear not working. Considering it's illegal to drive with non-working lights, then they shouldn't have been driving it in that state, not least of all because it should have been repaired!

sussexbhoy

If they had their trade plates on the van then it would be classed as taxed.
The brake light bulb could possibly have blown whilst it was being delivered back to you, which is why it would have passed its final checks.

MamaMoo_2

sussexbhoy wrote: »

If they had their trade plates on the van then it would be classed as taxed.
The brake light bulb could possibly have blown whilst it was being delivered back to you, which is why it would have passed its final checks.

I'm not 100% as to whether or not they had trade plates on, but I didn't see any and I went outside as soon as I heard them pull up and didn't see any.
Bulbs were definitely unrepaired as they weren't on the list of completed repairs, and I find it highly unlikely several bulbs would have blown at once. All bulbs on the right hand rear lights were broken from the accident.

sussexbhoy

fair enough with the lights then, but the no tax on your van is a non issue really