Under the Consumer Rights Act 2015, the garage has an obligation to use reasonable care and skill when completing any repairs, servicing or investigations on your car. Therefore, if the garage has failed to use reasonable skill and care in the work provided, then the business has an obligation to do the work again or provide you with a refund.
In order to resolve a dispute regarding the standard of work, you should firstly raise your concern with the garage directly, ideally by submitting a formal complaint to the business in line with their in-house complaints procedure.
If you’re unhappy with the final response of the business, or more than eight weeks has passed since raising the complaint with the business, then you may escalate the dispute to The Motor Ombudsman for further investigation.
What to do if a garage hasn’t fixed the problem with my vehicle?
It can take more than one visit to get to the root of a fault, or a repair may uncover a separate issue. If your car isn’t fixed after repairs, speak to the garage first and give them the chance to put things right, rather than going elsewhere, unless there’s good reason to (for example, the car has broken down too far from the original garage). If the garage can’t resolve it and you’ve exhausted their complaints process, you may be able to use The Motor Ombudsman’s Alternative Dispute Resolution service to investigate.
If you need the car back urgently, get the repair done, ideally by the original garage, and mark the invoice “paid under protest.” Note that once the car is repaired, it can be harder to provide the technical evidence needed for a dispute, so consider getting an independent technical report or a second opinion first.
