Has this UK garage committed a criminal offence?

It was agreed:
1) On release of the vehicle from the insurer he or his designated representative will collect the car and take it his place of business.
2) Inspect the vehicle to determine any serious damage to the chassis.
3) Assuming pt 2) is satisfactory he or any other qualified person under his direction will carry out the following:

a) Substitute all damaged mechanical parts resulting from the accident.
b) Substitute the R/H wing and/or repair the front bumper.
c) Prime & paint the substituted body panels.
d) Replace the driver and passenger airbags and associated components as found to be necessary.
e) Replace the air conditioning compressor and service the system.
f) Replace the spare wheel (standard size) & tyre.

Result: New MOT - Chassis alignment 11mm out - Horn short - Steering heavy and has play - Air bags inop, bulb disconnected!

I contacted VOSA 0870-60-60-440 and was told that the air bag system IS NOT PART of the MOT!

Probably not criminal, but take it to a D.O.T. testing station, not an MOT garage, you'll find them in the Yellow Pages. Explain the situation and let them asses it. If they find any faults, they will take action against the testing station and advise re the repairing garage.
Trading standards may also like a look at it.

Looking at the faults you describe, it may just have scraped through the MoT, though if the horn was defective at the time of the test it shouldn't have. The steering may have been within allowable tolerances and the airbag light does not in fact form part of the test.

I'd agree with "istime", take it to the DoT for an unbiased inspection and they will discuss it with you. As regards the rest, it looks like you will need proper legal advice. One snag I foresee being argued is how is "serious damage to the chassis" defined.

Good luck.

Its just a crap garage. I assume you have brought the problems to their attention? If they refuse to correct the faults and provide some form of compensation, they should be reported to the local tradings standards officers and taken to court for declaring a car to be roadworthy when it wasn't. If they gave the MOT then they should also be reported to the body shown on the MOT certificate.

if the repairs were autherised by your insurance company and thay recomened this garage. then get back in contact with them . thay should sort it out for you . if the chassie was bent . it should have been put on a jig to straighten it. the steering problem should have been picked up on the roadtest . everything else should have been picked up before the roadtest . so yes i do think thay have committed a criminal offence.. so contact your insurance company and see what thay have to say.?

contact your insurence company and contact vosa link below get then to check it about 拢35 they know more about your car than you think

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Dl1/Director...

yep he has well and truely fingered your bum. the only thing that can be done about it is to get an engineers report and take him to a small claims court but if he was being paid via the insurance then thay also have to be brought into it

yes he has ripped you off.

All I can say is this: you've been had big time.

Hi
Your first point of call is your insurance company to request that they send their approved assessor out to inspect the work that has been done and the faults you have raised.

After this has happened you will get a report from them you must request this OK

If they are not prepared to do this your course of action must be to get your own independent assessor to do a full report for you and then submit it to the insurance company for their comments .

The air bag light is a part of the mot and not has been stated on here that its is not so that besides the other items would have constituted a failure for the mot . and if the bulb was missing that is deliberate !

Depending on how long this has happened i would give VOSA a call and express to them that you do not feel the recent mot you had was right and explain your reasons they will then organise a re-test of the vehicle at a different mot station while their observer is there . this adds more credence to your complaint to your insurers

This will all take time but be persistent and you will win .


I have been motor engineer for 45 years and have had to deal with these things on many occasions i am a registered mot tester also