Car Lease - "Damage" costs on return

MercilessKiller

Penelopa.Pitstop wrote: »

Which company picked the car up? Manheim?

I never seen BCA to check paint and they never spotted repainted part on my leased car. In one case, I was told that car will be taken to Mercedes workshop to check it in more details but they never came back to me with any comments. So far, my 4 leased cars were returned without any charges.

Yes Manheim - The alloys were messed up and based on the pricing guideline I was happy to pay for them so that damage I expected but I'm contesting everything else. We'll see if they come back to me anyway.

MercilessKiller

Hi All

Update here - Hitachi got back to me and said the paint re-spray is indeed needed and that will cost me. I explained the repair work was done by a garage with warranty and that if we can provide the evidence that the repair wasn't a manufacturer standard they will re-do it.

However the leasing company is saying "too late". Now the car is in their possession they can't/won't authorise a repair under the warranty and instead I would still need to be charged...

How on earth can I be out of pocket from this???? What am I meant to do now?

This seems like a massive scam to me. If they have the car and are charging me for a repair that they won't do (due to the car going to auction now anyway), when I'm saying the repair is free because it was done under a garage instructed by my solicitor via insurer - how on earth can I be liable for this cost?

Not sure what my next step is here other to try and invoice the garage for the paintwork fee (which there's no way they would pay I imagine) or just say no to the leasing company and not pay it (not sure what repercussion would happen here though..)

foxy-stoat

I would read all the terms and conditions of the contract and any return paperwork to see if what they are charging you is covered on the original contract.

As the repair was an insurance claim then it would be covered by a warranty but you need to find out the terms of the warranty - ie giving them a chance to fix the problem first not just hand them an invoice to rectify.

Small claims would be my next step - I would say you would have a good chance as it would be down to if a reasonably practical person would spot the defective repair when they collected the car and then not accepted it. I very much doubt that the average Joe 6 Pack would not be able to spot what someone in the motor trade has spotted on your old car - bearing in mind that the persons job would be to find defects how ever minor and charge you for them.

Expect to pay it if the contract says you have to - and try and reclaim it from the insurers as they would be the ones who paid the garage for the works. Or dont pay it and wait for the summons and let THEM take you to court for the money and argue it there. Timescales for the warranty and notification timelines may mean you need to put your insurers on notice.

As long as the service stamp is sorted it wont muddy these waters.

MercilessKiller

foxy-stoat wrote: »

I would read all the terms and conditions of the contract and any return paperwork to see if what they are charging you is covered on the original contract.

As the repair was an insurance claim then it would be covered by a warranty but you need to find out the terms of the warranty - ie giving them a chance to fix the problem first not just hand them an invoice to rectify.

Small claims would be my next step - I would say you would have a good chance as it would be down to if a reasonably practical person would spot the defective repair when they collected the car and then not accepted it. I very much doubt that the average Joe 6 Pack would not be able to spot what someone in the motor trade has spotted on your old car - bearing in mind that the persons job would be to find defects how ever minor and charge you for them.

Expect to pay it if the contract says you have to - and try and reclaim it from the insurers as they would be the ones who paid the garage for the works. Or dont pay it and wait for the summons and let THEM take you to court for the money and argue it there. Timescales for the warranty and notification timelines may mean you need to put your insurers on notice.

As long as the service stamp is sorted it wont muddy these waters.

Thanks for this - I forwarded on proof of service history to them and they didn't mention it to me in the call this morning when discussing damage that requires cost (which I took as a good sign but who knows...!)

They've said they won't give the garage/insurer a chance to repair the damage as it's too late and the car is already en route to auction so even IF the Garage would agree to re-do the repair, Hitachi are still saying tough and that I should be asking the garage to pay the charge (which I assume has a 0% chance of succeeding.. or in the region on).

My plan right now based on this is to get the garage to provide confirmation that indeed warranty does cover it and that there's an offer to look at the car - If that's made, then I can at least push back and show it was done professionally with warranty as per the terms so should be accepted.

Their own terms say that any repair work done under warranty is accepted, but obvious damage (such as Ripple paintwork) is not accepted.

However. the lady clearly admitted on the phone to me that the average person can't spot ripple paintwork issue and it has to be somebody trained who's a specialist. That's a clear conflict as it's not "obvious" in that case...

Luckily the calls are apparently all recorded so my plan is to get the garage to say they'll look at the car, then push back saying I did everything right, complied with all their terms and they're still trying to charge me....

Will have a deeper read of the T&Cs tonight. Thanks!

foxy-stoat

Rippled paintwork is not damage its just badly painted. Sounds like you need to ask for copies of all telephone conversations at this point.

davemorton

I think the op means a card like this...
https://www.amazon.com/Super-PDR-Reflector-Paintless-Ajustment/dp/B018TJNRMG

MercilessKiller

davemorton wrote: »

I think the op means a card like this...
https://www.amazon.com/Super-PDR-Reflector-Paintless-Ajustment/dp/B018TJNRMG

Thats it but it was black and white - yes.

So he couldn't see anything wrong till he used that and the lady on the phone admitted that only trained specialists are able to see it - Yet their own website says "obvious poor repair work such as paint ripples are not accepted".

But I think in this case they've even admitted it's not obvious..! I'll throw it back at them and see what happens - wish me luck!

bowf

Had loads of lease cars, business and personal.
Never ever had a guy pull out one of these paint cards. :-/
Did have one lease company try and charge for a missing remote locking key when the car involved didn't have remote locking, but that was a one-off and we've not had any damage bills since.
We're sensible enough to fix any small dings before the collection.

MercilessKiller

Hi All
New update

Spoke with Hitachi again who have now confirmed they have no option but to forward to their "complaints department" as the recharge team are unable to take this any further.

To confirm, she agreed that while this isn't obvious to the average person, it is obvious to trained specialists using special tools meaning it is NOT covered by the BVLA fair wear & tear guidelines which states that while repairwork under warranty is covered, this would not be.

I absolutely disagree though as those guidelines specifically say it must be "obvious" ripples in the paintwork and that these guidelines are for owners/leaseholders of the car - so by definition it is not obvious if you must have specialist tools.

In addition, while the garage has confirmed the repair work is under warranty, Hitachi won't allow the garage to look at the car or attempt to make any resolution. They said they're very quick to process these things and move the car one.

HOWEVER - On the DAY of the inspection I emailed Hitachi's recharge team to ask to discuss the dmg ASAP and they didn't call me a full week and said that it's too late to do anything because the car has now been moved on to auction and they didn't have it!!!! I have proof of that email - that smells to me like they purposefully ignored me UNTIL they moved the car to auction to stop me from being able to discuss or get the issue resolved.

I'm going to tell the complaints team all of this and that they would have to take me to court to recover the paintwork costs because it's clear I've done everything right and by the book. I've still offered to happily pay for the damage to the alloys and a deep scratch - Fingers crossed their complaints team just agree to go that route as surely the legal route would cost them more than the money they're trying to reclaim anyway....

MercilessKiller

They've also sent the images through to send on to the garage of the obvious ripple issue:





This is the full car from the side without the "ripple" issue: