I posted a thread on here ages ago about a local garage who’d charged me for a part I didn’t need, (electrics pack for an auto box on a 320 CLK Merc plus labour, oil, gasket etc). The fault he diagnosed & ‘repaired’ didn’t fix the problem so he had to drive it 12 miles in 1st gear to a Merc main dealer who replaced the valve body which was already coded to an attached electrics pack. Car was fixed!
I tried to gain recompense for the pack the 1st garage had fitted (£410) but he said that Merc wouldn’t warranty the part as it wasn’t faulty. At this point all i wanted was £410 even though labour & other bits were about another £275. He wasn’t budging saying it was up to Mercedes blah blah blah ( i knew it wasn’t up to Merc cos my contract was with him which I told him) So, of I toddles to the Citizens Advice bureaeu, got some advice (including getting a report from Merc UK & Merc Harrogate who reported that the fault had been incorrectly diagnosed in the 1st place), did the money claim online, & hey presto, he’s admitted full liability to the total tune of £760 + £60 costs! In my ‘Letter before Court’ I said I’d settle for £550 out of court but he didn’t even offer anything, which i found odd. Anyway I got his paperwork back admitting liability & a cheque for £250 as he wants to pay in instalments.
Could be a result as long as the cheque doesn’t bounce he pays the rest, which I doubt he’ll do without ‘reminders’.
I’m sure someone on here said ‘suck it up’ or words to that effect!

Nice one. Nice when things pan out as they should in the end. Shame you had to go through that process to get what you were owed but at least you’re getting all your money back.

Result – some times you just have to play the long game..

SCC rocks. I had an issue recently with a solarPV company that made an error on an installation for us – it basically cost us about £460 in ‘lost’ electricity.
The company basically told me to stick it. They called within 1 day of receiving the stuff from the SCC to arrange payment.

I think he thought I wouldn’t bother doing the paperwork as this has dragged on since last October. Still can’t understand why he didn’t make an out of court offer especially after I told him about the Merc UK report. ❓

(BTW, this guy was (apparently) a Merc techy for 15 yrs & is only a mile away which is why we took the car to him in the 1st place & not the main dealer 12 miles away. Big mistake!)

Well done.

🙂

So guessing the out of court thing never came to anything?

You wouldn’t have needed to guess if you’d read the OP at the top of the page Jamie Lad!

In my ‘Letter before Court’ I said I’d settle for £550 out of court but he didn’t even offer anything, which i found odd. 😉

In my defense, it was quite the block of text 😛

*Awaits the “someone’s stolen my wheels thread” * 😆

sadly this is why we no longer change electronic parts over 100 quid. even the most honest bloke making the best diagnosis he can makes mistakes/ errors sadly they cost money and pcb’s can be 300 quid .. so if your boiler has a fault that is likely to be a pcb i wont gamble with my money anymore and advise the cust to contact the men in blue..

noice

Well done OP.
I’m a big advocate of the SCC

totalshell – Member
sadly this is why we no longer change electronic parts over 100 quid. even the most honest bloke making the best diagnosis he can makes mistakes/ errors sadly they cost money and pcb’s can be 300 quid .. so if your boiler has a fault that is likely to be a pcb i wont gamble with my money anymore and advise the cust to contact the men in blue..

Sad for you as an easy profit line is destroyed. Good news for the customer as traders are forced into admitting that actually you don’t have the ability to diagnose their car/boiler issue and can no longer fix it by just replacing everything at the customers cost. Just because some of the customers have got wise to this and are likely to sue you? Perhaps you need better training or diagnostic kit before you enter this marketplace?

I th8nk someone got out of the wrong side of the bed this morning.

So did you settle out of court?

?

he’s admitted full liability to the total tune of £760 + £60 costs! In my ‘Letter before Court’ I said I’d settle for £550 out of court but he didn’t even offer anything

Ok, I’ll explain.
I sent him a ‘letter before court’ (this is your final chance you bastid!) & said I’d ‘take £550 out of court’, meaning, ‘gimme £550 & I won’t fill any Money Claim Online paperwork in or do you for £860’. But he didn’t make any offer so I filled the paperwork in but because he admitted liability we didn’t have to actually personally turn up in court in front of the Big Cheese in our suits & ties. If he hadn’t admitted liability or done nothing we would have.

So in a way I suppose we did settle out of court cos we never actually, physically went.

You lot are hard work sometimes. 😉

Nice one. I have done similar, its a great feeling to get your money from them. My initial plan was a brick through the garage forecourt window but the Mrs suggested this was a better option…

Good feeling innit? I went further and got money out of a roofer who dropped slates and damaged my motorbike then wouldn’t pay. Not all my costs but most of the cost of a new saddle and tank.

selgruntfuttock – Member

I think he thought I wouldn’t bother doing the paperwork as this has dragged on since last October. Still can’t understand why he didn’t make an out of court offer especially after I told him about the Merc UK report.

(BTW, this guy was (apparently) a Merc techy for 15 yrs & is only a mile away which is why we took the car to him in the 1st place & not the main dealer 12 miles away. Big mistake!)

Main dealers can be just as bad if not worse, I know of main dealers that send cars out to Indies because they can’t fix them. unfortunately picking a decent garage is hard work. Anyway top result and don’t settle for instalments if that’s not what was agreed in the ruling! If the garage cannot prove hardship (will have to file accounts) he is obliged to pay out in full, failing that you are also within your rights to file for the sheriffs dpt to collect on your behalf or sell your debt to people who like collecting!!

If the garage cannot prove hardship (will have to file accounts) he is obliged to pay out in full, failing that you are also within your rights to file for the sheriffs dpt to collect on your behalf or sell your debt to people who like collecting!!

Nice one Sui, I didn’t know that! (might just bug the bastid a bit more)