Dear Sir or Madam,

We are seeking legal advice via this platform concerning our troublesome journey with our car which we bought a year ago. We regularily brought it to a workshop (x) that our pre-owner recommended to us. In July 2019 the car was fully serviced by them including an oil change. On September 24 the engine seized and the car was brought to an authorized Volvo workshop. They opened the engine and found that the oil inside was in a condition that most likely caused the engine seizure. According to the mechanic it is rather unlikely that the oil change had been done correctly. The invoice from workshop x for the service in July lists an engine oil that is not approved for this engine. As we are foreigners living temporarily in South Africa we are not familiar with our rights. So our questions concerning the issue above are:

- Can workshop x be held liable for the damage? - If yes, what is the correct procedure to do so? - Can they be held liable for any other costs that arise, e.g. towing costs and rental car rates as well?

Thank you for your time and help.

Kind regards

Laura and Sebastian Stark

We have confronted workshop x with the issue last Friday. The technical manager has made contact with us and was helpful until he reached out to his aerial manager who said that they cannot take any responsibilities as the did not see the inside when they did the last oil change.

Hi there and thank you for your question,

I am a practicing attorney based in South Africa and I will assist you with your question. Please feel free to ask as many follow up questions in order to clarify your question. If you have a new question, you must please open a new thread.

Yes, the workshop can be held liable for ANY damage / harm that they have caused as a result of their negligence.

Step 1 is to send them a letter of demand setting out their negligence, and the damages sustained, and how much it has cost you in order to rectify the damages. 

Step 2 is to try reach a settlement with them - normally a workshop would have insurance for this type of thing. Raise this with the owners to see if they can't go this route. 

Step 3 is to hire a lawyer to issue a summons, which is a formal document filed at court setting out the claim against the workshop. Eventually, this claim will go to court where you'll need to call witnesses to testify about the damage and the harm suffered.

Unfortunately, the Consumer Protection Act really only provides protection for new vehicles purchased, and gives an automatic warranty of 6 months for all goods and services. Your car appears to be a secondhand vehicle, and older than 6 months.

At trial, you will need to prove that no oil change was done. For this reason, I think that you should try keep the oil which came out of the engine now, or at least get the mechanic to do an affidavit recording what he saw. That should put you in good standing for a trial - if it happens.

If there is a part of the answer which you need more advice on, or clarity please continue in this same thread instead of opening a new question.

Att. Patrick

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