How to complain about a garage repair
Complain to the garage first, in writing, and say clearly what you want them to do. Under section 49 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 every service must be performed with reasonable care and skill, and if it was not, section 55 gives you the right to have the work done again at the garage's cost, or section 56 gives you a price reduction where doing it again is impossible or would take too long. If the garage will not budge, get a written second opinion from another garage, then escalate: to The Motor Ombudsman or a trade association if the garage is a member, to Trading Standards through Citizens Advice, and finally to the small claims court, where the fee on a £1,000 claim is £70. One thing to know up front: a garage is allowed to keep hold of your car while a bill is disputed, so if you need the car back, pay under protest in writing and argue afterwards.
Most garage jobs go fine. When one does not, the problem is rarely that you have no rights. It is that nobody tells you what order to do things in, so the complaint either stalls in a doorway argument or jumps straight to threats of court that go nowhere. This guide sets out the law in plain terms, then the five steps in the order that actually works, with the costs of each.
What the law actually says
Car repairs are a service, so they sit under Part 1, Chapter 4 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015. Three terms are written into your contract with the garage whether anyone mentions them or not.
| Section | The term written into your contract | What it means in a garage |
|---|---|---|
| 49 | The trader must perform the service with reasonable care and skill | The work must be done to the standard of a competent mechanic |
| 51 | Where no price was fixed, you must pay a reasonable price and no more | A bill invented after the event is not automatically owed |
| 52 | Where no time was fixed, the work must be done within a reasonable time | A car held for weeks with no explanation is a breach |
If one of those terms is broken, the Act gives you two remedies, and they run in a specific order.
- Repeat performance (section 55). The garage must do the work again, within a reasonable time and without significant inconvenience to the consumer, and must bear any necessary costs incurred in doing so, including in particular the cost of any labour or materials. You cannot demand it where completing the service properly is impossible.
- Price reduction (section 56). Where repeat performance is impossible, or the garage will not do it in a reasonable time or without significant inconvenience, you can require the price to be reduced by an appropriate amount. Any refund must be paid without undue delay and in any event within 14 days, using the same means of payment you used, and the trader must not impose any fee on the refund.
Two practical points fall out of that. First, you normally have to give the garage the chance to put it right before you demand money back. Second, a price reduction can be the whole price where the work was worthless, so section 56 is not a token gesture.
Quote, estimate or nothing at all
Most billing disputes come down to which of these three you were given, and most people do not know which one they got.
| What you were given | Can the garage charge more? | Where you stand |
|---|---|---|
| A quote | No | A fixed price for the job described. You pay the agreed figure, and the garage is not obliged to reduce it either. |
| An estimate | Within reason | Citizens Advice says an estimate can be exceeded within reason. A large overrun with no call first is hard for a garage to justify. |
| No price discussed | Only a reasonable price | Section 51 applies. A second opinion on what the job normally costs is how you show what reasonable looks like. |
Extra work should have been agreed first
Separately from the price itself, extra work should have been agreed with you before it was done. That is not just good manners. The Chartered Trading Standards Institute approved Service and Repair Code commits accredited garages to open and transparent pricing, invoices that match the price quoted, and carrying out extra work only with your prior agreement. If the garage you used is accredited, a bill that appeared without a phone call breaches the code they signed up to, and that is worth saying in your complaint.
Our guide to what a car service costs and the individual cost guides, such as new brakes and a cambelt replacement, are a reasonable starting point for judging whether a bill is in the normal range before you accuse anyone of anything.
Can the garage keep your car?
This is the question that decides how fast you need to move, and the answer surprises people. Citizens Advice states plainly that the garage is not allowed to sell or get rid of the car while you are disputing the bill, but that it can keep your car while the bill is being disputed.
So if you need the car for work or school runs, the sensible move is usually to pay and dispute afterwards rather than to stand your ground in the reception area. Do it properly:
- Write "paid under protest, disputed amount to be reclaimed" on your copy of the invoice.
