Consumer beware

irishcarbomb2k

This may be helpful for people who have been wronged with garages. I'm currently a freelance journalist looking for a good story and have been wronged by a certain garage and wonder how many others out there have been in my situation. I realise that there is one thread already regarding one such incident but I would like to hear of others.
I currently have a car off the road for three months!!! The car is old but still had some go in it. The car broke down on the way to work one day and had to be towed to the nearest garage which in this instance was this particular one. The AA were very helpful and advised me it could be one issue which was replaced but this did nothing. THey towed me to the garage and the owner was not present at the time. I left the car with the garage for repair. The owner told me over the phone he would have it done asap as I needed it for driving to work. A few days passed and the owner could not find what was wrong with it. He replaced a few items but still could not determine what it was. He mentioned it could possibly be one item which cost upwards on 500e. This dismayed me as I was contemplating scrapping said vechile. I told my dad who lives a good distance from me and is very knowledgable on cars and he said that we could get a cheaper version off an old car. He then proceeded to search for said item. Eventually we found one and was assured it would work. I brought it to the garage and eventually after another week was informed it wouldn't. At no point was anything mentioned about the cost of leaving the car till parts arrived. The owner assured me that no car leaves his garage unfixed. THere either scrapped or working but he still could not figure out that this was indeed what was wrong. So eventually I found another part, again assured this one would work. I asked him if this does not work whats the cost, he told me he would remove the parts already put in and charge for the labour. I said this was fine. I gave him the new part and again it turned out to be the wrong ''part''. I informed him to take the parts he has used out and then charge for the labour. Now he wants the cost of the parts he's used, labour and wants to charge me 20e a day for storage (three months worth by the way) for my and I qoute "insolence". Now as this has slightly annoyed me and as i have studied defamation as part of my journalism degree I am not prepared to stoop to a level of defaming said business. I have no written confirmation of the above, all is under verbal agreements which obviously have no stand up. However I do have my dad to back me up on the parts side of it. Now I would appreciate anyone's advice first of all and if there have been any other instances of this as I feel the public at large must be informed.

thefinalstage

irishcarbomb2k wrote:

This may be helpful for people who have been wronged with garages. I'm currently a freelance journalist looking for a good story and have been wronged by a certain garage and wonder how many others out there have been in my situation. I realise that there is one thread already regarding one such incident but I would like to hear of others.
I currently have a car off the road for three months!!! The car is old but still had some go in it. The car broke down on the way to work one day and had to be towed to the nearest garage which in this instance was this particular one. The AA were very helpful and advised me it could be one issue which was replaced but this did nothing. THey towed me to the garage and the owner was not present at the time. I left the car with the garage for repair. The owner told me over the phone he would have it done asap as I needed it for driving to work. A few days passed and the owner could not find what was wrong with it. He replaced a few items but still could not determine what it was. He mentioned it could possibly be one item which cost upwards on 500e. This dismayed me as I was contemplating scrapping said vechile. I told my dad who lives a good distance from me and is very knowledgable on cars and he said that we could get a cheaper version off an old car. He then proceeded to search for said item. Eventually we found one and was assured it would work. I brought it to the garage and eventually after another week was informed it wouldn't. At no point was anything mentioned about the cost of leaving the car till parts arrived. The owner assured me that no car leaves his garage unfixed. THere either scrapped or working but he still could not figure out that this was indeed what was wrong. So eventually I found another part, again assured this one would work. I asked him if this does not work whats the cost, he told me he would remove the parts already put in and charge for the labour. I said this was fine. I gave him the new part and again it turned out to be the wrong ''part''. I informed him to take the parts he has used out and then charge for the labour. Now he wants the cost of the parts he's used, labour and wants to charge me 20e a day for storage (three months worth by the way) for my and I qoute "insolence". Now as this has slightly annoyed me and as i have studied defamation as part of my journalism degree I am not prepared to stoop to a level of defaming said business. I have no written confirmation of the above, all is under verbal agreements which obviously have no stand up. However I do have my dad to back me up on the parts side of it. Now I would appreciate anyone's advice first of all and if there have been any other instances of this as I feel the public at large must be informed.

If you don't have the parts and you didn't ask for them why are you paying for them? Tell him to stick it up his exhaust! Labour is fair enough but storage? 20 x 90. 1200 yo-yos just because you were not satisfied with his service is steep. I would have done the same 3 months trying to fix a car is bull crap.

echristie

irishcarbomb2k wrote: »

This may be helpful for people who have been wronged with garages. I'm currently a freelance journalist looking for a good story

do you still want material for a good story. I have a selection on subject of Irish consumer being taken for a ride.

bladespin

cost not clearly defined

Prices are ok generally but the service is severely lacking, been treated like crap in a few big name dealerships over the past few years.

Rev. Kitchen

Unfortunetly there seems to be only one route open to solving problems in Ireland and thats Joe Duffy ( no im not joking ).

I would definetly ring the AA and tell them about the problems with the garage make sure to say you are not blaming them but that they should remove this garage from their list of garages to tow people to.

A friend of mine from limerick broke down on the way to limerick and rang the insurance guys they gave her a number of a tow company to use when she asked them to tow it to her uncles garage in limerick they said they will only tow it to Nenagh!! . I know they dont have to tow it to Limerick but what good is this service if you are still stuck in Nenagh with no money or way home ??
She could have kept the 200 euro she paid for the service and just paid for a tow all the way back to limerick and had money left over !!

My sister who got a similar policy as its aimed at not leaving women stuck on their own was towed to a petrol station and left there !! not a garage that fixes cars but a petrol station with just pumps and he drove off leaving her in a worse posistion.

I would recomend removing this policy from your insurance as it is very expensive rarely needed and when it is is utterly useless. You would be better off with a good towing companies phone number stuck to the window.

dudara

Thread closed as it's over 2.5 years old.

Please do not drag up threads from the depths.

dudara