Can a garage use my car personally?

Hawkins123

My partner needed a new timing belt and water pump on her car, when she dropped it off at the garage she bought the car from (due to us already having a few issues with the garage) she took a picture of her mileage. They had the car a week despite telling us it would take a maximum of two days to get the work done. When she got the car back she took another photo of her mileage and the car had done an extra 250 miles. We know they could have done test runs, and they kindly dropped the car off for us, but we live 23 miles from the garage, so there’s no accounting for the rest of the miles. She’s contacted citizens advice and written to the garage themselves. The garage have simply not responded, and citizens advice were helpful at first but the last person she spoke to essentially said she didn’t have a leg to stand on as she gave them the car. She has a tracker installed and is waiting to find out where the car has been. If they have been using it (other than for testing purposes) where does she stand? 

Any help would be great, thanks all. 

KimJongUn88

What is your loss other than the cost of the fuel for the extra 200 miles?

AdrianC

Hawkins123 said:

If they have been using it (other than for testing purposes) where does she stand? 

What do you think she should be entitled to, by way of recompense?

Clearly, there's 200 miles of fuel... Or did they put some in it, if it was only the odometer not the fuel gauge that gave the clue?

Clearly, if any penalties come through for the period the garage was in possession, then they should be nominated.

Is the car on finance, and might some/all of the 200 miles incur excess mileage charges? If so, at what rate per mile?

What other losses has she incurred?

If she'd "already had issues" with the garage, why continue to use them?

Hawkins123

The only other thing is she’s only allocated 10,000 miles a year, so they’ve used almost a weeks worth of her mileage and whilst they were driving it, her MPG dropped by about 15mpg and her driving score hit rock bottom and she had her insurance contacting her about her poor driving so her insurance may go up 

Alter_ego

Report to police, this could be TWOC (taking without consent)
You won't gain anything but it will cover you if the car was used for anything illegal

Grumpy_chap

What days of the week did the week the garage had the car for cover?

250 miles, of which 50 are covered by collection and drop off.  The remaining 200 miles would be 4 hours driving, assuming a mix of roads / traffic and not just all motorway.  

Best thing is to wait for the tracker evidence and try to understand that first.  I don't have a tracker, but always understood the data from these was easy to obtain, almost immediately.  Oddly, before obtaining the tracker information, the OP has gone to CAB (at least twice), written to the garage, and posted for help on a public forum.  Always best to get the information first before getting stressed out - I am surprised CAB did not say to get the tracker evidence before doing anything else....

Hawkins123

AdrianC said:

Hawkins123 said:

If they have been using it (other than for testing purposes) where does she stand? 

What do you think she should be entitled to, by way of recompense?

Clearly, there's 200 miles of fuel... Or did they put some in it, if it was only the odometer not the fuel gauge that gave the clue?

Clearly, if any penalties come through for the period the garage was in possession, then they should be nominated.

Is the car on finance, and might some/all of the 200 miles incur excess mileage charges? If so, at what rate per mile?

What other losses has she incurred?

If she'd "already had issues" with the garage, why continue to use them?

Hi, they must have put more fuel in to cover all those miles, it was purely the odometer. 

She owns the car outright but if she exceeds her allocated mileage on her insurance she’ll incur a charge, I don’t know at what price. 

When she was buying the car we asked whether the timing belt had been done (as advised by our mechanic) and the guy we were dealing with assured her it didn’t need doing yet. Our mechanic later looked into this for us and it was a year overdue, so he’d mis sold her the car. They begrudgingly agreed to rectify this and do the work, and this is where they’ve added all those miles. 

She’s wanting to know what she can do if the tracker shows they’ve been using it without consent. She gave them the keys with consent to complete the work, and at no point did they contact her to explain if and when they’d need to use the car to collect parts for the work doing etc.

