They have spent time recovering the car at peak time and time carrying out investigations. I would say £200 is not an excessive figure.

As for what the garage will do with the car I can 100% garantee they will fit an engine and sell it.

Easy to stop them, simply get car recovered close to home and sort it at your leisure.

They are taking the p*** I would argue the £150 but get the car out of there if nothing else break it on Gumtree and get some money back at least !

My mate let his wife drive his renault we were standing outside when this thing came down the road with smoke and steam pouring out of it hesaid did you not look at the gauges ? She said you don't think iv got time to look at them while I'm driving do you !

The engine was a write off !

£2k for a new engine actually sounds reasonable to me and the car still has some value - although you'd need to get a firm quote for the work rather than an estimate.

Why had the engine failed? Had something such as the oil pump failed or was it low on oil? Past servicing?

Be careful about just passing them the log book if you choose to do this - you either need to fill in the new owner details/passed to the trade or scrapped sections otherwise you remain liable.

Be careful re car-tax/SORN & insurance otherwise you may have a suprise when a fine lands in the post

Lesson learnt re breakdown. We've used Autoaid in the past for a very comprehensive cover including recovery - only £42.35 for a year for a couple. We now use breakdown via my Nationwide Flex + account as it also covers me in Europe

Edited by Big John on 20/03/2016 at 19:49