The Motor Ombudsman Logged a Record 1,586 Complaints as Drivers Chased Back £3,689

• The Motor Ombudsman logged 1,586 new garage and dealer complaint cases last quarter, up 18 percent on the same three months of the previous year and just below its all-time high.
• Engine, transmission and fuel system faults make up almost 40 percent of complaints, with servicing and repair customer service close behind at nearly a third.
• Drivers bringing a case asked for an average of £3,689 in compensation, refunds or free repairs, and most disputes can be raised without paying a solicitor.

The Watchdog Drivers Turn to When a Garage Won’t Fix the Problem

Something is going wrong at the garage counter more often than it used to. The Motor Ombudsman, the body that handles disputes between drivers and accredited garages and dealers, received 1,586 new service and repair cases in the three months to the end of September, a rise of 18 percent on the same quarter a year earlier and only just short of the record set in the previous quarter. Drivers bringing those cases asked for an average of £3,689 each in compensation, refunds or free repairs.

Where the Complaints Are Actually Coming From

Drivetrain faults, covering the engine, transmission and fuel system, remain the single biggest category, making up close to 40 percent of all cases. Timing chain failures, turbocharger problems and excessive oil consumption were the complaints that came up again and again. Servicing and repair customer service is the second-largest category at close to a third of complaints, and this is the one that points most directly at how a garage treats its customers rather than at the car itself: unauthorised work carried out without approval, damage caused to a vehicle while it was in for a repair, and the same fault reappearing after several visits all sit in this bracket.

Chassis-related complaints, covering suspension, brakes, wheels and steering, dipped slightly year on year but still featured heavily, with incorrectly fitted tyres, premature brake wear and subframe corrosion among the recurring issues. Electrical faults came fourth, including alarm wiring that had corroded, batteries drained by interior fans left running, and stop-start systems that stopped working properly. Exterior and interior complaints, a smaller category, covered poor paint finish, misaligned doors and infotainment screens that froze or reset at random.

Diesel cars generated the most complaints by fuel type, ahead of petrol, with electric and hybrid models still generating comparatively few. Part of that gap is simple arithmetic: there are still far more diesel and petrol cars on the road than electric ones for a fault to show up in. Battery health and charging-related complaints on EVs are rising, even from a small base, and the Ombudsman expects that category to grow as the electric car population on British roads expands and the first wave of older, higher-mileage EVs starts coming off warranty.

What’s Driving the Rise

Bill Fennell, chief ombudsman and managing director of The Motor Ombudsman, pointed to higher vehicle running costs and wider financial pressure on households as part of what is pushing the numbers up. Drivers who are paying more than ever to keep a car on the road have less patience for a repair that does not stick, or a service bill that includes work they never agreed to. Fennell also noted that drivers are now submitting more detailed evidence when they raise a case, which suggests people are better prepared going into a dispute than they once were, regardless of whether the underlying faults themselves have changed much.

Fennell added that the drivetrain area of a vehicle continues to generate the highest volume of service and repair complaints, and said this balance will likely shift once electric car sales become more dominant in the run-up to 2030. An EV has no turbocharger, timing chain or fuel system to fail in the first place, but it introduces its own battery and charging complaints over time.

How to Raise a Complaint That Actually Gets Somewhere

The Motor Ombudsman only has power over garages and dealers that are accredited to one of its codes of practice, which makes checking whether a garage is signed up, searchable on the Ombudsman’s own website, the first worthwhile step before any work begins. For an accredited garage, a complaint starts with putting the issue in writing directly to the business and giving it a reasonable chance to respond. The Ombudsman expects to see that attempt made before it will take on a case itself.

If that written complaint does not resolve things, the next step is submitting a case through The Motor Ombudsman’s own online portal, with supporting evidence attached: the original invoice, photographs of the fault or the damage, any written quotes for further repair work, and a clear timeline of what happened and when. Cases that come with strong documentation from the outset tend to move faster, with far fewer follow-up questions needed to establish the basic facts.

Decisions made through this process are binding on the garage if a driver accepts them, which removes much of the uncertainty of going straight to court. For garages that are not accredited to any Motor Ombudsman code, a driver’s main routes are the Financial Ombudsman Service if the repair was paid for on a credit card or through finance, a direct claim through the small claims track for amounts under £10,000, or, in cases involving a serious safety fault, a report to the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency.

What to Check Before the Car Even Goes In

Many of the disputes reaching the Ombudsman start with a verbal agreement that is never confirmed in writing. Asking for a written estimate before any work begins, and insisting that anything found once the car is stripped down gets a phone call and a fresh written quote rather than a surprise on the final invoice, closes off the most common source of “unauthorised work” complaints before they start. Keeping every invoice and estimate, even for routine servicing, also builds exactly the kind of paper trail that makes a future complaint faster to resolve if a fault does turn up later.

The Right to a Second Opinion

A driver quoted for an expensive repair, a recurring drivetrain fault above all, is under no obligation to have that work carried out by the garage that diagnosed it. Taking the car, or at least the diagnostic report, to a second independent garage for a view on the same fault costs little and occasionally uncovers a cheaper fix, or confirms the original diagnosis and removes any doubt before committing to a large bill. For a car still under a manufacturer or extended warranty, checking the warranty terms before paying for any diagnostic work is worthwhile too: some warranty providers will cover the cost of an investigation that an independent garage would otherwise charge for upfront.

Recurring faults deserve particular attention under consumer law. The Consumer Rights Act 2015 gives a buyer the right to a repair, replacement, price reduction or refund when goods, including a car bought from a dealer, are not of satisfactory quality, and a fault that keeps coming back after repeated attempts to fix it strengthens that position considerably. This right sits alongside, rather than instead of, a Motor Ombudsman case, and mentioning it in a written complaint often focuses a dealer’s attention faster than a general description of the problem on its own.

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Sources:

• AM Online: Record surge in service and repair complaints as motorists turn to Ombudsman amid rising costs