- Send the garage an email the same day saying the same thing, so the protest is timestamped and not just written on a piece of paper only you hold.
- Pay by card if you can. A card payment gives you a route through your card provider that cash does not.
- Photograph the car, the invoice and any replaced parts before you leave. Ask for the old parts back, which you are normally entitled to request when you book the work in.
Paying under protest does not concede that the bill was right, and it does not weaken a later claim. What it does is remove the garage's leverage.
Step one: complain to the garage in writing
Almost every dispute that gets resolved is resolved here, and almost every dispute that drags on skipped this step or did it by phone. Put it in an email, keep it short and unemotional, and include five things:
- The registration, the date of the work and the invoice number.
- What you asked them to do, and what they actually did.
- What is wrong now, described factually. Noises, warning lights, dates, mileage.
- The right you are relying on. One line is enough: "the work was not carried out with reasonable care and skill under section 49 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015, and I am asking for repeat performance under section 55".
- What you want, and by when. Redo the work, refund a stated amount, or pay for another garage to fix it. Give a clear deadline, 14 days is normal.
Address it to the owner or manager by name if you can, and say you would like to resolve it directly. Most independent garages are small businesses that live on reputation and repeat trade, and a calm, specific email from a customer they can still keep is worth more to them than a fight.
Step two: get an independent second opinion
Your opinion and the garage's opinion cancel each other out. A third mechanic's written assessment does not. Citizens Advice suggests exactly this: a report from an independent garage or vehicle engineer showing whether the repairs were done properly.
Book the inspection at a garage with no connection to the first one, and ask for a written report that states what was found, whether the original work was carried out competently, and what it will cost to put right. Take photographs. Keep the failed parts if you have them.
One warning that catches people out: do not have the fault fully repaired somewhere else before the first garage has had a fair chance to inspect it. If you remove the evidence, you make section 55 impossible and you weaken any later claim. An inspection and a report is fine. A full repair, before you have given them the chance to redo it, is not.
If you are choosing that second garage from cold, how to choose a good garage covers what to look for, and it is worth reading before you pick the first one too.
Step three: The Motor Ombudsman or a trade association
The Motor Ombudsman resolves disputes between consumers and businesses without court proceedings, and its alternative dispute resolution service is free of charge to consumers. There is one condition that decides whether it is available to you at all: it only considers disputes against businesses accredited to one or more of its codes of practice, which for repair work means the Service and Repair Code. Check the garage on its business finder before you spend time on this.
The process, and the limits:
| Point | What applies |
|---|---|
| Cost to you | Free |
| Who it covers | Only businesses accredited to one of its four codes of practice |
| Complain to the garage first | The business must be given up to 8 weeks to respond |
| Time limit | 6 years since the event, or 12 months since the final response |
| Is the outcome binding? | An adjudication can be appealed by either side. If you accept the ombudsman's final decision, it becomes binding on the business |
If the garage is not accredited to that code, check whether it belongs to another trade association, since several run their own conciliation services for members. If it belongs to nothing at all, you skip to step four. Worth noting for next time: membership of an approved code is one of the few checkable quality signals a garage can carry, which is why it appears in our choosing a garage checklist.
Step four: Trading Standards, through Citizens Advice
Trading Standards does not take up individual complaints on your behalf and will not get your money back for you. What it does is act on patterns, and it can investigate and take enforcement action against a trader who is treating customers badly across the board. You report through the Citizens Advice consumer service, which passes the report on.
It is worth doing for two reasons even though it will not, by itself, fix your car. It creates a record against that trader, which matters if others have complained too. And Citizens Advice will give you free advice on your specific case, including template letters, which is useful preparation for step five.
Step five: the small claims court
The small claims track is designed to be used without a solicitor, and a garage repair dispute is exactly what it exists for. You claim the cost of putting the work right, plus any directly linked losses you can evidence.
