Car parts swapped whilst at garage

ken1_2

Hello all

Briefly, booked my car in for a full service and MOT, garage said at the time of booking that it would be collected and returned within one day.

I checked the car before it was collected for all the usual pre MOT things. Car was collected but was returned after two days.

On its’ return I noticed that the engine bay cover was missing and subsequently noticed that my wiper blades had been swapped for old ones.

I made the garage aware of the situation and the owner said that it was not possible for the wipers to have been swapped at his garage so I asked for the cctv record for the two days that it had been with him and he agreed to check and send me a copy of the cctv. He subsequently sent me a message to say that the cctv is now unavailable as it was overwritten and can’t get it back. They failed to check and secure the footage when it was available to them at the time I made my complaint to the garage.

I have video recordings and photos of me making my checks.  Can I issue a claim against the garage and if so, what are my chances of winning?

I would appreciate it if you could suggest the way forward.

Thank you.

KimJongUn88

What have they said about the engine cover?

benbay001

ken1_2 said:

I have video recordings and photos of me making my checks.  

Who does this?

ken1_2

KimJongUn88 - they returned the cover after they had been made aware 
benbay001 - someone that has cctv and someone that has been the subject of very dodgy dealings with car garages

williamgriffin

ken1_2 said:

Hello all

Briefly, booked my car in for a full service and MOT, garage said at the time of booking that it would be collected and returned within one day.

I checked the car before it was collected for all the usual pre MOT things. Car was collected but was returned after two days.

On its’ return I noticed that the engine bay cover was missing and subsequently noticed that my wiper blades had been swapped for old ones.

I made the garage aware of the situation and the owner said that it was not possible for the wipers to have been swapped at his garage so I asked for the cctv record for the two days that it had been with him and he agreed to check and send me a copy of the cctv. He subsequently sent me a message to say that the cctv is now unavailable as it was overwritten and can’t get it back. They failed to check and secure the footage when it was available to them at the time I made my complaint to the garage.

I have video recordings and photos of me making my checks.  Can I issue a claim against the garage and if so, what are my chances of winning?

I would appreciate it if you could suggest the way forward.

Thank you.

How much were your wipers? Feel free to fill in the court papers but with the covid backlog I doubt you'll ever find a judge willing to hear this.

I can imagine the police will have little more interest. 

AdrianC

Sorry, you're suggesting that a garage stole your wiper blades...?

Why on earth would they do that? The cost of new ones to them is literally next to nothing.

The engine cover? Easy to see how that could have been forgotten.

What do you want out of this "claim"?
A new pair of wiper blades? How much time and effort and blood pressure are you willing to put into ten or twenty quid's worth of blades?
Them prosecuted for theft? It won't happen.
Some kind of official slapdown for shoddy CCTV retention practices? Who by? If he HAD sent it to you, he may have been breaking the law unless every other registration and various other pieces of information were blanked out.

Most likely explanation for the CCTV "shenanigans" is simply either user incompetence, or the CCTV is just a dummy or broken and he doesn't want to admit it...

KimJongUn88

So you’ve got your engine cover back and the only thing in dispute are the wipers. Do you know how cheaply garages buy wipers in for? This would make it even less likely that they have swapped yours over.

The CCTV of you checking your wipers doesn’t necessarily mean that they’ve been swapped unless of course your CCTV is that good that they can show the condition and perhaps brand of wiper before you took your car in.l to the garage.

There’s nothing stopping you issuing a small claim against the garage however I highly suspect that you’d be admonished by a District Judge for clogging the Court system up for such a trivial matter. If I were the garage, I’d also apply to get the matter kicked out from the start as an abuse of process.

I do however envy you given that you clearly live such an easy life with no worries other than a trifling matter such as this. 

fred246

It's normal practice if you take a car to a garage that they throw some parts in the bin. The car will work fine without the engine cover and they can't be bothered to put it back so they just throw them in the bin. It's amazing how much stuff you can lose that way. So they probably just got it out of the bin when you complained. Most customers wouldn't notice.

KimJongUn88

fred246 said:

It's normal practice if you take a car to a garage that they throw some parts in the bin. The car will work fine without the engine cover and they can't be bothered to put it back so they just throw them in the bin. It's amazing how much stuff you can lose that way. So they probably just got it out of the bin when you complained. Most customers wouldn't notice.

I once used a mobile mechanic who couldn't be bothered refitting my wheel trims and threw them in my own wheelie bin.  I had to fish them out myself after he left. 

williamgriffin

KimJongUn88 said:

fred246 said:

It's normal practice if you take a car to a garage that they throw some parts in the bin. The car will work fine without the engine cover and they can't be bothered to put it back so they just throw them in the bin. It's amazing how much stuff you can lose that way. So they probably just got it out of the bin when you complained. Most customers wouldn't notice.

I once used a mobile mechanic who couldn't be bothered refitting my wheel trims and threw them in my own wheelie bin.  I had to fish them out myself after he left. 

I couldn't be bothered to refit mine so I binned them and had to later fish them out.

Homer_home

Given how quick and easy it is to swap wiper blades , do you know for a fact that the garage took them seeing as you didn't see your car for two days?

More than likely some chancer who has the same car as you swapped them , just buy some new ones and move on