World's slowest garage...?

[bunn]

I damaged my car on 10th April. It's supposed to be being repaired under the insurance policy, but the garage are *REALLY* taking their time. They told the insurance company it would be finished Weds, but rang me on Friday, not to say it was done - but to say that they would ring me again on Tuesday... Tuesday will be over a month they have had my car!

Does anyone know if there is any kind of limitation on how long they are allowed to take over this, or if there is anything I can do about it? It took the garage 10 days to assess the damage and produce a quote!

Because the accident was my fault and nobody else was involved, I am forced to use the insurance company's choice of garage rather than my own.

Comments

[chris-maslen.livejournal.com]

I would suggest calling the garage and asking what the delay is.

If it's a parts delay (the most likely thing) then there's not much that can be done as this is down to the manufacturers and means the delay is being caused by neither the garage or your insurers.

Beyond that, if it's just that the garage have a lot of work on then you could complain to your insurers and ask them to hurry the garage up.

It could also be because once the garage started the work they found more stuff that needed doing. This is more common than people realise and is down to the fact that sometimes it's simply not possible to diagnose some damage til the car has been taken to pieces.

AFAIK no insurer can force you to use their own garage but it usually causes delays if you want to use a non-approved repairer anyway.

The two questions I have though are who are your insurers and which garage are they using?

[helflaed.livejournal.com]

Yup. Quite true- you don't have to use their garage, but it does cause a lot more hassle if you use your own. It might be worth nagging both insurer and garage though.

As for the insurer, well I know that when I worked in legal expenses insurance we knew that some insurers would deal with things immediately and others would take weeks to reply.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Been there, done that... I called the garage a number of times, and I've also had the insurance company call them. The garage told me that they had all the parts in some time ago, but when the insurance company called, they were mysteriously 'waiting for parts' again.

As of Friday the garage confirmed to me (again) that they had all the parts but I am starting to wonder exactly how long they are allowed to keep it sitting waiting to get round to it.

My impression is that they have taken on far more than they can cope with: they've told me that they didn't expect to be this busy, and also have had staff on holiday. Which is fair enough, but if they can't cope, they should either get people in, or send it elsewhere. (This was before I got the insurers to check up with them: after that they became less confiding).

[bunn.livejournal.com]

.. forgot to mention: noI don't have to use a specific garage, but I do have to use one of their 'approved' ones - because this is a rural area on the edge of the country, there just aren't that many large garages west of Exeter that count as 'approved'.