Need advice please

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Antharro

Active Member
Joined
Oct 3, 2008
Messages
176
Location
Ferndown, Dorset
Car
'95 Mitsubishi FTO GPX, '92 Honda Accord Aerodeck, '78 Mercedes 350SL
Last summer, my father and I decided that his 1978 350SL needed a new soft top. The fabric was ripped in a couple of places and was well beyond being repaired. A Mitsubishi specialist garage in Portsmouth that I use for servicing my FTO recommended a trader on the same industrial estate who had done roof work for them in the past. I took the car to see him but he found that the metal supports of the roof needed significant work before new fabric could be fitted, and recommended another place on the same industrial estate. I'm based near Bournemouth, so Portsmouth is around an hours drive.

So I took the car to him. We had a long conversation in which we found out about the kind of work he did, and some information about his business. He gave us a quick tour of his facilities. We saw several examples of cars he was either working on, were waiting to be worked on, or had completed, and were happy with the quality of his work and his approach and attitude. So, we agreed for him to carry out extensive work to the car:

- attention to bodywork in several areas, getting rid of patches of rust and smaller dents and marks
- re-spraying most of the car to tidy up blemishes and provide a uniform finish after the bodywork had been completed
- repairing the structure of the roof, replacing bars, rivets and bolts as required

Once he had completed his work, the car would be handed over to the roof guy, who as well as supplying and fitting the new roof fabric, would be doing other work to the car, such as supply and apply new vinyls inside the boot, repairing the door cards and a few other things.

The timescale was a few weeks for the bodywork to be done, then another couple of weeks for the roof and other work to be completed.

The car was delivered to the bodywork guy on 2nd July. After that time, it was almost impossible to get hold of him. I contacted the roof guy who agreed to pop over and have a quick word. My father spoke to him once on the phone. Calling his mobile would return an automated message that the number was temporarily unavailable and to try again later.

In October, I drove down to talk to him. I did not see the car; he assured me it was in another part of his building. He gave me his personal phone number and explained that he was having family problems and his work was being delayed. He expected that his part of the work would be completed in a few more weeks.

At the start of December, I called him on his personal phone, as his work phone was still giving the automated message. He repeated that he was having personal problems. I told him that I understood that, but that he had made repeated promises that the work would be done but never was, and that he had had the car for five months. I enquired about the status of the work, and he said that "some" of it had been done but he still needed to fabricate the work. He explained that while he had other people working with him, he was the only person who could do this aspect of the work. I also mentioned that while he had had the car, I was wasting the tax, insurance and MOT. He apologized, and we agreed that I would call him again in mid-January when he had hoped to have the work done.

I will be calling him next week, and I do not expect that he will have progressed with the work. At this point, both my father and I extremely annoyed with the situation. We have taken into account that he is having family problems, but at the end of the day, he is now taking the mickey with the amount of time he is taking to do this job. We are considering our options. So far, we see there are three:

1) Bodywork guy does the work as promised, passes the car to the roof guy and all is well. No further action is required.
2) Bodywork guy has not done the work. The car is in a safe, drivable state. We take the car back and find someone else to do the work, probably at significantly more cost.
3) Bodywork guy has not done the work. The car is in a safe, drivable state. We take the car back and sell it for spares/repairs.
4) Bodywork has not done the work. The car is not in a drivable state. We have to pay for the car to be transported from Portsmouth to Bournemouth. We probably sell the car for spares/repairs.

If it ends up being -4-, I think that legal action would be considered to recover the costs of having the car transported.

Nothing will happen until next week's phone call. I would appreciate any advice and comments on this situation. There may well be angles to dealing with this that we have not considered.

Thanks in advance.
 
Cut your losses go in and retrieve the car and find a decent Bodyshop and roof specialist, the Bodyshop won't be worth going for legally.
 
5) Work has been subcontracted out to a third party, who aren't returning the car to the bodywork guy as he hasn't paid his bills... Car is at third party site...
 

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