Urgent advice on car insurance please

Did the friend give the car an Italian tune up on the way to the MOT station to help with the emissions pass?

Really glad it worked out for your daughter - it must have been such a worry for you both.

As for the "friend" - I'm speechless but not surprised as we also had a mechanic "friend" of my dad's who ripped me off royally with a car we stupidly bought through him.
Some people are shameless though - still, we live and we learn eh?

Not necessarily dodgy. The garage I used to go to had their MOTs done by the garage round the corner that they had a deal with.

The different garage isn't necessarily odd. Not all garages are authorised to carry out MOTs. The ones that are not will do servicing and repairs and take cars to an MOT authorised garage for that bit.

What a relief for you all. Great outcome.

I think your DH needs to realise this mate has done him no favours whatsoever and if he doesn't belt up and provide a statement to the insurers that HE was driving, he is likely to cost your family a fortune, as once insurance is cancelled, no one else is going to insure at a reasonable price! (If they will at all!).

If this were my mate I'd be reading the fucking riot act over this, what a cunt!

I know this isnt going to help in hindsight but we have just had a similar situation re a black box and MOT due. We called insurance before and warned them Mobile mechanic was taking car for the day and would be driving on his insurance. We also spoke to mechanic and explicitly told him that the car had black box and any issues would be a huge issue.

Even in this situation the insurance said it would be noted on file BUT the black box would still flag up any speeding etc so please be careful because they could not guarentee it would not effect insurance.

In the end the mechanic drove it perfectly so no issue but if the car has a black box NEVER hand the keys over to someone unless you have let your insurance know or you have got the driver to promise in blood they will drive safely.

This happened to my friends son but it was at a main dealer!
Eventually with help from the garage the insurance was reinstated but it was a battle

Is this Hastings direct? They are notorious for it. My DS had insurance cancelled as not driving while away on holiday. Got him a non black box policy with Admiral instead

Don't these black boxes have trackers on them that show where the vehicle was, or have I misunderstood how that works.

Surely that would show where the vehicle was, backing up DDs version of events.

Exactly, contact the garage rather than going through the friend, he’s clearly not going to reply.

How did she pay for the work? It’ll show on her tank statement that matches the date on the mot so that’s proof the car was in the garage.

How was it booked in? Any confirmation of the day it was booked in? Email/text confirmation?

I suspect the garage won't have a clue, as the 'friend' has done this as a favour to a mate off the books, outside normal hours. Once OP does that, any idea of using telling the boss as leverage to get 'friend' to prove he was the one driving goes out the window!

I know. Hence the suggestion to contact the garage!

The OP has said the friend isn't replying

Why do you need to go through the friend? can you not just contact the garage directly? and send a copy of the invoice from the garage to the insurance company?

My son had his insurance cancelled because they sent an email asking him about not using his car for a few weeks, it went to my email and I didn't reply in time. There was no persuading them(Hastings) to not canc, like talking to a brick wall.I felt awful and spent hours asking advice and explaining to different companies with no luck. I then went into Hastings website and reinserted him no problem??? That was months ago and leason learned but weird.

I;d also look for any evidence you have that DD was not driving the car at any point during those days - receipts from stores, home CCTV etc - so that when they say 'well she was doing 90mph down the M4 at 2am' you can show that she was eating McDonalds 50 miles away.. or something.

Some fucking friend eh!

He's stalling and not replying because he knows he's been dicking about in a car that isn't his, he's only insured to drive for work purposes and has landed you and your DD in trouble.

Definitely expect a speeding fine through the door, so find out his address and details asap so you can pass them on to the police.

I'd also threaten to tell his boss that he's been taking cars to sort out off the radar/not through the books, presuming he works for someone else.

Does your black box not have a route tracker? Ones I’ve seen used to show where you’d been, the time, and how they’d rated the drive (including an explanation why).

edit - sorry, you would also need the garage to agree they’d had it.

DS has a black box in my car. He has to have his phone blue tooth on and connected to be insured.

It might track me driving. I have no idea but I have separate insurance.

Can you ring and discuss?

presumably you have the mot cert with the date on it?