What are my rights?

[gumpertapolloss]

Good Morning Fanatics, 

It is with a heavy heart that I'm creating this post on a Monday morning. I'm bleak as can be about this whole situation and I need a bit of advise. 

Long story short, my 325Ti went in for a clutch replacement at a local mechanic and I received my car back completely destroyed. 

He was supposed to replace the clutch and that's it. I bought a brand new LUK Clutch kit with a brand new Flywheel from Imcomex which I supplied and he had to fit. 

I received the car back and below are the faults I have found. 

• Clutch feels like a piece of sponge and you have constant judder when releasing the peddle. 
• Steering wheel is damaged
• Driver seat damaged
• Both rear rims scratched. 
• Left apron damaged
• Oil stains inside of the cabin
• For some reason the car now has another starter installed
• RTV all over exhaust manifold

I have attached pictures of all the damage that has been caused. 


In close to 2-years of ownership, this is the first time this car has gone to a mechanic. I have poured money into this and received a car that's completely messed up and has probably dropped 15k in value. 

What are my rights in regards to this? Is it worth going after this guy and spending money of lawyer fees? I can tell you guys that I'm absolutely heartbroken about this. The Ti was one special BMW to me and I was planning on keeping the car for many years to come. At this moment in time I just want to sell it.....

TIA.   

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Interior

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Rims

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Apron & exhaust

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[Nick]

Name and shame.

 

[TBP88]

Your options are, sadly, very limited. You'll need timestamped images of the areas before and after indicating clearly that he is to blame for the issues. And after that either you can take him to small claims court, in which case you will need a lawyer. Or more likely you'll go via the motor industry ombudsman.

Having done the MIOSA thing before I can tell you it's a waste of time. The outcome of that hearing is about as valuable as toilet paper and realistically it'll take 6+ months to get your result anyway. Name and shame and move on. The reality is that we trust mechies to take care of our cars but, as we have seen even on this forum, there are characters who will do some questionable tactics.

Best of luck.

 

[individj]

i would take a chance with small claims court if it were me...not sure if it will work out but worth a try....def name & shame too.

 

[TurboLlew]

Name, shame and move on. I am afraid this will become he said/she said if you go to court

 

[Kyle]

Really can't understand how a simple clutch job can result in this kind of damage. Is the shop RMI approved? If so you may have some recourse there... If this was a private job then unfortunately you will have to chalk it down as school fees... Even if you win your case at small claims, they could plead poverty and elect to pay you something silly like R500pm

Edit - To address some of the issues on your list, the spongy feeling could probably be resolved by bleeding the clutch solenoid again, I would get this done ASAP to avoid damaging the new clutch. Looking at the interior pics, I assume that parts were stored inside while the car was being worked on. The starter was probably damaged when it was removed.

 

[TBP88]

Just in terms of the RMI - they are a body designed to protect the shop - not the consumer. They won't give a flyer about you...

 

[flintstone]

So sad to see this . . . Some mech's dont care about other peoples prized posessions.

 

[Raidillon]

I am curious to know what the mechanic had to say in response to you when you pointed out the issues. See if you can get him to sign an acknowledgement of debt but strike soon, if he is professional he will want to limit reputational harm.

 

[henriZA]

This reminds me that, does not matter who you take the car to - always take pictures of the entire body, inside and out, and compare when you received the car back. Sucks that we have to do this but that's life I guess.

 

[Benji]

Sorry to hear this. This is one of the reasons I do as much work on my car as possible. Even my most trusted mechanic (the only one I trust) always returns my car with oily fingerprints all over. Ive just made peace with the fact that I need to give my car a full valet when it comes back from him

 

[LOW BOOST]

How long has the car been with the mechanic?
Some damage areas looks like it has been long wearing damage. Ie. The seat bolsters and steering wheel.

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[TurboLlew]

Acknowledgement of debt is not gonna happen. In what universe does anyone think this is going to happen? - he will argue against everything 'damage' related and might (Maybe) offer to clean up the car. This is an old car and dealers and workshops love to point this out.

Look, I've paid far greater school fees than this and trust me when I tell you everyone is going to be full of legal advice and what your rights are etc etc. If an old friend wasn't my 'personal lawyer' on call, then I would probably have lost even more money chasing this down. Think about your time, anger, money etc that you are going to continue to expend while this guy will continue to not care (because of the comments above and this post)

Money is off the cards. The sooner you get to grips with this the better for you. People would not behave this way (and there are many independents and even dealers or RMI places that behave this way) because they know there will be absolutely no recourse OR if there is some consequence, you will be paid on their "poverty stricken" terms of like R100 a month for the rest of time... You likely have no contract with him, likely have no form of proof of what the car was like before it went in, he probably didn't have a check in sheet that you both signed as you would have at a dealer.

