To not want to pay >£5k for repairs when the car still isn’t fixed?

[gundigirl]

Hi all, I’m really hoping someone here has been through something similar or knows what my rights are, because I’m honestly at my wits’ end.
We have a Kia Niro, owned from almost new for 8 years (so not covered by insurance anymore). It broke down back in September and has been sitting at the Kia garage for more than three months now.
The problem is:

• They still don’t know what’s wrong with it.
• The repair estimate has kept climbing – first £5k, then £8k (we have a breakdown of costs, they're all for parts they've changed and labour). They then agreed to keep the £5k in goodwill, but they still expect to be paid even though the car is not fixed, and they're not interested in buying the car off us.
• They never told us the outcome could be uncertain when they started the repairs.
• We absolutely cannot afford to spend £5k on a car that doesn't work.

The whole thing has caused huge stress and financial anxiety, especially as we are no closer to a resolution. They have given us a brand new courtesy car which was a nice gesture, but even that will add to the overall bill because we'll have to pay for minor scratches. Has anyone dealt with this with Kia, or with a main dealer who can’t diagnose a fault but keeps increasing the bill? What are our rights here? Are we liable to pay if they haven’t actually fixed anything? Is this something that can go to Kia UK directly, or even the Motor Ombudsman? Any advice or pointers would be hugely appreciated. Thank you ❤️

To be honest,as soon as a garage quoted £5k to repair an 8 year old car, I’d be looking for another one. The repair cost can’t be far short of what it’s worth. Appreciate it’s not always that easy to just get rid, but it’s not worth the money

The car would have been worth at least £10k, that's why we agreed to the repairs. They made it sound like a fairly straightforward thing and we would have been better off repairing the car rather than writing it off. Little did we know...

Is this a Kia main dealer? People often assume main dealers are the best place to go, but especially for an 8 year old car a good independent mechanic is a far better place to go. As well as being cheaper, they are better at diagnosing and fixing things, rather than just being ‘parts fitters’.

I had electrical problems with my car once. Ford dealer said it needed a new fuse box and wiring loom at a cost of £2k, but they couldn’t guarantee that would actually fix it.

Took it to a local garage instead that had been recommended to me. He very quickly told me the problem was definitely with one of the wiring connectors. He fitted a new one, which instantly solved the problem
and the bill was under £100.

I'd go to Kia UK customer services and start kicking off. Tell them it's very convenient that your car went over the 7 year warranty period then catastrophically broke and their dealer can't even fix it. I did similar with Honda before and the £5k bill at the dealer (albeit on a £25k 2 year old car) pretty quickly became £2k after Honda CS got involved.

Alternatively I'd be asking them to take the car off you and call it even, then go and get something else.

We had this but not with a dealer. 700 here, 1000 there, a few different opinions and it all added up. Eventually the car just stopped and wouldn't start again and we had to scrap it.
I hope you can come to a fair agreement with the dealer because they do tend to charge more for parts and fixes, but I think you need to think about getting another car.

I wouldn't want to pay. They told you 5k to fix the car, they haven't fixed it. I'd tell them to take any replaced parts out of it, put your old parts back in and give you the car back in the condition it was in before they started arsing around with it.

Hope you get it all sorted