Seeking compensation from mobile tyre fitter for damaged locking wheel nut/bolt

mattyprice4004

They had no way of knowing it’d snap, locking nuts are notorious for this.
Suck it up and sort it yourself; you’ll get nowhere.

You sound completely clueless in this field; I have a lot of experience in my work with this kind of thing and it’s literally an everyday problem for garages.
Any judge or solicitor with experience in this field will (rightly) rule against you.

Ridiculous over-reactions to blameless situations like this are why even simple jobs now involve daft amounts of paperwork.

powerful_Rogue

JDM84 wrote: »

Last but not least, a bit more info - the full labour + parts to sort this out will probably be nearly £400.
I'm getting it done at the dealer's garage, I've also requested they check if the wheelnuts are tightened properly or not - so I can get the facts straight and documented. I'd appreciate advice what to do if my suspicions are right - thanks in advance!

Good luck with that. If the tyre fitter does not agree to paying, you will have to file a claim with the SCC.

You have not shopped around and are paying way over the odds. If you did win, you wouldn't get all that money back.

born_again

Best option is to get dealer to remove ALL locking nut and put standard ones on. Thats what I did before I picked my new car up.

The days of needing locking nuts has long gone ans most cars now have alloy wheels.

rr755507

JDM84 wrote: »

No offense, but that response is completely pointless. You have no clue if my wheelnuts are defective, tightened properly or not.

On the balance of probabilities, the wheel was were defective or tightened too far.

Other than the fitter accidentally tightening instead of loosening the nut, I am finding it difficult to see how else he could have been negligent.

born_again

rr755507 wrote: »

On the balance of probabilities, the wheel was were defective or tightened too far.

Op missed some very important info to be able to say that.
When were the nuts last removed replaced? How old is the car? old car, then the locking adaptor could have been used many times and was the fault and not the nut.

forgotmyname

Locking nut keys break quite often, they can be a right PITA.

Court and proving they deliberately broke it or negligent highly unlikely.

Jimifan

So no chance of me arguing the case with the garage that sheared the head of the bolt of my locking nut last year. Didn't notice it at the time, I went to have a new tyre fitted at ATS and asked them to put that on (front offside) on the back and the new one on the front and they said they couldn't and pointed it out to me. It had obviously been like that since the last wheel change otherwise it would have looked clean rather than rusty colour. But how to prove it? The name/type of  tyre is not on the invoice and it was now several months ago :-(  I am !!!!!! off that they didn't admit to it at the time.

452

Jimifan said:

So no chance of me arguing the case with the garage that sheared the head of the bolt of my locking nut last year. Didn't notice it at the time, I went to have a new tyre fitted at ATS and asked them to put that on (front offside) on the back and the new one on the front and they said they couldn't and pointed it out to me. It had obviously been like that since the last wheel change otherwise it would have looked clean rather than rusty colour. But how to prove it? The name/type of  tyre is not on the invoice and it was now several months ago :-(  I am !!!!!! off that they didn't admit to it at the time.

Surely you noticed it when checking your tyre pressures. 

custardy

Fosterdog said:

If the dealers garage is charging you £400 to fix this then you are being taken for a ride. We've had to replace locking nuts on a few different cars and the new nuts and keys cost between £15-£50 depending on what you want/need and then drilling the old nuts off even if all four need doing would be a maximum of one hours labour charge, some garages only charge per wheel at £5-£10, it takes them just a few minutes to do.

What has happened to your car is relatively common

As said. Its a regular job for a garage. I had one go whilst get a lower arm done.
Garage removed all 4 and replaced bolts only for the cost of the bolts

mattyprice4004

Jimifan said:

So no chance of me arguing the case with the garage that sheared the head of the bolt of my locking nut last year. Didn't notice it at the time, I went to have a new tyre fitted at ATS and asked them to put that on (front offside) on the back and the new one on the front and they said they couldn't and pointed it out to me. It had obviously been like that since the last wheel change otherwise it would have looked clean rather than rusty colour. But how to prove it? The name/type of  tyre is not on the invoice and it was now several months ago :-(  I am !!!!!! off that they didn't admit to it at the time.

How do you prove you haven't done it since, and aren't just pulling a fast one? 
It's been far too long, they'll just argue they don't know where the car has been since.