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Original poster

Wild experience with motability!

60 replies

Moniq123 · 18/12/2023 17:06

Hi all,

Wanted to come on here to vent and tell you about what happened with my car. It's a wild story so buckle up.

Last year mid October we received our motability car after waiting a year, it's a gorgeous Toyota RAV4. Mid November I was involved in an accident (not my fault) A Range Rover swerved into my lane from the left on a roundabout and me in my panic steered to the right into the roundabout, into a pole. I still blame myself for my reaction but I honestly don't even remember how it all happened. Luckily another car had dash cam footage.

When I saw the car afterward I was 90% sure it was a write off. Motability kept it for a month at the car impound to try and find a garage to deal with it. Every garage declined apart from 1, and it was finally sent to them in January this year for repairs. I couldn't believe it was repairable.

The garage let us know that because it was a brand new car, it would be hard to get parts and the estimated date the car would be finished is end of March/early April. I thought great! That's not that bad.

The estimated date kept getting pushed back and the garage was no longer answering any emails or phone calls from myself. I was checking their google reviews religiously and seemed like they never answer the phone to anyone. They did answer once to tell me that they are very busy so the car will be worked on and they'd let us know by text message when it'll be finished.

I got a text message in August to say that it finished, I went to get the car and upon arrival I discovered it wasn't fully finished. The garage told me that they never updated the system to say it finished, and that it'll probably finish late September, they were just waiting for one more part.

I gave them some time until early October because when I saw the car, it looked great! I also knew they have never finished on time so I thought let me wait until they send me a message, as they don't reply to their phone and the garage is quite far from me so I don't want to make unnecessary trips.

Early October I google the garage just to see, I was shocked to discover that it was "permanently closed" I was panicking and called motability who told me that they no longer are working with this garage and my car will be taken elsewhere to finish the repairs.

I got a call this morning from RSA motability and what they told me shook me. I wasn't expecting this but I'm not very surprised.. Turns out all the cars in the garage are a write off, including mine. They've been keeping motability cars and agreeing to repair any, even written off looking ones because RSA pay them monthly for any motability car they're repairing on site!!! This has now become a criminal case and I'm so much money out of pocket.

Me being a Capricorn I went on an FBI mission to find the owner of the garage. Found him on social media, he's been living in dubai for the past few months. LOL!!!

What an eventful Monday morning. I hope your year has gone better than mine!

OP posts:
Treesinmygarden · 18/12/2023 19:40

ectoone · 18/12/2023 18:41

f they were going to give a percentage of the advanced payment back I think it would be as a goodwill gesture.

Nope. You should get a pro rata refund on the AP

For now they have confirmed I'd be getting a refund of my PIP for the months that I didn't have a car

Yet unthread you said you were out of pocket?

Why are they refunding you when you were given a hire car and taxi account? That's unbelievable. Really.

Why are you getting so worked up?!

JenniferAllisonPhillipaSue · 18/12/2023 19:41

For now they have confirmed I'd be getting a refund of my PIP for the months that I didn't have a car.

Are they refunding all ten months? If so, you won't be out of pocket.

If they also refund part of your Advanced Payment (which they would normally do), again, you won't be out of pocket. And if you cannot afford the AP for a replacement car, you could always apply for a Motability Grant.

ectoone · 18/12/2023 19:41

@Treesinmygarden

I was not worked up I was wrong (not about the pro rates) and have since apologised

Interested in this thread?

Then you might like threads about this subject:

General health
Treesinmygarden · 18/12/2023 19:43

ectoone · 18/12/2023 19:41

@Treesinmygarden

I was not worked up I was wrong (not about the pro rates) and have since apologised

Fair enough - it just seemed you were.

Neriah · 18/12/2023 20:01

ectoone · 18/12/2023 18:23

Of course they were the designated garage but motability didn't know they were dodgy. I think the issue here is that OP wasn't sorted out with a car when hers was taken for 'repair' - which is of course down to motability.

Show quote history

I don't agree. There isn't enough oversight. They accept on the garages word things an owner never would.

My car is approaching 9 weeks in the main dealership - so not a dodgy garage. A warning light came on saying the car must not be driven. RAC thoroughly tested the car and said that two specific components were "working perfectly". They were 95% sure it was just a sensor glitch. They recovered the car to the garage. One week later I was told it was fixed. They replaced one of the components that RAC said was fine! Nothing more. And in my youth i could have changed the thing myself it was that easy. £900 parts plus kabour. Turned up, drove it TEN FEET and the warning light came on! Two weeks later, its fixed, they've replaced the other component that was already working perfectly. Nearly £2k plus labour. Drove it for just a mile, and guess what? So that's about £4k plus the cost of the hire car - as of today, they don't have a clue what is wrong with the car, but Motability are forking out a fortune for the main dealership to randomly replace working parts in the hope that they fix something.

What owner would accept that and actually be paying the bills? Garages are able to scam the system because there really isn't any oversight. The money we use to pay for this scheme is taxpayers money - and I'm a tax payer like lots of others here. So Motability may be a charity, but the root of all its funding is the taxpayer via benefits to people with disabilities. But we have no control over any of these things, and Motability don't exercise control over these things.

