Car Problems can I take the garage to small claims court

[Magpiemagpie]

Just picking any legal brains and I know I'm getting ahead of myself talking about going to the small claims court

Less than 3 months ago my sons gear box & clutch went in his 2 .5 year old car
It wasn't covered under the warranty as over the milage by 500 miles 😂 so the local garage that we have always used for years replaced it with a second hand gearbox & new clutch cost £1600

Tonight it's all gone again this time though according the the RAC man the driveshaft has popped out this has caused major damage to the gear box and possible damage to the clutch

He thinks personally - although he can't put in the report that the drive shaft was not tightened up properly causing.this to happen ( makes sense as it would take a few months to happen . Or that the gearbox was not put In properly . There is no way that this should have happend on a two year old car that had just had a new gearbox and clutch .

The problem is if we take,it back to the local garage he will have to strip it and at that point can say no that's not the problem it's just the gearbox ( no guarantee as it was second hand but he did but it for the car) and then we are stuck with either paying him for his work of stripping to find out what wrong but car not fixed ( at this point I have
lost all faith in him and don't want him touching the car )

I am thinking of taking it to a specialist Independent gearbox centre and getting them to look at it and get a proper report on what happened and if it was repaired properly in the first place if possible and getting them to fix it
.This will cost probably another £ 1600

However if I do this would I have any redress with the local garage in getting any money back. Would a court say that I was unreasonable to not have let him try to fix it . As I said if he strips it he can say what he likes is wrong with it to wriggle out of any work that needs to be done
Plus once he has started to do strip to see what's wronf it we would have to pay him for the labour which could be around £300 and still have to take it else where to get it fixed as like i said I have lost all faith in him & his work

even if I have to take him to the small claims court and even if I don't get any money a CCJ against him and his business would be enough .

Thanks for anyone's help

As you paid £1600 for this work less than 3 months ago, have you contacted the garage to ask what you should do?

If you have and they are refusing to remedy the mistake then possibly Small Claims Court could help. You must give them the chance to put it right first though?

Have you never seen Judge Rinder?

It's not that they are refusing to fix it it it's a case of in order to find out exactly what is wrong the car has to be stripped this will cost around £150 -£200 in labour - one way.

At this point the garage can say what they want . they can say its not what the RAC guy said it's something different that caused it and not his work that caused the problem and we wouldn't know any better as we are not mechanics . I mean it would cost him a lot of money to fix it .

If we're not happy with this response from him and don't want him to fix it then car has to them be put back together again at another £150 -£200 or we go ahead let him fix it at a probably cost of £1500

He sort of has us over a barrel if he starts to strip it and we're not happy with what he says ( ie it's something else not his fault ) in order to get the car back it will cost us between £300 -£400 and then we still have to pay ££££ for everything to be fixed

If we take the car to an independent gearbox specialist they can do an independent check & report on what went wrong such as was the drive shaft fitted back on properly and we would then either tell him look it was your fault do you want to fix it ( for free) which I doubt very much.

Or we can pay a further £1600 and get it fixed with the independent garage and the. look to recover the cost of the initial money that we spent with the first garage

But to be perfectly honest I really don't want him touching my sons car again I've lost all faith in him . Luckily my son was in town and not on the motorway had it been on the motorway this could have been a terrible accident
It it was something small I wouldn't even be bothered but this was a major major repair and obviously needed to be safe and for it to happen less than 3 months ago is making me mad

Lol yeah I watch Judge Rinder I wonder what he would say about this

As things stand you don't have any evidence that the new failure is the garage's fault apart from a verbal comment by the RAC man. You also don't have any evidence that the garage will be dishonest and try to cover it up if they are at fault. If you go straight to the gearbox specialist and then try to claim the money back from the garage the courts may decide that you have not given them a reasonable chance to fix the issue and therefore you are not entitled to get your money back.

If you get an independent report from the gearbox specialist or some other independent engineer you will be in a much stronger position. If the specialists say the garage is at fault and the garage then refuses to fix it for free you will be in a better position to make a claim against them. It would help if the garage will agree beforehand who will provide the report and that they will accept the findings of the report.

Hmmm, the question I'd be asking is how old is your son and how hard does he drive the car? I also don't believe that a manufacturer refused a warranty claim on a major drive train component that was 500 miles out of warranty on a 2.5 year old car. I'd have expected them to sort it under goodwill with maybe a small contribution from yourselves, certainly less than £1600.

How long has your DS been driving? Newish drivers often wear out clutches and gearboxes by riding the clutch, probably due to fear of stalling. Its really common for new drivers to need these repairs to their cars. It may really not be the garages fault.

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