I think a garage jacked my car up from the wrong place!

Hi guys, During a geometry check, the mechanic said 'what the hell have you done here?' at which point i walked over to find the passenger side rear fork control arm bent like a banana! The mechanic said 'no wonder the car doesnt feel right'. He asked me if id gone over anything? Then we both came to the conclusion that its impossible to drive over anything that was high enough to bend the control arm as it would NEVER clear the front bumper or side sill or undertrays were you to drive over something that could do it. He then asked if id been to any garages lately of which i had (no naming or shaming here as im a bit baffled as to what happened). We came to the conclusion that the car had been jacked up from the control arm which triggered me remembering that the previous garage did momentarily lift the car about a foot of the ground before lowering it with the mechanic walking around then moving the passenger side jack arm to the correct position. Its my own fault for not asking 'excuse me but what part of the car did you just lift the car on?' Anyway, upon thinking that this was surely the cause, i emailed the garage with a host of photos. I got a prompt reply saying that its absolutely impossible to have done it with the garages ramp/jack as the wheel and cross brace and sill of the car are all in the way and would have suffered considerable damage before the jack arm could reach the rear control arm( which i think could be true). The email had good clear photos which did pretty much show this. Im baffled because i know that you cannot do this through driving and you would damn well know if you somehow managed to do it, and the photos show that it really is quite hard for the ramp/jack arm to reach it, but i do know that that corner of the car was jacked up from the wrong position momentarily as i saw the mechanic quickly lower it and adjust it. It cost me a couple of hundred pounds but the heartache is that the geometry guy said that he had to apply maximum toe or camber (cant remember) to get it properly aligned as the hub was put out buy the damage. What do you guys think? I said to the garage that its an honest mistake but they still said that they couldnt have done it. Reputable garage too! Peter

Hi Peter difficult one this, i would say you have to put it down to experience and live with it, and never use the original garage again! makes you think though, you say you think you saw it happen and didnt say anything at the time, well if it were me i wouldnt have known either! and i generally drop my car off with my local indy leaving them the keys and the car in the car park so wouldnt ever see work carried out bad luck but i think you dont really have a case against the first garage as you have no real proof that they were at fault i do sympathise though cheers tim

+1 to that

That's a tough one, and a strange choice of location to get it wrong considering much more obvious places are available. I hope everything else is ok. Doesn't do anything for your confidence when dropping the car off for the day :frustrated:

Thanks guys, Just seems SO hard to find garages that really provide proper service...there are a few tha ti wont be using again. will be trying tognola engineering next as they seem alot more personal. peter