Dear Alex,
After my wife’s Honda Jazz was serviced at a local garage, she took it to a body shop for a quote to repair lifting paint around the windscreen, a common Jazz problem. The body shop noticed numerous patches elsewhere, where the lacquer had lifted, and said the damage was a result of pressure washing. The garage flippantly said it was an old car and even suggested the damage may have been caused before they serviced it. They added that they always use a pressure washer, but we did not ask for them to do so. Should they not have a duty of care?
– LM
Dear LM,
While I can understand why you and your wife are upset, I have to say that I also have some sympathy with the garage in this instance. That’s because I think the body shop employee may have been a little misleading in intimating that the damage would solely have been caused by pressure washing.
Lacquer can fail for any number of reasons. While it’s true that using a pressure washer, especially concentrating it on particular patches of the bodywork and using harsh cleaning chemicals, can be among them, this sort of damage usually takes a long time and repeated exposure to manifest itself.
Most garages these days use pressure washers for courtesy washes and the majority of cars don’t tend to be handed back with peeling paintwork. And given they usually want to get the job done quickly, it’s rare that the pressure washer is pointed at a particular part of the bodywork for any length of time.
In other words, it’s unlikely that one hit with a pressure washer alone would have caused all the trouble. Indeed, if it did, then I’m afraid it suggests there were already underlying issues with the paintwork before the garage even set eyes on the car.
It could be that the lacquer was already losing adhesion with the paintwork, and the pressure washing simply loosened it completely – which is why it didn’t come to your attention before the service was carried out.
If that’s the case, it would have peeled by itself before too long; the garage’s actions may have simply hastened the process. That being the case, I can understand why the garage is unwilling to foot the bill for the repair.
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