Mechanic holding car, costing thousands of dollars

Submitted by jonklipp t3_1000cmu in personalfinance

Hopefully this is the right place to post this, let me know if there is a better sub for it. Trying to help my parents out as they had an oil leak in their car and took it to a local shop a little over 2 months ago. This car has a bumper to bumper warranty from the dealership. The shop fixed what they believed was the issue, and submitted their claim to the warranty company, only to discover that they had misdiagnosed it. The warranty company now is not covering that work as it was not a legitimate issue with the car, so my parents are paying out of pocket for it. Warranty company is also giving issues with the new repairs as it is under the same claim. The shop also did not originally offer them a loaner car, so my parents paid out of pocket for a rental for a few weeks, which cost them about $2k. After that, the shop did give them a loaner, which has been a piece of junk, has multiple error lights on and says not to drive it any further. Which means they will have to resort back to paying for another rental car. As mentioned, the shop has been holding their car for over 2 months, with little to no updates other than the occasional "it will be ready by the end of this week!", which it never is. What is the best course of action here?

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uzes_lightning t1_j2eoh9r wrote

Bureau of Automotive Repair is a state agency that handles this sort of issue in California, I'd imagine similar agencies are available in other states. However if you're outside of the US, then I'm not too sure.

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Alex-Gopson t1_j2eq19i wrote

What type of "bumper-to-bumper" warranty is this? Assuming it's a used car that is outside of the manufacturer's warranty, you're going to have a hard time getting the warranty company to pay out for anything. By all means try and fight them to get as much money as you can, but most of those warranties aren't worth the paper they're printed on.

As far as getting anything reimbursed for rental cars, there's probably nothing you can do there. Shops aren't required to give you loaner vehicles. It's a nice perk when they do, but you aren't owed anything if they don't give you one.

Assuming the goal here is to get the car fixed - there isn't much you can do aside from taking the car to a different shop that is capable of fixing it in a reasonable amount of time. Clearly this shop isn't interested in working on the car. Continuing to wait on this shop to get their shit together is probably going to be a waste of time that results in more financial hardship as they misdiagnose things and require you to continue paying for a rental vehicle.

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GeneralCal t1_j2esedg wrote

Post to /r/mechanicadvice as well. They're at least give you a sense of if there's anything fishy going on.

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BostonDogMom t1_j2evwar wrote

  1. GET THE CAR BACK. If your parents have the title, they should be a able to pick it up. Bring the doc and call the police if you have to. For now work out a payment plan with the mechanic. Ask for receipts for all work. This doesn't sound like a trustworthy mechanic.
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Nvr_Surrender t1_j2f0k7f wrote

The only courses of action are to pay the shop the money in full and to sue the shop. They have a mechanics linen on it because your parents authorized work before getting approval from the warranty company.

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