Dispute with garage

ned rierson · 04-12-2022 11:11pm #1

Car broke down . Brought it to a local independent mechanic. He said drive shaft was broken. We agreed a price and he replaced the part. Car still wouldn't drive. Now he says the gear box needs replacing. The cost of this repair is more than what the car is worth. He says I need to pay for the driveshaft and labour. I say he didn't fix the problem. Where do I stand ?

Oops! · 04-12-2022 11:18pm

How did he know the shaft was broken? Did he strip it first to find the problem? Or just have a quick look under it and say "Drive shaft is fooked".

ned rierson · 04-12-2022 11:48pm

He said he knew by the sound it was making. Said it was a common problem.

kirving · 05-12-2022 10:58am

What car? What were the symptoms? Did the mechanic explain why they thought it was the driveshaft? How much did it cost?

hoodie6029 · 05-12-2022 10:58am

Have a chat with him. He probably had the best intentions with the fix, going for the cheaper option to see if that would sort it.

Ask how much he paid for the part at trade prices and pay him for his time. He still spent that time to find out the car had a major problem. When you’re facing the prospect of shelling out for a new car and if he wants to keep your custom he could be sound about the price of the part anyway.

Not a great situation OP but hopefully you can come to an agreement

hi5 · 07-12-2022 6:04pm

It's very seldom you'll get any mechanic to charge by the job instead of the hour, the advantage to the mechanic is he doesn't have to have a clue and he still gets paid. You pay for his learning curve.

bazz26 · 07-12-2022 6:27pm

His guesswork will cost the OP a fortune at this rate.

Whatwicklow · 08-12-2022 7:05am

Agreed, this should have been x hours for diognosis .

Then a call to the customer to say your gear box is shot. So it's going to cost €€€ for the diognosis and €€€€€ for gearbox replacement, would you like to pay cash or card.

tabby aspreme · 08-12-2022 7:13am

As most of the driveshafts are external parts, it should be easy to see if they are broken, and you'd definitely know as soon as it was removed, he should have known it wasn't the driveshaft problem when he removed it

cpoh1 · 08-12-2022 11:47am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119968419#Comment_119968419

Ive never seena mechanic to charge for a job by the hour - any job ive ever had completed whether main dealer or my local mechanic I knew the price upfront going into the work.

crosstownk · 10-12-2022 10:12pm

He may have had the best of intentions but he made a diagnosis as a professional and you trusted that. He got it wrong and now you're expected to pay for his mistake????? Unless he specifically told you that the drive shaft replacement was the first step in a process (which I doubt it was).

Are you confident his subsequent diagnosis will be correct or will he just replace parts at your expense until he finally he get's it right?

You need to have a frank conversation with him about the cost of the drive shaft replacement and any subsequent repairs he deems necessary.

Dispute with garage

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