How far does the liability for engine or other failure extend with a servicing garage if you take that car to them on a regular basis? A work collegue has just had a cambelt failure and they specifically asked a couple of months ago when the car was due for its first MOT whether it should be serviced too. The garage said no and the cambelt has snapped at 48,000 miles just 2-3 months later. Considering the manufacturer recommends changing at 40k (it used to be 80k) can the garage be held totally liable for the whole cost of repair? They're stripping down the car at the moment.
As the intervals for cambelts were changed to the lower figure a couple of years ago does anyone think this is a scam from the garage to earn lots of cash in engine repairs from the gullible motorist? My money is still on the incompetancy hypothesis!
teabelly
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Morning Teabelly,
Was it a franchised dealer? Had the car been fully serviced in accordance with the manufacturer's schedule? If it was first MOT I assume it was just coming out of warranty so why wasn't the belt changed at 40,000/previous service?
No Dosh
Awash with coffee and sunken of eye.
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There are two legal possibilities that may provide remedies, contract or tort.
In contract, there is an implied term under statute that any work will be carried out with reasonable care and skill. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to show that this would extend to advising on advising on any work which may be necessary in the near future.
In tort, you have the tort of negligent misstatement, which exists in quasi-contractual situations such as this. Here, if you can show that your friend was reasonably relying on the other party's skill and that it was foreseeable that your friend would rely on it.
The problem is that it is very easy to exclude liability for negligent misstatement (far more so than other forms of negligence) and also your friend would have to produce evidence that he asked about the cam belt change, and that he relied upon the advice of the garage. Not easy, I'm afraid.
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Other branches of the franchise have warnings about the change in cambelt schedule so I assume this one is no different. My collegue doesn't really know much about cars and she was therefore relying on their advice. They knew the mileage and as they were servicing the car regularly so I don't see how they can wriggle out of it and pretend they couldn't have forseen that the car would pass 40,000 miles before June ( it may have been over 40,000 at February). As the car is also just out of the 3 years warranty with the manufacturer I would have thought the manufacturer could also have some responsibility but I don't know where the division would lie.
teabelly
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Me again. I just checked and the car had already passed 40,000 miles at February when it was MOT'd. They discussed changing the belt with her and said it would be fine to wait and I think she expressed doubt about whether that was a good idea then, but assumed they were the experts and would therefore be confident that the car would be ok. They also saw the car around 35,000 miles and had the opportunity then to ask whether they should do the belt then or wait and they didn't ask.
As the car had already passed the change point when it was last seen by the garage does this make it cut and dried case of lack of reasonable care and skill?
teabelly
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I'm no expert at all, but the story sounds as though you can expect nothing more than the goodwill gesture of a reduced bill, because of being a regular customer (though you may choose not to continue?). If it came to a dispute there is presumably no record of your discussions.
My daughter had a 205 serviced at 50K miles by a Pug franchise about 10 years ago and belt failed a couple of weeks later. At that time a belt change was not on the official schedule, but it was common knowledge in the trade that 48K was a good time to do it, and they had not advised it. Daughter had not asked about it either. Exchange engine cost £550.
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Yes it has been fully serviced according to manufacturer's schedule. The belt wasn't changed because the garage said they should wait until June for the scheduled service. This was in February. The same garage sold them the car originally 2 or so years ago and they are a franchised dealer.
teabelly
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So how is a maintenance schedule (i.e. servicing interval) worked out?
You cannot say 'such & such a belt will fail at 50k, so needs replacing at 49k'. What they will do is to use a statistical approach, and determine that say 80% will fail by 100k, and only 0.01% at under 40k. They will then work out a balanced position that minimises costs (comparing say a replacement engine to the cost of changing the belt) whilst not jeapordising the manufacturer's reputation for reliability. So at any point it is a matter of judgement, weighing up reliability against cost.
The garage was therefore making a judgement to say that your friend might as well hang on, but your friend was unlucky.
Not sure that helps you much...
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