£690 failed car repair.

[Haggislord]

If you pay a garage to fix your car & it's still broken, can you get a refund?

[BankFodder]

The answer is probably but I will have to ask you more questions and give you a full reply tomorrow.

start off by naming the garage and giving us some brief facts as to what has happened including details of the motor car repairs, the price paid

[Haggislord]

Hillington MOT in Hillington, Glasgow, Scotland. The car was stuttering and went into limp mode. They diagnosed it & said I needed a new injector, new air flow meter & had to reseal another injector. The car is worse than it was when I gave them it. Paid £690 & now they say it's something else and want another £300 to repair the ECU.

[BankFodder]

Firstly to warn you that it's not straightforward.

Of course if you had gone into the garage and issue them with instructions as to what to do to remedy the problem and that had produced the failure, then clearly the garage would not be liable.

As the garage has apparently carried out the diagnosis themselves and not remedied the problem then they are very probably liable. On the other hand, if the work they carried out was part of a larger problem which also included a faulty ECU then I'm afraid they will probably be entitled to the extra £300 to finish the job.

However, if the work they carried out was completely unnecessary and the problem was merely a faulty ECU then it is the garage who would have to bear liability as you relied on their professional expertise to come up with the correct answer and to do the appropriate work.

The problem is that you probably didn't take any other opinions as to what was wrong with the vehicle (and why should you). This means that there is likely to be a dispute as to the need for the work which they have actually carried out.

Have you talked to them about this? Have they explain to you why the work they carried out so far has not cured the problem?

To add further complication, I suppose that you can't be sure that it is the ECU which is the problem. As the car driveable? Where is it? It seems to me that you probably need other independent reports as to what was originally the problem, what is the problem now. I think you also need independent opinions as to whether the work which has been carried out for your £690 was actually necessary.

 

[Haggislord]

OK, thanks for the advice. 

[BankFodder]

if you can get the further opinions that you need to support you then if you come back here we will be able to help you through the next step. on the basis of what you have told us, there seems no doubt that it is their liability but at the end of the day you need to be prepared and have the information you need in order to be sure of success