• FreeAdvice has a new Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, effective May 25, 2018.
    By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our Terms of Service and use of cookies.

Paid mechanic who didn't complete repairs & held my car hostage

Accident - Bankruptcy - Criminal Law / DUI - Business - Consumer - Employment - Family - Immigration - Real Estate - Tax - Traffic - Wills   Please click a topic or scroll down for more.

JaneDo

Junior Member
What is the name of your state? GA

My saga is long, but I hope I can condense it while leaving in the vital information.
A mechanic said he would fix my car for $1200 and it would take 3 days to fix. After 3 weeks and almost $600 paid during, he still wasn't finished with my car. During that time, I asked him if the price was going to rise, he said no but in the end the price had risen to $1800. I retrieved my car incomplete from a dark garage at 11:00 at night and paid him $600 more dollars to take my car because him and the men who were working on the car were holding it hostage. He took the price down to $1400 because it was incomplete and a balance of $180 (the worker took $20 off of the balance) remains to this day.

I told him that because the damage he caused to the car is $800 to fix, I could not pay him the $180 and he said okay and hung up the phone. Now a month later, he is trying to receive the $180 and says if it is not paid he will start charging a late fee (which is nowhere on his paperwork)

Some thing's to note:
-Estimate we signed says $1200
-He has continuously lied about everything, including the price, the car's whereabouts, who was actually working on the car, when the car would be worked on and finished, what materials were used and much more.
-I signed a paper that says as-is on it because he was holding my car hostage and then when I asked for a copy of what I had signed he refused.
-I signed another paper saying I owed him the balance because I didn't know what great damage he caused to the car.
-He told me materials were purchased when they weren't
-He falsely represented himself as a business when in fact he is not & he even went so far as to use another business's forms and blocked out their names and replace his.
-I have been to many mechanics and some won't even touch the car while others are charging no less than $800 to take apart his work are repair the car.
-I do have pictures of before and after

Like I said, there's so much to this story but I hope I've included the main points.

My questions are:
1) If I sued him for the money I paid him, would I win?
2) Because he was holding my car for 3 weeks, did I have the right to try and get my car back at that time?
3) Can he tack on a late fee when nothing on his papers says anything about a late fee?

Anymore advice on this situation would be great as well.
Thank youWhat is the name of your state?
 


JETX

Senior Member
JaneDo said:
If I sued him for the money I paid him, would I win?
No one can answer that.

Because he was holding my car for 3 weeks, did I have the right to try and get my car back at that time?
The 'right' to try?? Yes.
The right to actually do so?? Depends entirely on the circumstances of the 'recovery'.

Can he tack on a late fee when nothing on his papers says anything about a late fee?
Of course he can. Now, whether that late fee is valid or not... is up to the court to decide.
 

Find the Right Lawyer for Your Legal Issue!

Fast, Free, and Confidential
data-ad-format="auto">
Top