Garage Crashed my car after expensive repair

liam_omuk

Last month, my car broke down and went into my garage for a costly repair that ran up to £1300 including parts and labour. On the day of the completion of the work i received a call from the Garage to tell me that there had been "a disaster" and that the car had been in an accident whilst on its road test and was very likely to be written off.

The insurance company have said the vehichle is worth £2200 just before the accident but the garage are insisting I still have to pay the £1300 for the repairs carried out to the vehichle before the accident.

Does anyone know where I stand legally?

My feeling is that they crashed my car whilst it was under their care and that I never received a fixed car. Also as the accident was definately the fault of the 3rd party and not the garage (accident inspector has said evidence proves the car was hit at no fault of the driver, in this case the garage) Surely they should claim against some sort of loss of income?

Do I have to pay the £1300 therefore only giving my £900 for the car?

Any ideas or suggestions as to what I should do?

InsideInsurance

Are you disputing they did the repairs to the vehicle?

If the repairs hadnt been done the car wouldnt be worth £2,200.

Its two separate issues, your owe the garage for what they did but you may be able to negotiate them down. Similarly negotiate up the value of the car reflecting recent work, wont add £1,300 to the price but may increase it a bit

mgfvvc

liam_omuk wrote: »

My feeling is that they crashed my car whilst it was under their care and that I never received a fixed car. Also as the accident was definately the fault of the 3rd party and not the garage (accident inspector has said evidence proves the car was hit at no fault of the driver, in this case the garage) Surely they should claim against some sort of loss of income?

Do I have to pay the £1300 therefore only giving my £900 for the car?

Any ideas or suggestions as to what I should do?

I can't say I know, but there is a very helpful solicitor on the legal issues board of the Motley Fool's UK site who might well advise if you post there.

I would guess that you have to pay the garage, but the 3rd party's insurers would be liable for the money that has been wasted, however there might be a small offset for any difference in value of the car. That is just a guess.

Marktheshark

Who's insurance are you claiming on ?
Surely not yours.

liam_omuk

Thanks for the advice, the garage are claiming on their insurance, I expect I will have to pay them, just feels wrong to have to pay for work I never saw the benefit of due to no fault of my own... But then again the car would not be worth the insurance valuation without the work so I see where they are coming from.

tyllwyd

You paid for £1300-worth of repairs on a car worth £2200? That was a brave decision.

InsideInsurance

liam_omuk wrote: »

Thanks for the advice, the garage are claiming on their insurance, I expect I will have to pay them, just feels wrong to have to pay for work I never saw the benefit of due to no fault of my own... But then again the car would not be worth the insurance valuation without the work so I see where they are coming from.

But from what you say, its also no fault of theirs either so why should they be out of pocket?

Whilst legally you dont have much of a leg to stand on I would have thought a reasonable discussion with them would have resulted in a discounted bill being payable to them.

shortcrust

I would get legal advice before paying a penny. I don't know about this sort of stuff so take with a pinch of salt, but getting the repaired car back to the customer seems like a pretty important part of the contact to me.

Aretnap

If the book value of the car was £2200 but it needed £1300 of work doing to it then just before you took it to the garage it's actual value was about £900. That's what it would most likely have sold for just before you took it to the garage, and that's what your own insurer would have paid you if you'd driven it into a lamppost on the way to the garage.

So you can take the view that you took your somewhat knackered £900 car to the garage, they broke it, and that they therefore owe you £900. Or you can take the view that you took your somewhat knackered £900 car to the garage, they did some work to turn it into a £2200 car, then they broke it and so they owe you £2200. But in that case the £1300 you spent on the repairs wasn't wasted. So either way you end up with £900.

That's the legal position anyway. In practice I'd agree that the garage's embarrassment is likely to be such that if you push you can probably get a discount on the work done and therefore end up with a bit more than £900 - but that's a question of how much they want your custom again and/or how much they want to avoid bad PR rather than of your legal rights.

You might also be able to argue for a higher book value for the car - though don't fall for the fallacy that because you'd just has £1300 worth of work done on a £2200 car that it's value becomes £3500. Any car in that age and price bracket will have had a fair amount spent on maintaining it over the years and will have some new or nearly new parts, so that's already largely accounted for in the valuation. Very recent work might increase it's value slightly - not by the full value of the work, but maybe by a little.