Hi there,

I have several issues with the work my mechanic has carried out.

I paid by credit card an amount of approx £1500 for the job.

I want to sue for wasted time, costs of repair (done by another mechanic as a result of poor workmanship),

costs of insurance paid for on another car because my car was not driveable and related expenses.

I have already tried to reason with the mechanic and after him first ignoring me,

I got him to respond to my email and we were emailing back and forth.

He eventually sent a what he described as a "full and final response".

Most of his response was either factually incorrect, pure ignorance of clear facts or illogical.

He is pretty much denying all fault.

He offered a final settlement which was a laughable amount considering the actual cost of his poor workmanship.

My question is,

should I go the charge back route first to claim some of the money or straight to a section 75

or is there another route that is better?

I have his full and final response as mentioned above and was planning to annotate this on MS Word with my comments.

Please advise!

Thanks.

I'll move you to a more appropriate Forum where you should get some help.

thanks

It would help if you gave us a few more details of the problems you encountered and why you took it elsewhere ?

S75 is not as simple as submitting a claim and the money returned, they do contact the other person and get their side of the story.

Also the card provider is more than likely to give you false and / or misinformation in the hope you will believe you don't have a claim or you've run out of time etc.

What do you have in the way of hardcopy to prove what you asked for and he quoted ?

"details of the problems you encountered and why you took it elsewhere ?"

When I received the car back from him it was not fully working as he promised it would be

and he said he did not know why but he thought it was a software issue.

He also at this time, revealed to me that "software" is "out of his comfort zone" so I should never have expected him to be very proficient in this area,

I told him that "it would have been useful to know that before I gave you the car".

I took the car back, it was running very rough and I had no real idea what was wrong with it.

Another issue with the car was that after a few miles of driving,

the air intake started to come apart from the car,

causing an air leak in the system which means the car will run very rough.

Another issue was that, before I took possession of the car, he reported to me via a phone call that the car was running rough

and he did not know why.

I have some knowledge about these thing so I told him to check the MAF sensor

(if this is not working properly it often confuses the car and causes it to run rough). he said he checked this and it was fine.

I checked it later myself just for completeness because after trying a couple of things, the car was still not running right.

I plugged my computer into the car and read the errors on the car.

It came up with an issue with the IAT sensor (which is attached to the same part as the MAF sensor, they are both contained within one small unit) and what do I find?

there was some wiring and an electrical component missing from it, hence it was not fully working and therefore causing the car to run rough.

when he checked the MAF sensor upon my instruction, he should have seen this bit or wiring and electrical component missing

and then known straight away that this was the reason for the fault.

I am an amateur and I could tell, and this was only because on the actual sensor, it had a wiring diagram on the plastic

below where the wiring should have been. so I knew something was missing.

I swapped the MAF sensor (and IAT sensor because they are both contained in the same unit) with a working one and the rough running disappeared.

another issue I had was with the brakes,

the brakes were very very soft and spongy from the day I took the car off him.

i thought it was because of the rust that has built up on part of the front brake discs because that part had been unused for a while

due to the fact that I previously had racing brakes fitted which did not use this part of the disc.

I thought that once this rust had been worn off by the replaced brakes, the brakes would work fine.

I gave it quite a few miles of driving with very poor brakes before I realised that it wasn't the discs,

it was that there must be air in the braking system.

I took the car to another mechanic (known BMW specialist) to have fixed and he bled the brakes and noted that there was air in the braking system.

another issue I had about a week ago was that the fuel pipe from the back of the engine popped out by itself.

this resulted in a significant amount of fuel being dumped on the road (obviously very dangerous)

and my car cutting out and not being able to restart.

I called the AA and he diagnosed and fixed the problem.

this would have been something that was detached and reattached as part of the repairs done by the mechanic with whom I have a dispute.

luckily for me, I have AA Gold road cover and they fixed the issue swiftly.

the AA mechanic mentioned that the pipe was probably just not connected back properly

because it should clip on-he thought it probably just wanted clipped back on properly initially.

why I took i elsewhere? simply put, I have zero trust in the mechanic I took it to initially.

