AA garage cover - own parts

ray_campbell

Hi
I have just had an estimate from garage for repairs to my vehicle using AA garage cover. The main cost is parts and I know I can get the part myself for a fraction of the dealers price. Garage are ok with me supplying the part but does anyone know if the AA will allow me to do so?

jbainbridge

You need to read the T&Cs carefully and/or ring them and ask. My guess would be no ... because in the event of an issue with the repair / part it will be difficult to attribute blame.

AdrianC

I can't even see the benefit here...

The AA Garage Cover pays for the work, right? So why do you want to save them some cost, in return for bringing comeback onto you?

What am I missing...?

ray_campbell

AdrianC said:

I can't even see the benefit here...

The AA Garage Cover pays for the work, right? So why do you want to save them some cost, in return for bringing comeback onto you?

What am I missing...?

They only cover to a max £535 and y repair is circa £1200. But if I could supply the main part it brings it down to £700 so its difference of having to may to 700 or 200 

AdrianC

Ah...

Will the garage not source the pattern part, and invoice the AA for it instead of using OEM?

Herzlos

AdrianC said:

Will the garage not source the pattern part, and invoice the AA for it instead of using OEM?

That would be the way to go. Garages really don't like using customer supplied parts because there's no warranty or guarantee of condition. I doubt the AA warranty would allow using them either.

feolojad

ray_campbell said:

They only cover to a max £535 and y repair is circa £1200. But if I could supply the main part it brings it down to £700 so its difference of having to may to 700 or 200 

That could end up being the most expensive £200 you ever end up trying to save if there's a fault with the part you supply. If it goes wrong the garage will bill you the full labour of the job to remove the faulty part and replace it with a new one. If you supply the wrong part the garage will bill you for the labour to replace that with the right one and depending on what the problem is often you can't find out it's the wrong part that's been supplied until you've dismantled everything to get to it. Just because you give a registration number is no guarantee the part will be the right one as there's countless examples of mid-production changeovers that'll happen in the middle of a year so you could have two identical looking 2018 cars manufactured just a day apart and car B uses a different part than car A and it won't fit.
If it's an hour's labour to do the job then it may be worth taking the risk but when it's £700 labour which suggests basically a whole day to do the job then no it's not worth the risk of supplying your own parts.