Am I entitled compensation after shoddy customer service?

A few months ago I took my eight year old Skoda Fabia to my local dealer for repairs. We were told that it needed £2333 spending on it to fix the fault. When the car continued to have a fault we were then told that "one problem can mask another" and that they had not been able to tell what other faults there were. We believe they should have said this before we paid for the repair so we could have made an informed decision. We have now part-exchanged the car for £1500, a few months after paying £2333 for the repair, and would like some compensation towards the difference of £830 but the dealer refuses to give us any compensation. Can you advise us please whether we have any rights in this matter?

The repair did not fix the car and I think a small claims county court judge could be persuaded that it is wholly unreasonable to charge £2,333 for a repair to an 8 year old car worth £1,500 that did not even cure the problem. You could try www.moneyclaim.gov.uk ; or speak to a solicitor, bearing in mind that the solicitor may well charge more than £100 an hour.

Answered by Honest John on 18 August 2014

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