To be honest if I was someone looking at the damage and judging it objectively would they agree that it is destroyed? It doesn't look destroyed... it looks dirty and manhandled YES (and don't take this the wrong way), but that damage to the wheel does not look like it suddenly appeared unless he was sitting with your car and abusing it every day for months. Every BMW suffers from that bolster wear. The scuffs are not unusual (I have to clear them off my wife's car literally every week). I have on more than one occasion found chips (there is one on my M5 now exactly like the one in the pic) and have no idea if I hit something small at high speed or touched something low etc... I have had my BRAND NEW 601M wheels chipped (not noticeable but still annoying) - did it happen at the dealer or was it something I only noticed because I looked extra hard after it came back? Same with my Alfa with <6000km and on 2 wheels -do I know for sure if it was the dealer? I couldn't prove it if I wanted to.

What is the point of all of that? If you go to court, the other person is going to argue all of the above. He said/she said. They probably have even more excuses or examples to add in... again, if they thought there would be consequences to treating your stuff like crap, they would not treat it like crap. You know why dealers use plastic sheets and fender guards etc? Cos there are consequences for them if something goes wrong... it might still be a battle... but there are consequences

Getting even is off the cards: you will never be happy with what he does to rectify this. The car is going to be out of your hands again. He will try to fix it... IF he admits to doing wrong (on the clutch at least he should make this right) BUT do you trust him to fix anything at this point? Again, the clutch should be fixed ASAP and that he can't possibly argue against. At best, you are going to get him to agree to pay to have the car cleaned properly (good luck there...).

You need to name and shame so that others can learn and avoid this place.

 

[rsgordini]

Agree fully with lew

 

[Serg_ZA]

Spend the potential legal fees on fixing it. Don't waste your time as advised.

 

[Ralf*]

So sad to see this . . . Some mech's dont care about other peoples prized posessions.

To a mechanic it was just a "job", a "salary"

He has no idea that getting in and out of the car in dirty clothes, oiled stained hands, screwdrivers in pockets scratching seats etc, placement of jacking pads and so on....means nothing to him

but

what is worse, is the fact that the clutch is still spongy...?

Was it a private "backyard" mechanic, or was it a fully fledged auto centre ?

agree...RMI workshop or not...waste of time

As another member said, go back to the mechanic and confront him directly with all the evidence and get him to admit "sloppy" care with your pride and joy...then (even more difficult)..get him to agree to compensate

If he doesn't, don't waste money on legal cases
"school fees"...move on, fix it yourself with the money saved thinking of going the legal route.

 

[gumpertapolloss]

Good Morning all,

I have postponed postings here as the mechanic was cooperation on Tuesday and Wednesday. He has vanished in the interim and decided to ignore all my messages and calls.

Now, I'll be the first to admit my interior wasn't in brand new condition. Alas, it wasn't close to the condition it is in now. The interior was detailed about a month before all of this and I have pictures of everything. Please see below pictures of before and the above pictures of after.

I have it on black and white and even in recordings/videos where he admits that he will fix everything that was damaged. It was all pointed out to him, and he admits to it.

I have now decided to name and shame this guy as he has decided to run away like a coward. Please see below details of him.

Mario Uys
063 972 0983
Bmwhizard also formally known as M3nace Auto developments

I have now concluded that I will have to bite the bullet and fix everything myself. The car will soon go to another mechanic to get the clutch fixed.

Mario has this theory that my clutch is not engaging correctly as my crank has 4mm of play. The car currently has 191xxxkm on it and I do oil changes every 10k km. Whould I not have seen bearing shaving by now? Would one of the rods not have touched the block by now? Or at least the rear main seal would have pushed out. My car has non of these symptoms and the engine is absolutely silent. In fact, I'm willing to say that the engine sounds a 100 times healthier than my 330i's engine.

It is what it is. We live, we learn and we move forward.


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[TurboLlew]

It is mechanics like this one that sent that other dude trying to sell his 320d on a wild goose chase... chasing issues to the degree that he probably spent the value of the car over again trying to chase issues down... even replacing what seemed to be a perfectly good (or rebuildable at least) motor. Anyway sounds about right for a place that has already had to change its name at least once...

4mm of play would definitely exhibit other symptoms I am sure... 4mm in the context of the rotating assembly of a motor is not small at all regardless of what you are measuring.

Good luck and I hope it gets sorted

 

[Peter@AEW]

4mm of play will send the crank hard against the thrust washer side of the main bearing causing the engine to stumble and stall.
In addition there will be bearing shavings in the oil from the thrust side of the bearing.
The rods will deflect
The flywheel will rub against the block.
The "mechanic" is not a mechanic.
What utter nonsense.

I am suspecting that he may have used an old pressure plate.

 

[rodga]

Isn't that the same guy that had a bunch of ppl call him out on Facebook for this sort of thing?