I took my 2012 BMW 320i for an MOT too garage A in my village. They don’t do MOTs but have an arrangement with garage B in the next village.

The car failed the MOT on emissions so went back to garage A for investigations.

No codes stored, nothing to give any indication, camera in cats showed they’d looked OK, sensors tested fine… 3 days of investigations, a new air filter, additive, a new NOX sensor and 2 more failed tests later I told them to forget it; I’d collect the car and take it to BMW/an independent. I paid a total of £705 on credit card, but only £438 was for the emissions investigations and parts.

A phone call to garage C, a BMW Indy, have me the answer for free… they’d MOTd the car using the wrong emissions parameters. Apparently the N43 engine is a lean burn engine and so the max lambda reading permitted is 4… no 1 which is the default value that most cars are tested against.

Back to garage A who didn’t have a clue (remember they’re not an MOT station) but they phone garage B who also don’t seem to have a clue and claim they’ve definitely MOTd it correctly.

So I go to garage C and pay for an emissions test there to prove it’s with the limits allowed.

Back to garage A, they phone garage B who still seem totally unaware and claim they’ve done nothing wrong. I have to start quoting my engine code, VOSA/DVSA details before garage B ask for 10 mins to go check.

Finally garage B come back and admit they’ve done it wrong, ask me to pop it down and they’ll test it properly and issue my MOT.

I make it clear after its passed to both garage A and garage B that I’d like my money back (only the £438) from one of them and I don’t care which.

We’re more than 2 weeks down the line now and Garage A don’t want to pay me back as they investigated in good faith based on the info from garage B.

Garage B (which is run by the son of the owner) initially said they’d claim of their insurance if I provided the invoices which I’ve tried to do. When garage A provided the actual parts invoices to garage B though yesterday the stage changed and the garage owner said they won’t be refunding me. Garage A spoke to the son again today and it seems when his dad isn’t around he prepared to offer me a partial refund (no idea yet how much).

Still reading?

Preparing for the worst I phoned my CC company today. They said I couldn’t invoke a charge back but if my discussions didn’t get anywhere then I may be able to claim under section 75. It didn’t sound hopeful though.

So what do you think?

If I accept a partial refund from garage B tomorrow does that mean I can no longer claim under section 75?

Do I reject the offer and claim under section 75 and if that fails take it to the ombudsman and then small claims?

I paid garage A… should I be claiming against them or garage B?

Not sure where to go next if they don’t just refund me the £438.

You paid garage A, you’ve got nothing to do with garage B. The issue is between the two garages to sort out. Garage A have gone fault hunting and charged you for repair work not required based on a 3rd party’s advice – but you’ve said they could do it rather than anyone speaking to the indy. All a bit of a balls up – but its not really any different to any fault hunting, 3/4 parts can be changed before finding a fault and the bits not required arent ever free. Take what you can, refund from A is the win but you’ll be lucky i reckon.

Taking the partial refund could very well be considered as full and final settlement so i would not take it if i was going for more.

What he said. Only other option is a small claim.

There’s a difference though, changing parts fault hunting when there’s a fault is one thing… but there was never a fault! If garage B hadn’t been totally incompetent on a standard test, on a common car that has an engine used across multiple ranges we wouldn’t be where we are.

Garage A aren’t offering anything at present. Garage B who cocked the MOT up are potentially going to offer tomorrow. Garage A are happily letting garage B take the lead.

Also, l never actually gave garage A permission to spend £360 on a part but I guess that is implied somehow?

I guess that your chances will be low from a legal standpoint as they did the work with your permission that they thought was needed.  Who has liability?  You did not pay the garage that made the mistake and the garage that did the work did so in good faith

Garage B have offered half the cost of the part (£180)

Garage A have begrudgingly offered £50.

£230 total against the £438 loss.

Not too bad I guess, but I’ll phone the Credit Card company with a section 75 claim for service.

Small Claims & Trading Standards & DVSA complaint

Tricky one as your contract is with garage A…. From your point of view garage B doesn’t exist. You’ve paid for good and services not required rather than faulty or not delivered etc. I don’t think there is a code for that so like your cc company have said you can’t invoke section 75.

You could go down the small claims court route but personally I don’t think it’d be worth it, you may not get any more of your cash back as it’s down to the judges discretion anyway a) they’ve already made a reasonable offer  b) they aren’t a main dealer? So can’t know everything about every car and c) you need to gather quite specific evidence against them to prove that either  they were aware and stringing you along or that it’s public knowledge about the emissions requirements for the mot and other such info.

Also as they have already made an offer the judge may deam that you’ll need to stump up the court fees as taking the case to court is unnecessary due to the original offer. Its financially less risky to pursue funds through small claims if the other party hasn’t offered anything, as your more likely to get costs and fees as well as the original claim if they deam In your favour.

Oh and itll also take around 5or 6months and Alot of your time and effort to gather required evidence.

Cheers monkey, my CC have said I can’t do a charge back but can try to claim under section 75.

Also, why would I have to prove it’s public knowledge in point c)? They’re an MOT station, they should know the rules.

Basically you’d need to prove that they should have known how to correctly check the emissions on that specific engine, I’m assuming that the info is public knowledge, you’d need this info and show incompetence. Small claims court requires evidence and effort unfortunately. Ultimately though it’s the judges discretion as to who wins and what cash (if any) is paid out, including costs and claimed damages. The more evidence you have the better, also the judge may or may not be savvy with car mechanics – so the clearer evidence the better.

You’re BMW garage sound helpful so would assist, but may charge you for there time, you’d be in your rights to throw that cost in with any other under the small claims submission.

Regards section 75, I don’t have a credit card so less experienced in this, but you may well get the remainder back as I belive the cc company share responsibilities with the vendor under section 75 – ie your getting your cash back from the cc company rather than a direct refund request from the vendor as per a chargeback.

I’ve had to do alot of looking into this stuff in the last couple of months, as you’ll see from my 2nd hand car woes thread.