Audi contract hire issues and Carcraft services

[jonah001]

Just a brief outline of a case I recently won against Audi Solicitors and how it may help others.

 

I had a private lease from Audi for a car over a 3 year period. It was not apparent that an Audi dealer had to service the vehicle so i used car-craft.

 

Car-craft actually provided good value for money services and scratch repairs to the vehicle, this was after I clarified that they where an "Audi approved service centre".

 

the issue came on the vehicle return inspection, bills where raised for non service history, and insufficient repair to paint work. additional mileage was added as was other issues.

 

Lets get the car craft bit out of the way, they should not have carried out the work due to a bit of small print in the agreement that I am sure goes against current law, but they where cheap and did a good job in my eyes.

 

The main issue was that the bill was immediately passed to there solicitors where a 12 month battle ensued in writing.

 

I finally stated that I would not deal with them and contacted the FSA and the ombudsman.

 

Eventually I received a letter from Audi stating that they would write of the £2000 bill due to good faith?

this was followed approximately 4 days later with a letter from the ombudsman stating they could not support my case.

 

Audi failings:

they did not communicate with there lawyers, as an example I requested a copy of the paperwork I signed on take over ( this was the mileage issue) but they where unable to or refused to produce it.

 

The car was taken from me and taken to a car auction, it was probably sold within a week. All bills for servicing was given to them along with the log book, this was in the car that was sold. there request for payment due to servicing issues resulted in me sending a copy of the first service and asking what was incorrect so I could recover the money from the first garage. I indicated once this was covered I would then approach the second garage and so on.

 

Audi did not provided any paperwork to support there issues apart from the disputed inspection on handover report.

 

I have copies of all letters and will provide advice if anyone wants it in a similar case.

Edited June 15, 2011 by jonah001
editing

[MARTIN3030]

So did it actually go to Court-or did they pay up on the threat of it ?

Did the FOS say why they could not support your case ?

[jonah001]

It didn't go to court at all, they just gave up I think. The FOS agreed to take the case, and wanted me to sign it over to them. This happened a few days before they (Audi) agreed to cancel the bill.

I believe there solicitors handled it very badly and did not really attempt to resolve the issues , just threats.

[heliosuk]

Not so sure I understand the point of this post only that Carcraft claimed they were an Audi approved service centre and were not.

 

FoS would not have taken on the case as is a lease/contract hire where terms of servicing would apply.

[heliosuk]

Now even more confused

[jonah001]

Sorry for the confusion. Let me try again, anyone who has taken out a a private car lease will know the stress of returning the vehicle.

For me it was a constant battle over a 1 year period to not pay for "made up" charges based upon a 15 minute inspection from one of there people to the sum of £2300.

As there is no specific sub-forum for this type of thing and because I want to help others who may also not be happy about similar situations I posted here.

Sorry for any confusion.

[gbjadyy]

im sure the block exemption rule should apply here ! if your lease says your responsible for maintenance i dont really see any reason why this cant be carried out according to schedule whether its audi approved garage or not???, if they start forcing people to pay dealer pricing then im sure this go against the block exemption rule so maybe thats why they chose not to pursue it in the end but of course there alwasy going to try and get you to give them money, i would have liked to have seen this one go to court with the defence of block exemption applying and therefore invaliding there claims for lack of servicing

[heliosuk]

Block exemption probably won't apply in this case as many of the manufactuers lease packages make it a term of the lease that the car is serviced an approved outlet/dealer. It's not like someone buying the car. Audi always owned the car and as such can dictate these terms. Non compliance would usually result in a charge back request but this should be for the difference in value of a car with a full dealer service history and one without one. This could be the same amount asked for in this case depending on the car.

 

Issues arise generally with these charge backs for damage to bodywork which invariably is subjective which incidently, Mercedes has a bit of a reputation for in the CAG forums.

 

If manufactuers who operate these agreements had a better overall strategy for handing back the car, such as regional collection points where the handover is checked and agreed with the customer without the use of third party collection drivers, this would be a much better way of dealing with the agreements.