Hawkins123

Alter_ego said:

Report to police, this could be TWOC (taking without consent)
You won't gain anything but it will cover you if the car was used for anything illegal

Is this something she should do if her tracker comes back saying they’ve been, for example, using it to drive to and from work or run out to the shops etc? 

AdrianC

Alter_ego said:

Report to police, this could be TWOC (taking without consent) 

That would be a stretch, and very hard to prove.

https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/theft-act-offences
Section 12(1) of the 1968 Act defines the offence as taking any conveyance (apart from a pedal cycle) to use it without having the consent of the owner or other lawful authority (“TWOC”).
The garage had the owner's consent to be keeping the car.

Where permission has been given by the owner for some limited purpose, keeping the car after completing that purpose and continuing to drive it will be an offence of TWOC if there is no belief that the owner would consent to the continued use.
Was the use in line with normal garage purposes for testing a car that was in for the job? The work escalated - the job took a week instead of two days. Perhaps it needed to be taken elsewhere for some specialist work, and that mileage was in line with that?

Hawkins123 said:
The only other thing is she’s only allocated 10,000 miles a year

"Allocated" by whom? The financier? Her insurer?
Will that 200 miles actually make any practicable difference?

As I asked above, if it's going to be subject to excess mileage for the financier, how much is the per-mile rate? Assuming a fairly average 8p/mile, then 200 miles is £16.

whilst they were driving it, her MPG dropped by about 15mpg

Which would easily be explained by the car being run in the workshop without being driven. Fuel used, no mileage covered.

and her driving score hit rock bottom and she had her insurance contacting her about her poor driving so her insurance may go up

Tell the insurer that period should be disregarded, because the car was in the custody of the garage.

One other question... What car are we talking about here?

It's massively unlikely that a garage would even be vaguely bothered about "joy-riding" in something fairly prosaic, such as is likely to be being used by somebody requiring a black box on their insurance.
So is the suggestion that they loaned it to another customer for use?
One of the staff commuting in it?
What purpose would them covering 200 miles in it actually serve?

Grumpy_chap

Hawkins123 said:

She owns the car outright but if she exceeds her allocated mileage on her insurance she’ll incur a charge, I don’t know at what price. 

If the mileage is so close to the mileage declared for insurance that 200 extra miles is going to be an issue, then the mileage declared for the annual insurance is not really high enough.  In my experience, the difference in insurance rates for sensible adjustments to annual mileage is not significant - obviously going from 10k miles to 50k miles is a difference by 10k miles to 12k miles would be a small increment.  I also understand that most insurers give a little amount of "grace" on the declared mileage, so long as the mileage declared is a reasonable estimate.

Has the timing belt now been done?  At no charge?

Hawkins123 said:

She’s wanting to know what she can do if the tracker shows they’ve been using it without consent. 

Why hasn't the tracker information been obtained yet?  This is key to the whole discussion and should be quick and easy to obtain.
I assume this is some kind of "premium" 4x4-type vehicle, which must be 5-7 yo and 80-90k miles on as a used buy?

Hawkins123

Grumpy_chap said:

What days of the week did the week the garage had the car for cover?

250 miles, of which 50 are covered by collection and drop off.  The remaining 200 miles would be 4 hours driving, assuming a mix of roads / traffic and not just all motorway.  

Best thing is to wait for the tracker evidence and try to understand that first.  I don't have a tracker, but always understood the data from these was easy to obtain, almost immediately.  Oddly, before obtaining the tracker information, the OP has gone to CAB (at least twice), written to the garage, and posted for help on a public forum.  Always best to get the information first before getting stressed out - I am surprised CAB did not say to get the tracker evidence before doing anything else....

They had the car from Thursday to the following Wednesday, we dropped the car off to really the only miles should have been test runs and a one way trip. 

She contacted her insurance about the tracker as soon as they were open, she was told it would take 3 days, then this just kept getting extended each time and the last time she contacted them they said it would take 31 days, hence why she’s tried other routes.