[nanker]

Had my MINI one about three weeks now and just picked up the car after first warrenty trip to dealership. My car pulls to the left and had the passenger seat "locked up" aswell as a couple of other minor faults. When I picked it up I was told the seats locked as i operated them incorrectly. I had never touched them, but I accept their point that the seats "may" have been operated incorrectly by my passenger even though I observed him doing it. As I went to open the door to go home I noticed a very deep and fresh scratch about 3 inches long just above the door pull. When I started complaining to the dealership manager he offered to repair it but would'nt accept it was (or even could have) been scratched by one of his mechanics. Against company policy to cause damage and run away from responsibility apparently. He said scratch could have already been there when i brought it in. Or most likely caused by another visitor to dealership but not a mechanic. I protested that if caused in his dealership whilst in for service or repair then it should be his responsibility. He referred me to the "cars parked at owners risk" sign in car park!! Well, you can imagine what I thought of that response and I think he was lucky I did'nt go into his busy dealership and announce to all potential customers that the dealership will be absolved of any responsibility to cars damaged whilst in for repair if they happen to park it at any time in car park. Oh and the pulling left problem - still there.

 

[Viscount Charles]

Name and shame them in the Dealerships feedback forum on this site, please! We need to know who to avoid.

"Car parked at owner's risk" sign probably wouldn't help him one iota in court, BTW. He has a duty to take care of your car while he has it for repairs. You'd just have to prove it was scratched while it was at the premises.

 

[LMB]

I find that a lame excuse. Don't give up though. Whatever happens change yours dealership if possible. Sounds like your aren’t up to scratch. They get money from servicing your car so hit them where it hurts, in their pockets.

Good Luck

LMB

Ps./ About the 'Pulling to the left', a fix is due sometime in March.

 

[Viscount Charles]

In general, just because your car is parked on someone else's property doesn't give you a right to sue them if the car gets damaged while it's sitting there - the "owner's risk" signs are there to spell that out.

However, there's still some duty on the land owner to take reasonable care of cars parked on his car park - if he was painting the wall next to the car park, for example, and your car got splashed, you'd still have a pretty strong claim unless there were some signs up, or the area had been marked off, or it should have been obvious when you chose to park there.

But Nanker was talking about damage done while being serviced or repaired. Here, it's very much the dealer's responsibility - in the absence of any other cogent explaination. I could start to wibble on about the concept of bailment, and the rights and duties of the bailor/bailee, but I won't.