My daughters clutch failed on her Clio. I’m now an employee so I can’t stay late and change it for her like I would have. So, I call my old garage, speak to my former receptionist and ask if he can fit it in for me. No problem, he tells me, drop it off tonight and we’ll do it tomorrow.  Lovely. Problem sorted.

Very late in the afternoon, I get the call telling me the car is ready. I take my daughter down and she takes the car away as I settle the bill. All £680 of it! No bother, I tell myself. It’s worth it just to have her back on the road in such a short time, so I pay the bill and leave.

When I get home my daughter tells me the ABS light came on as she was driving it home. Bugger! I call the garage but they’re closed so I call them again in the morning. Bring it back down for us, they tell me, so my daughter takes the car back in and waits. A few hours later she gets the call it’s fixed so gets a lift down from her mother.

The ABS sensor wiring was loose hence the light came back on, sorry for the inconvenience, she’s told. Except as she drives away, it comes back on. She takes it back and they have to keep it overnight to diagnose it again. The next morning, she gets a call to say the ABS sensor is broken and needs a new one. She says okay, they supply and fit it. They then call back to say it isn’t the sensor but the wheel bearing. Again, she agrees, but now she calls me to get my view on it. I asked her how much they quoted and she said £130.

I call the garage and discuss the situation, you need to speak to Mark, they tell me. I finish work and pick my daughter up on the way to the garage and ask to speak to Mark. Remember, he bought the garage off me, so he knows who I am and what level I worked at.

He opens with I can’t believe we’re having this conversation, to which I replied, neither do I. He then asks what do I expect, working on old cars creates problems that have to be repaired. I agreed, but if the garage create those problems then they should put it right at their cost, not mine.

We argue back and forth a little before he asks what do I want? I told him in simple terms, that I expect the car repaired properly, with no more faults and no further charge. He then gives my daughter the key and tells me to never come back.

Just to be clear, I was banned from going back to the garage that I started and built up!

Why was I so difficult? Because I didn’t appreciate being lied to. ABS sensors can’t be loose. You either fit them correctly or not. The road test would have shown the fault, had they bothered to carry one out, or they did and chose to ignore the fault. Fitting two parts to fix one fault that did not exist before also shows a bad diagnostic process.

What do I think happened? Taking the drive shaft out of the hub they caught the reluctor ring or damaged the sensor. Rather than own up and replace it before returning the car, they took a gamble on returning it as is, hoping it would work. Either way, the road test should have shown something was wrong and it should have been repaired before hand over.

There’s only one way to do a job and that’s properly. Like I said earlier, quality is everyones responsibility, isn’t it? But me getting banned from my former garage that makes me laugh the most. Oh, the irony!