I have taken a few of my cars to him over the years and he has been good

but recently his work has been going down hill-perhaps he is taking my custom for granted, I don't know.

the last car I took to him, it took them 3 attempts to fit 2 parking sensors properly.

he didn't seem to care much that I have to take time out of my life to travel back and forth from his workshop.

he just says "bring it back and we will take a look at it", as if I have the time to be going back and forth.

its approx. 25 min drive each way and he is only open on weekdays.

also, with the current car, the first job he did on it was swapping the door lock for a working one.

again, a day or so after taking the car back from him after he did this, it wasn't working right.

he fixed this when I took the car back to him for the bigger job for which I wish to sue (above).

"S75 is not as simple as submitting a claim and the money returned, they do contact the other person and get their side of the story. Also the card provider is more than likely to give you false and / or misinformation in the hope you will believe you don't have a claim or you've run out of time etc.

"I have a "full and final response" from the mechanic-90% of which is lies or delusion.

I can disprove 90% with simple facts backed up by physical evidence (mostly) and just plain logic.

So, I have the "other side of the story" in a formal letter.

"What do you have in the way of hardcopy to prove what you asked for and he quoted ?

"pretty much yes, it appears to mostly be in the "full and final response" I have from the mechanic and my invoice.

I think, those two combined, cover everything.

question-should I do a chargeback on the two items for which I can claim through this process first,

get the money and then under s75 claim for the rest.

the reason I suggest this method is because the fact that I've been rewarded money via a chargeback would help my case under s75.

that's my amateur thinking anyway.help?!thank you!

If you have proper written bills from the second garage that you can use as proof he did not act in a professional manner, then yes, go ahead with the S75. As I said earlier, expect some grief from the bank as they don't like doing it, but stand firm.

ok thanks. how exactly do i go about making an s75 claim?

and should i claim under a chargeback first as this easier and will establish guilt if i win my claim. ideas?

as far as I'm aware....section 75 wont get you any consequential losses.

and you cant do chargeback on a credit card.

dx

as far as I'm aware....section 75 wont get you any consequential losses.

and you cant do chargeback on a credit card.

 

 

dx

don't think the chargeback comment is correct...I've done a chargeback on CC before.

ok thanks. how exactly do i go about making an s75 claim?

 

and should i claim under a chargeback first as this easier and will establish guilt if i win my claim. ideas?

helpppp!

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/shopping/visa-mastercard-chargeback

im doing an s75...someone please help.

First, are you ready to make the claim, ie, do you have all your paperwork together and does it show that the first garage made a bodge of it all ?

Are you claiming back the full amount, and if so, are there any parts on the car that the first garage supplied ?

yes all paperwork together. it shows evidence for most of the badly done work.

i am claiming back a partial amount.

That is fine. Do you required guidance on making your claim ? If so I will move you to the legal section.

Yes that's what I'm after. I don't how to actually make the claim.

Moved and flagged up for assistance.

thanks. help!

help? just need a bit of guidance

I think the best approach would be to submit your claim to the bank first relying on s75, together with the supporting documents. This route is cheaper because you won't have to pay any court fees. The bank should be able to inform you of the process.

If that does not get you the result you are hoping for, then the next stage would be to start a small claim.

called them just now to understand the process for s75.

they pushed me towards chargeback and s75 for compensation.

is this ok?

I didn't think it was a big issue,

it would probably result in a quicker refund for me?

thoughts?

I would have thought it would be easier to push the whole thing through s75. But if chargeback gets you part of the money faster I guess that's fine.

They were saying it's not possible to do it all as s75.

They must go thru chargeback process first.

Is this [naughty word]?

helloo??

I would have thought it should be possible to do it all as a s75. But doing both sounds OK if you get part of the money more quickly.

thankswhat £ rate per hour can I claim for compensation of lost time?

for example, lost time waiting for AA guy was say 2 hours,

what £ amount per hour can I claim as compensation?

is it to do with how much I earn or does some sort of "standard" rate apply?

To get compensation for wasted time you'd normally be expected to prove that the wasted time this has caused you financial loss. This is very difficult to do. You could try if you are self-employed but otherwise I'd probably leave it out.

what about inconvenience? surely, there is a cost related to that.