Refund On Car Service After Oil Leak Not Detected

[sam100]

Hi all,

I'm after some advice if you please.

3 weeks ago I took my car to the local garage for a full service. I mentioned when i dropped the car off that my oil light had come on a few times and that I'd had to top up the level. When I collected the car they said everything was fine.

On Sat I took my car to Peugeot for it's MOT and they called to say that they detected an oil leak so I got them to fix it before I collected the car.

I've called the garage that did the service and i'm taking the car there tomorrow along with all the receipts.

Do you think it's unreasonable to expect a refund on the service? I'm just trying to get an idea of what my rights are in this situation and how best to handle it.

Thanks in advance.

[Buenchico]

Hmm.

It could be a bit tricky to get a refund as your right to one would depend upon exactly what you said when you took the car in. A service consists of a certain number of fixed tasks (typically involving oil and filter changes and perhaps some lubrication tasks, etc). Anything which isn't on that list doesn't form part of the service, so the garage is entitled to ignore such things as rusty exhausts, corroded sills, leaking hoses, etc as long as they're not on the list of tasks for which you're paying them.

So if you only asked for a service, and simply mentioned a possible oil leak in passing, the garage wasn't obliged to do anything about it. However if you said "Please service my car AND fix the oil leak as well", then you'd clearly have the right to expect them to do just that. (Equally, the garage could charge extra for sorting out the oil leak, as that task didn't form part of the service).

So your legal rights are, at best, 'a bit vague'. However seeking a refund might still be worth a try!

[ToraToraTora]

A service is service they don't check for oil leaks. If it's an obvious one then they'll spot it when oil runs out when they top it up but if it's just slight then they would not necessarily notice. Even if they did notice it's not something that is fixed in service, that's another repair entirely.