No they don’t. A mechanic has no duty of care in law that would permit him to seize, confiscate, or impound personal property. A mechanic can discharge an ethical duty by offering a written waiver document formally documenting the dangerous defects.
I worked in a shop in Indiana. All we could do was tell people their car was unsafe. We could not refuse to return it. We could tell them that if they didn’t want us to repair it they should tow it away, but we could not refuse to give back the keys.
One thing we couldn’t do, which people ALWAYS asked, was tell the “how long it could go.” The theory was that if someone had a bad tie-rod end, and we said it had about two weeks left on it, and it broke in the middle of traffic after a week and six days, and hurt someone, we could be sued. But people invariably asked. “Your shocks are bad.” “How long can they go?”
Once, and woman had such bad brakes, the stubs of the pads had cut 1/4" grooves into the rotors. She asked how long it could go. The mechanic offered to give her “Fred Flintstone” brakes-- that is, to cut a hole in the floor of the car she could stick her feet through.
It scared me to think of the condition a lot of other cars on the street with me were in.
So you didn’t get the answer on Reddit you wanted so you’ve modified the story to post it here?
Of course, they could be slightly more informative. I once bought a used car, and having it checked out, the mechanic told me that there was about 40% brake pad left. I asked “What does that mean?”, He answered, “A little less than half.”
Legal advice is best suited to IMHO.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
If you buy a car, does the dealer have a right to withhold delivery if you do not have a drivers license, and/or insurance, and intend to drive it off the lot?
By the way, this is a very widespread practice. My stepdaughter took her car to a franchise muffler shop, and they refused to give her the keys to her car. I drove her back down there that night, to retrieve the car from their lot, with her spare keys.
Did you specifically check Reddit to see if he had posted this question there? Or, did you come upon it by chance?
I’d seen a Reddit post earlier today, then saw this remarkable similar story with a similar location here. If it is the same OP they’ve changed the story to paint themselves in a more favorable light.
Even in this post the OP admits the garage replaced the sheared off lug bolts and the OP is refusing to pay labor. The unauthorized rotor is a new twist.
The car lost its tire presumably close enough to this garage they could get it onto thier lot. It was after hours and they left the key in an after hours envelope, such envelopes often ask or state thier use authorizes repairs to a certain dollar threshold. 200, 300, 500 etc.
The garage gave them a quote in the morning, to which the OP said ‘I’ll supply my own wheel thanks’
The OP showed up at the garage and found they’d already made the repair. Prior to the repair the car was unmovable. The lack of studs certainly made it impossible to put a wheel on. A damaged rotor may also prevent them from being able to mount a wheel. Even if the bad rotor wouldn’t have prevented them from mounting a wheel the additional labor for a rotor when you already had to take the old one off to replace the studs is 0, it may actually be more difficult to put a useless rusty rotor back on.
Basically they wanted/needed the work done or they would have instead needed to pay a similar price to tow it elsewhere. They are trying to weasel out of payment claiming the repair was unauthorised.
Maybe they can return the rotor and get their money back on that but otherwise the shop doesn’t seem to be the bad guy here.
The Honda dealership where I had my Civic checked because of the Check Engine light, wanted $175 to replace the oxygen sensor, $75 for just the sensor. I’m guessing he was apologetic because he was thinking about the cost coming out of his paycheck.