What it costs to file
The court fee is based on the amount you are claiming plus interest. GOV.UK publishes the bands:
| Claim amount | Court fee |
|---|---|
| Up to £300 | £35 |
| £300.01 to £500 | £50 |
| £500.01 to £1,000 | £70 |
| £1,000.01 to £1,500 | £80 |
| £1,500.01 to £3,000 | £115 |
| £3,000.01 to £5,000 | £205 |
| £5,000.01 to £10,000 | £455 |
You normally add the fee to the claim, so a successful claim usually recovers it. Before you file, send a final letter saying you intend to issue a claim if the matter is not resolved within 14 days, and attach the independent report. Courts expect you to have tried to settle, and a fair number of garages settle at precisely this point.
What wins a small claim
What wins a small claim is documentation, not indignation: the original invoice, the written complaint and the garage's replies, the independent report, photographs, and a quote for the remedial work. Turn up with those in date order and you are ahead of most claimants.
If it is the MOT result you disagree with
An MOT dispute is a completely separate route and it does not run through the garage at all. MOT results are appealed to the DVSA on its own form and to its own deadlines, and the single most important rule is that you must not have the car repaired before the DVSA has inspected it. Read how to appeal an MOT result rather than following the steps above.
If the disagreement is really about what a failure or an advisory means, rather than whether the tester got it wrong, what an MOT advisory means and why cars fail their MOT will usually settle it faster than a complaint would. Plenty of arguments start with an advisory being read as a demand for immediate work when it is not one.
How to avoid ending up here again
Nearly every dispute in this guide traces back to something that was never written down. Four habits remove most of the risk, and none of them cost anything.
- Get the price in writing, and use the word quote. Ask for the out the door figure including parts, labour and VAT, by email or text. A garage that will not put a number in writing has told you something.
- Set an authorisation limit. Say in the same message that no additional work is to be carried out without your agreement. That converts a vague expectation into a term of the contract.
- Ask what the warranty on the work is. Twelve months or 12,000 miles on parts and labour is common. Get it in writing on the invoice.
- Keep everything. Booking confirmation, quote, invoice, and the old parts. Five minutes of admin is what a dispute is decided on months later.
The other half of it is choosing better in the first place. Garages with a long public review history, a visible address, a written quote habit and membership of an approved code very rarely produce the situations above. Our guides to choosing a good garage and main dealer versus independent garages go through the trade offs, and what is included in a full service helps you check that you got what you paid for.
Find a garage you will not need to complain about
If you have lost confidence in the garage you used, the practical next step is a second opinion from someone with no stake in defending the first job. Put your postcode in and compare local garages, look at their ratings and opening hours, and send a booking request in about a minute. Tell them plainly that you want an inspection and a written report on work another garage carried out, and ask for the price of that inspection up front. You pay the garage directly and there is no booking fee. While you are at it, check when your MOT is due so a dispute does not quietly run into an expired certificate.
Key takeaways
- Section 49 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015: every service must be performed with reasonable care and skill. A botched repair is a breach of that term.
- Section 55 gives you repeat performance. The garage must redo the work within a reasonable time, without significant inconvenience to you, and bear the cost of labour and materials.
- Section 56 gives you a price reduction, with any refund paid within 14 days by the same method you paid, and no fee deducted.
- A quote is binding. An estimate can be exceeded within reason. If no price was agreed at all, section 51 says you owe a reasonable price and no more.
- Citizens Advice confirms a garage can keep your car while the bill is in dispute, but cannot sell it or dispose of it.
- The Motor Ombudsman is free for consumers but only covers businesses accredited to its codes. You must give the garage up to 8 weeks first, and apply within 12 months of their final response.
- Small claims court fees start at £35 for claims up to £300 and £70 for claims up to £1,000.
Frequently asked questions
What are my rights if a garage does a bad job?
Section 49 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 treats every contract to supply a service as including a term that the trader must perform the service with reasonable care and skill. If the work fell short of that, section 55 gives you the right to repeat performance: the garage must do the work again within a reasonable time, without significant inconvenience to you, and must bear any necessary costs of doing so, including labour and materials. Where redoing the job is impossible, or the garage will not do it in a reasonable time, section 56 gives you the right to a price reduction instead, which can be a full refund if the work was worthless.
