Garage disaster - who is liable?

fred246

I don't really see why spending a few minutes on moneyclaimonline should take it's toll on your well-being. I don't think the pyromaniac would enjoy going to court. According to what I have read you could have got many more years out of the Jazz. 

Ditzy_Mitzy

fred246 said:

I don't really see why spending a few minutes on moneyclaimonline should take it's toll on your well-being. I don't think the pyromaniac would enjoy going to court. According to what I have read you could have got many more years out of the Jazz. 

How much do you suggest claiming for?  All that's due, in relation to the Honda Jazz, is what it was worth prior to the fire.  Almost nothing, in other words. 

fred246

Look on eBay. The garage trade seem to charge up to £2500.

Dr_Crypto

I may be missing a detail but it seems that your contract was with the original garage. Did you have a seperate agreement with the welder - were you going to pay him seperately or were you going to pay the garage a lump sum for all works? 
I can't imagine the Jazz was worth much which is what you're claiming for. 
If it came to court I'd be tempted to claim against both the welder and the garage and let them sort it out at court. But you seem reasonable and so do they so it shouldn't get there. 
People haven't mentioned whether you can claim for a replacement hire car while this is sorted out. I'm not sure if you can in these circumstances as you were planning on having the jazz off the road for some time while the works were carried out. 

Oursoul

Wow, thanks for all the input!
So to clear up a couple of things:

- The Polo we've been offered doesn't currently have an MOT and we'd need to do sort that out - not sure what state it's in apart from that or what actually needs doing to get it through.  Interesting about the value of automatic Polos though...

- As I said, we are fairly clueless when it comes to cars: took it to the garage, they said it needed welding, we said ok weld it - I would assume the garage would do that themselves rather than subcontract it out but honestly never thought about it or knew they did that.

Either way the garage seem to have washed their hands of it, passing my partner the welder's number to sort it out with him directly.  It sounds like it would be a low-value payout if we did claim/drag it through small claims, and frankly we don't have the time nor inclination to drag this out, neither do we want to cause trouble for anyone.  Yes, the welder ballsed this up and has (hopefully) learned an expensive lesson - he says he was hoping to sell the Panda at some point but will give it to us to make up for it.  Times are hard for everyone at the moment and sh*t happens (especially when you don't follow standard procedure   Thinking about it, the fact he has a £700 excess doesn't mean he'd actually end up paying that much, as it's debatable whether the car was worth that much in it's pre-incinerated state.  It was a good reliable car though (millions of old biddies can't be wrong, Jazzes are great), and yes, had this work been carried out successfully i'm confident we'd have got years out of it.

Really I was just interested on people's opinions on who was liable - we do like the garage we took it to and have used them for years, so it seemed weird how they kind of passed the buck so quickly - I guess they're up against it too and don't need the expense.

Ditzy_Mitzy

Hmmmm..... I'd certainly be having a closer look at the Polo in that case.  It sounds like, having offered you the choice of two, that you are being nudged towards the Panda.  I'd imagine that's because he'd rather be rid of it than the Polo.  The Panda is an inferior car, which may be the reason, or it might be that the Polo will pass an MOT and is, in fact, potentially much more valuable.  There may, in fact, be a reason why he wants to hang on to the Polo.

Oursoul

Actually he was pushing us more towards the polo, maybe it needs lots of work to get it through the mot...

m0bov

Who is liable depends on who was contracted you *you* to do the work. If they said they would get the welding done, then they are liable. Do you have any contractual relationship with the welder? Did you speak to them or agree for the to do the work? Did you agree a fee with them? If not, then its garage A you deal with and nobody else. I suspect your being mugged off, they are trying to off load an old banger after torching your car. It beggers believe. I'd ask for a cash payout or Moneyclaim them.

Ditzy_Mitzy

Oursoul said:

Actually he was pushing us more towards the polo, maybe it needs lots of work to get it through the mot...

Maybe it does, sorry got the wrong impression from what you wrote earlier.  Simplest thing to do, in that case, would be to come to an agreed value of what the Jazz was worth, pre-fire, and get the garage to pay that amount. 

Penelopa.Pitstop

Write down registration plates of both offered cars, go to MOT history page on gov website and check mileage and see whether cars passed or failed previous MOTs. It should give you some ideas about their condition and if someone cared about them. It would be best if the welder took Polo to MOT before offering it to you. Because you don't want to end up with car that won't pass it.
Also, contacting insurance means they recoded incident against you and your policy will be higher next year. But it's too late to change that.