Dispute with a garage

Alfrescodave

By "scam post" I meant that OP was scamming people into responding to a non existant joke situation.   

How did garage gain access to the vehicle? How did garage know what the fault was ? Either OP is being very limiting with the facts or its all just a big joke. 

photome

Presumably you wanted the car repaired or you wouldnt have called the AA. They have taken your car to a local repairer for repair. The only issue really is the lack of communication , how many times did you try to call them

eskbanker

Alfrescodave said:

By "scam post" I meant that OP was scamming people into responding to a non existant joke situation.

As mentioned above, 'scam' is an unhelpfully vague term, but I don't think I've ever seen it used like that!

imnotamechanic

Thank you all for your replies, my post was genuine. I have since spoken to the citizens advice bureau and from a free legal helpline and am following their advice in an attempt to resolve the matter. In case you are interested, there has to be a contract in place between the consumer, me, and the service provider, in this case the garage. It can be verbal or written. Without a contract a consumer is not bound to pay for the service. I am willing to pay for some of the work, but not for an unrequested ‘service’. I am attempting to negotiate.  My car was towed to the garage by The AA, it was a sunday so the garage was closed. Thank you again….

imnotamechanic

Ps. The Garage is not an approved AA garage! The AA have said that it is within the remit of their recovery/ breakdown drivers to take a customers vehicle to a non AA garage. I did not know this was the case. I thought that the AA was taking me to an AA garage. 

Aylesbury_Duck

imnotamechanic said:

Ps. The Garage is not an approved AA garage! The AA have said that it is within the remit of their recovery/ breakdown drivers to take a customers vehicle to a non AA garage. I did not know this was the case. I thought that the AA was taking me to an AA garage. 

Did you assume so?  What does the contract say?

Hoenir

imnotamechanic said:

I thought that the AA was taking me to an AA garage. 

They wouldn't have changed the situation if events unfolded the same.  The AA fulfilled their duty to recover. May be a good reason why this particular garage was choosen, i.e. locality. 

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

CCRs require certain pre-contractual information and without this the consumer is not bound by the contract.

Also for a contract to be formed offer, consideration and acceptance are required, @Okell might have more to say on whether this occurred. 

sheramber

imnotamechanic said:

Ps. The Garage is not an approved AA garage! The AA have said that it is within the remit of their recovery/ breakdown drivers to take a customers vehicle to a non AA garage. I did not know this was the case. I thought that the AA was taking me to an AA garage. 

If you have standard breakdown cover without National Recovery, you won’t get assistance for long-distance recovery tows if your vehicle can't be repaired at the roadside. Instead, we’ll take it to a local garage.

https://www.theaa.com/breakdown-cover/national-recovery

Alderbank

imnotamechanic said:

Ps. The Garage is not an approved AA garage! The AA have said that it is within the remit of their recovery/ breakdown drivers to take a customers vehicle to a non AA garage. I did not know this was the case. I thought that the AA was taking me to an AA garage. 

But the AA themselves don't appear to say they take you to an AA approved garage.

In my quote above they only say they take you to their choice (ie. their patrolman's choice) of local garages.

The AA publish a list, the AA Garage Guide, of about 4,000 garages known and used by their patrolmen in circumstances like yours. But they're far from all being AA approved - in 2023 there were a total of only 600 AA approved garages in the whole of the UK, that's about 1 in 6. And they are not evenly spread - most are in towns and cities. Remote areas might not have any.
The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, who know about these things, say there are more than 42,000 vehicle service and repair locations across the UK. So on average, far fewer than 1 in 50 will be AA approved.

Many, many customers say that the fact that a garage has paid to sign up to the AA approved scheme is no guarantee that the quality or value will be better than somewhere else. Most people say that using a known, recommended and trusted local place is better than any published 'Trust a Trader' scheme.