Charity Needs Your Help!!!

[revdrun]

Good evening, I hope you've all had a good day. I need your help. A small local charity has a minibus used for transporting people (not for charging) and mainly children. It was involved in an accident and was driven to a main dealer for repair. At the same time the MOT ran out so the garage was asked to do the MOT as well. The garage did a quote which came to £1400 including the accident damage (parts & labour included). The accident portion of the quote was £700, the remainder was work needed to pass the MOT. The quote was agreed and the insurance comp. authorised the work. The garage called to confirm job done and when they arrived to pick up the minibus a bill was handed over for £1600!!! This charge did not include the accident work which was done thru the insurance. The insurance excess was £150 and they had added VAT at £94!?! The repair bill for the minibus totalled £1411!?! There explanation for the "additional charges" was work needed to pass MOT. None of the additional work had been authorised by the owners of the vehicle and none of it appeared on the original agreed quote. There is a charge on the bill for 'Pre MOT inspection' and a charge for taking the vehicle to have the MOT done!?! There is also a PSV inspection charge - Whats that???
The charity does not have the money to pay this charge and would never have authorised the additional work above the original quote. If xtra work was needed to pass MOT they would have taken it somewhere cheaper.
The garage will not budge! PLEASE, PLEASE HELP. The charity cant pick the kids up while this is going on! THANKS ALL

[Conniff]

You say you were given a 'quote' for £1400 to include damage repairs and MoT. Just confirm it was a 'quote' and not an estimate.

How many seats does the bus have, that's important?

Is this bill itemised and include the parts with their cost and labour to fit them>

[revdrun]

Hi Conniff, thanks for your reply. I will need to check if it was a quote or an estimate. What I do know is that they were given an itemised "quote/estimate" with parts and labour charge listed for each job. The minibus is a 17 seater. The final bill is itemised. Just to add they received a phone call yesterday to say that the garage had 'forgotten' to include the cost of a new battery onto the bill, so it has now gone up by another £60!!!!!!

[Conniff]

I take it then this was a frontal impact and the battery is under the bonnet.
Check that the quote / estimate says damage repairs and MoT.
Would be handy if you could put the relevant paperwork up here for us to look at.

[patdavies]

Originally Posted by Conniff

I take it then this was a frontal impact and the battery is under the bonnet.

In which case, the garage concerned should be talking to the insurance company as the accident damage was subject to a alaim. By trying to get the charity to pay for the battery, they garage are effectively increasing the policy excess.

If it was not accident damage, then the question has to be asked, what the battery has to do with an MoT test (providing that it was secured)?

[revdrun]

Hi all. The garage said the battery was 'no good'. The minibus hadnt been driven for a few months after the original accident. In any case the battery isnt really the issue here. The real issue is all of the unauthorised work done that has 'sky rocketed' the bill. Is there anything the charity can do. They cant afford the bill. The original quote was a quote not an estimate. Works were listed individually, with parts prices, labour time and total cost of labour and parts shown seperately with VAT added. How does £700 become £1411???

[Conniff]

revdrun we are trying to establish if there was much 'un-needed' work done and if it is an outright con.
You are fully within you rights to ask them to remove the old battery and replace it with the original. That is £60 saved. If the battery really is no good then get one from a breakers.

I am interested in what work they did for the Mot, you will need to list it.

Also a quote is binding.

[revdrun]

Hi Conniff, I am not sure what work was done for the MOT or not but I will list here ALL the items not on the original quote.
1. LABOUR COSTS
PSV Inspection £97.50 (please tell me what this is for?) - Coolant leaks pressure Test/tighten hose £32.50 - King pins lift & rock grease up £26.50 - Replace O/S number plate bulb £6.50 - Replace NSF side light bulb £6.50 - Replace exhaust system £97.50 - Replace broken side load door inner handle £48.75 - Replace two seat belt buckles £32.50 - Take for MOT & wait while tested £65.00 GRAND TOTAL = £413.25!!!
2. PARTS
Buckle assembly X 2 (@78.50) £157.00 - Door Handle £46.03 - Silencer £51.68 - Front Downpipe £62.67
GRAND TOTAL = £317.38
All of the above plus VAT!!!
They were quoted £59.56 for a tailpipe for the exhaust (it had fallen off already) and were told that was ALL that was needed to 'fix' the exhaust. No mention was made of needing a complete system!!
Now the charity does understand that some of the work may have been needed for the minibus to pass the MOT. However, they were quoted £32.50 for a pre-MOT check. Should that not have highlighted some if not all of the problems!??! And in any case should the charity not been told of what work needed to be carried out before they went ahead and did the work. I am told that with the exception of the exhaust, ALL the other work listed above could have been done by a family friend of the charity for the cost of the parts ONLY (they would have given him something to say thanks). I hope this is the write info that you need. And once again a BIG THANK YOU!!

[Conniff]

Hi revdrun

Class V vehicle can only be mot'd at a government class v station, so what they have done for the PSV inspection I do not know. I would say they are not authorised to do any inspections of class v vehicles as they had to take it to a class v station for the MoT so are not licenced. You need to ask them what the PSV inspection consisted of.

There is NO reason whatsoever to do a pre MoT if the vehicle is going to be MoT'd, the MoT will pick up any defects that need to be rectified.

Do you have, or have you seen, the MoT certificate

Take to and wait for MoT. MoT do not have VAT added to them so that should have been listed seperately and only the waiting time included, unless that is just the labour charge while he sat and had coffee. If it is, I don't see the test included.

Exhaust. I have done exhausts that look ok but when you touch them to replace just one part, it all falls to bits. Any leaks in the exhaust would have been an MoT failure, so will have to take there word for that.

Total = £730.63 plust vat @ 17.5% = £858.85, so where has this other £741.50 come from? You need the bill explained to you and calculated in front of you so you can see how they have come to that total.

Xerox off the bill and take that with you, don't let them keep the original.

Do you have the van back or are they hanging on to it until the bill is paid?

Remember, you can ask for all replaced parts back as they are yours and not the garages

[revdrun]

Hi Conniff, thanks again for your replies. The charity has a copy of the MOT certificate but the garage still has the minibus waiting for payment. They will ask the garage what the PSV and pre MOT tests were for. I know that the garage told them that the labour charge for the MOT was the waiting time for them to take the minibus for the MOT, which is now accepted.
Once again, I think the real issue here and the answer that the Charity needs me to tell them is where they stand with regard to the fact that the garage undertook an additional £858.85 of work without notifying them first! Work that they could not and cannot afford to pay for!
They received a quote and on the basis of 'the quote only' authorised the garage to do the work as listed on the quote! At no stage did the garage ever tell them that the additional work was needed (even if it was necessary to pass the MOT). The worse case would have been that they would have paid for the crash damage and the exhaust and just parked up the vehicle with a SORN until they had the funds to do the work to pass the MOT. The charity IS NOT going to pay for work they were not told about and did not give authorisation to do (they would be willing to pay for the additional exhaust work)! Where do they stand with this single point! Thanks

[Conniff]

Hi revdrun
A written quote is a legally binding document but a small amount over or under shouldn't be seen as sinister.
Arm yourself with the quote and ask to see the manager, he will know it is legally binding, but will probably try and get away with some fancy words.
Don't accept anything other than them abiding by the quote and mention the small claims court if he wont budge.

Is the garage exercising a 'Lien' over the bus ie have they told you that the bill must be paid before they will release it? They have a right to do this unfortunately.

If they are, you will probably have to pay, marking the bill, 'paid under protest' and then use the courts to reclaim the payment for unauthorised work.