TomeTome · 18/12/2023 21:11

JenniferAllisonPhillipaSue · 18/12/2023 19:41

For now they have confirmed I'd be getting a refund of my PIP for the months that I didn't have a car.

Are they refunding all ten months? If so, you won't be out of pocket.

If they also refund part of your Advanced Payment (which they would normally do), again, you won't be out of pocket. And if you cannot afford the AP for a replacement car, you could always apply for a Motability Grant.

Well she IS out of pocket at the moment and she HAS been without a car for more than a year.

Original poster
Moniq123 · 18/12/2023 21:47

WeaselCheeks · 18/12/2023 19:21

Yeah, there's a lot of weirdly hostile posts on this thread!

For anyone who's not following:

  • OP's car got taken in 13 months ago after a crash
  • OP has been paying monthly for the car, much as you would on a regular finance contract. Even though the car was unavailable, you have to keep on paying (but the idea is they're supposed to provide a replacement service).
  • OP had a hire car for the first three months. That leaves 10 months without the independent use of the car.
  • OP has relied on friends for lifts rather than trying to use a taxi service, so has been paying for nothing for the past 10 months. There can be numerous reasons for this (less hassle to organise, definitely reliable, no concerns about any inability to accommodate a disability, comfort, etc), but ultimately the OP shouldn't feel obliged to use a service if its more inconvenient.
  • So that's 10 months that OP has been paying for nothing. If the car had been written off at the start, her payments would have been cancelled and a new contract organised for a new replacement car.

Think that's how it went?

Sorry this happened to you, @Moniq123 - sounds like an utterly nuts situation!

Show quote history

Thank you so much for this. That's exactly how it went! My post is all over the place so I think that's where the confusion has stemmed from. To be clear when I first saw the car I knew it was a write off, it was sent to 4 other garages at first who all turned the car away. It took a month for motability to find a garage who would accept to fix it. I think that shows that there was no hope. The whole front of the car was ruined. If it had been written off from the start it would've been much better as I could have put in an application for a different car. I waited a year for this one because of the chip shortage, so if they wrote it off from the start it would have saved me a year of waiting.

Wild experience with motability!
OP posts:
Original poster
Moniq123 · 18/12/2023 21:48

Neriah · 18/12/2023 20:01

I don't agree. There isn't enough oversight. They accept on the garages word things an owner never would.

My car is approaching 9 weeks in the main dealership - so not a dodgy garage. A warning light came on saying the car must not be driven. RAC thoroughly tested the car and said that two specific components were "working perfectly". They were 95% sure it was just a sensor glitch. They recovered the car to the garage. One week later I was told it was fixed. They replaced one of the components that RAC said was fine! Nothing more. And in my youth i could have changed the thing myself it was that easy. £900 parts plus kabour. Turned up, drove it TEN FEET and the warning light came on! Two weeks later, its fixed, they've replaced the other component that was already working perfectly. Nearly £2k plus labour. Drove it for just a mile, and guess what? So that's about £4k plus the cost of the hire car - as of today, they don't have a clue what is wrong with the car, but Motability are forking out a fortune for the main dealership to randomly replace working parts in the hope that they fix something.

What owner would accept that and actually be paying the bills? Garages are able to scam the system because there really isn't any oversight. The money we use to pay for this scheme is taxpayers money - and I'm a tax payer like lots of others here. So Motability may be a charity, but the root of all its funding is the taxpayer via benefits to people with disabilities. But we have no control over any of these things, and Motability don't exercise control over these things.

Show quote history

Definitely agree with this. I've been checking the garages google review for the past year and it seems like there's a lot of us who have had their cars in there for 6-12 months. All with the same excuse: waiting for parts.

OP posts:
TheFairyCaravan · 18/12/2023 22:02

Getting a pro rata percentage of your advance payment back is normal @Moniq123 . They’re not doing it as a goodwill gesture. Make sure they do it from the day you had the accident, though.

I always think the taxi accounts are an utter piss take tbh. The hospital I go to is 60 miles away. One is 75miles. A taxi account won’t cover that. DS2 lives 3hrs away, no taxi will take me there. I know there’s a shortage of cars and car parts, but sometimes I don’t feel like enough is done.

There are some good groups on Facebook for advice on Motability, btw.

Original poster
Moniq123 · 18/12/2023 22:08

TheFairyCaravan · 18/12/2023 22:02

Getting a pro rata percentage of your advance payment back is normal @Moniq123 . They’re not doing it as a goodwill gesture. Make sure they do it from the day you had the accident, though.

I always think the taxi accounts are an utter piss take tbh. The hospital I go to is 60 miles away. One is 75miles. A taxi account won’t cover that. DS2 lives 3hrs away, no taxi will take me there. I know there’s a shortage of cars and car parts, but sometimes I don’t feel like enough is done.

There are some good groups on Facebook for advice on Motability, btw.

Thankyou so much for this will have a look now and see if I can contact anyone who's at the same garage because I know there's a number of us x

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