PaulP

Can anyone offer any advice on the following:

I usually take my Impreza into work leaving my wife with a recently bought second hand escort to take the kids to school. However once a week I usually take the escort into work. The escort under the previous owner had had it’s MOT just before he sold the car to me. The garage had replaced a front brake pipe as part of the MOT. However driving the escort into work, I was approaching a roundabout at 70mph and as per normal dabbed the brakes to slow down. Imagine my horror when there was a violent swing to the left, the rear wheels locked up for a split second and the car carried on forward at about 50mph towards the roundabout. The brakes without warning had completely failed! Using a combination of gearing, the handbrake and pure luck I managed to avoid all the cars going around the roundabout and brought the car to a standstill on the other side! Getting the car back home was a different story without any brakes and a 5 min journey took almost 30 mins. You can imagine the shock that I had received, I was just so grateful that no one had been injured but if my wife and kids had been in the car, I dread to think what may have happened!
The garage who carried out the work was contacted and straight away they travelled over 40 miles to get to my home where the escort was parked. They admitted it was there fault and took the car away to be repaired. They admitted to me that the brake pipe they had replaced had not been done correctly and they knew that the consequences could have been a lot worse.
However as I was forced to take a day off work to get the car fixed and also to recover from the shock, I wrote the garage a letter asking if they could look into compensation to cover a day’s loss at work. Missing this day at work to get the car sorted caused me a lot of inconvenience due to having to catch up on a backlog of work, not forgetting the shock of having to bring an escort to a standstill without any brakes.
I wrote the letter to the garage almost 4 weeks ago and I have had no reply, before I phone them up, does anyone know where I stand legally and whether my request for compensation is just?

Many thanks,

Paul.

Blow Dog

I dont pretend to be legaly adept, but I have a few assumptions.

It seems as thought the garage in question have issued a dodgy MOT. I would get another MOT test done in a reputable garage and see what they think of the car. The speed at which they turned up at the scene says to me that they had a lot to lose, perhaps they were afraid their mishap may be made public by you.

Cem

HunterB

Paul,

Sorry to hear of your experience - I remember a similar one with my first car when the brakes failed on it. Certainly gets the heartbeat going ....

With regards to compensation for the lost day, I'm afraid you don't have any grounds legally for reimbursement and trying to get money out of them via the courts would be doomed to failure. The best you can hope for is an ex gratia payment from the company for your inconvenience. I'd suggest you write them one further (polite) letter asking them to consider reimbursing you for the inconvenience and the trauma but, if they've made good their original error, I doubt whether they'll be interested in compensating you further. Worth a try, though, and I wish you luck.

Brian

ex-webby

I had a similar experience a couple of years ago. Went to a well know dealer and got them to upgrade my discs to Group A spec, it was the day before the RAC. A few problems on the way but these were overcome, so I set off on my travels. Got 5 miles from the garage on the M25 and one of the brake calipers fell off. Bloody hell that made me jump. The outcome was that they tried to take me to court because I wouldnt pay the bill without some sort of compensation.

The garage didnt even care that one of their mechanics could have nearly killed me.

Phil

Robb

I'm no litigator, but your case is made more difficult by the fact that the brake work was done for the previous owner. However, I would certainly keep pursuing the garage for some form of compensation, particularly if they have admitted liability. Make sure you keep a detailed written account of the incident and all subsequent dealings with the garage, in particular the admition of liability. Find out who the owner of the garage is and address all correspondence to that individual. Keep writing on a weekly basis until they respond. Is the garage a main dealership? If so, copy Ford customer services in on all correspondence. If they fail to provide a satisfactory response start telephoning the owner on a daily basis - the annoyance factor often gets results. With regard to your claim, set out the details of your losses clearly and concisely where the loss can be quantified. As for your nervous shock, invite them to propose an adequate level of compensation.

You could also call one of the legal helplines provided by the AA or RAC to see if they can offer any advice.

If the above fails, then you could try getting a solicitor to send a letter before action. After that you could try the courts, but it won't be easy and will be expensive.

Good luck

Rob