Can a garage charge more than the price they quoted?
Not if it was a quote. A quote is a fixed price for the job described, and you pay what was agreed. An estimate is different: Citizens Advice says a garage can charge more than an estimate within reason, though a large jump with no phone call first is hard to defend. If no price was discussed at all, section 51 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 says the contract includes a term that you pay a reasonable price for the service, and no more. In every case, extra work should have been agreed with you before it was carried out, which is exactly what the CTSI approved Service and Repair Code commits accredited garages to.
Can a garage keep my car until I pay the bill?
Yes, within limits. Citizens Advice is explicit that a garage can keep your car while the bill is being disputed, but it is not allowed to sell the car or get rid of it during the dispute. That leaves most people with a practical decision rather than a legal one. If you need the car, pay the bill and write on the invoice and in an email that you are paying under protest and intend to reclaim the disputed amount. Paying under protest does not weaken your claim, and it gets your car back while you argue.
How do I complain to The Motor Ombudsman about a garage?
First check the garage is accredited, because The Motor Ombudsman only considers disputes against businesses signed up to one or more of its codes of practice, and you can look this up on its business finder. Then complain to the garage and give it up to 8 weeks to respond. After that, or after you receive a final response, you can submit the dispute free of charge. The time limits are 6 years from the event, or 12 months from the garage's final response, whichever applies. An adjudication can be appealed by either side, but if you accept the ombudsman's final decision it becomes binding on the business.
How much does it cost to take a garage to the small claims court?
The court fee depends on the amount you are claiming, including interest. GOV.UK lists £35 for claims up to £300, £50 up to £500, £70 up to £1,000, £80 up to £1,500, £115 up to £3,000, £205 up to £5,000 and £455 up to £10,000. You normally add the fee to your claim, so if you win you can recover it. You do not need a solicitor for a small claim, and in most small claims you cannot recover legal fees from the other side even if you win, which is part of why the process is designed to be used without one.
Do I need an independent report before I complain?
Not to complain, but it is usually what settles the argument. Citizens Advice suggests getting a second opinion from another garage or a vehicle engineer to show whether the work was done properly. Ask for it in writing, with the fault described, photographs where possible and the cost of putting it right. A written assessment from an uninvolved mechanic is what an ombudsman, Trading Standards or a judge can actually weigh, whereas your word against the garage's tends to go nowhere. Keep the invoice, the booking confirmation and every message, and do not have the fault repaired elsewhere before the first garage has been given the chance to inspect it.
What if I disagree with the MOT result rather than the repair?
That is a different route entirely and it does not go through the garage. An MOT result is appealed to the DVSA, using its complaint form, and there are strict time limits, so read our guide to appealing an MOT result rather than treating it as a repair complaint. The key difference is that you must not have the car repaired before the DVSA inspects it, otherwise there is nothing left to look at. Complaints about the way a test centre behaved, as opposed to the technical result, also go to the DVSA.
How long do I have to complain about a car repair?
Complain as soon as you notice the problem, because delay makes it harder to show the garage caused it. The legal backstop is long: in England and Wales a claim for breach of contract can normally be brought within 6 years, and The Motor Ombudsman uses the same 6 year window from the event, or 12 months from the garage's final response. In Scotland the equivalent period is 5 years. None of that is a reason to wait. Report the fault in writing straight away, keep driving to a minimum if the fault is safety related, and book an inspection quickly.
Sources
- Consumer Rights Act 2015, statutory rights under a services contract (legislation.gov.uk)
- Consumer Rights Act 2015, remedies when service rights are not met (legislation.gov.uk)
- Problem with a car repair (Citizens Advice)
- How The Motor Ombudsman can help consumers
- The Motor Ombudsman approved code (Chartered Trading Standards Institute)
- Make a court claim for money, court fees (GOV.UK)