Alex put his $35,000 ute in for a routine service. It came back wrecked – and left HIM with a $1,500 bill and waging a months-long insurance war

A Victorian couple’s routine car service has turned into a nightmare after a young mechanic crashed their $35,000 ute, leaving them out-of-pocket, tangled in a months-long insurance battle, and now facing threats of police action.  

Torquay man Alex Kruse said he took his 2021 GWM Cannon to Smiths of Geelong for a routine service on July 8. 

Mr Kruse said the ute, purchased two years ago, had a seven-year warranty when he dropped it off at the mechanic, which is connected to Blood Auto Group.

‘They called me up to tell me that it had been in an accident, and they had to have it looked at for two weeks, and then they deemed it a total loss,’ he told Daily Mail. 

‘The mechanic t-boned it and ripped the front of the car off, and I think he wrote the other vehicle off too.’

Mr Kruse said the business tried to pressure him to use his own car insurance, but he refused, knowing it would raise his premium despite the fact he hadn’t been at fault.

‘Going through their insurance took about two months because the mechanics told me to deal with their insurance company who said “you’re not our customer so we can’t talk to you”. It was like a ping pong ball going back and forth.’

Mr Kruse said when he finally got a payout, it didn’t cover taxes, leaving him $1,500 out-of-pocket.

‘I tried to ask the company to reimburse me and they just ignored it,’ he said.

‘They wouldn’t return my phone calls, and finally when I got them on the phone, they said no we’re not doing that. We’re wiping our hands of this.’

Mr Kruse made a complaint to Consumer Affairs and last Friday lodged an application for his matter to be heard in the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal. 

‘It’s not fair that I took the car to a place that I thought I could trust as the manufacturer’s dealership, and while it’s still under warranty, it gets totally written off, and I end up out-of-pocket,’ he said.

‘They told me he was a senior mechanic but when we started gathering information for the insurance company he was maybe just a year on his license.’ 

Mr Kruse said the time and effort he had put into replacing his vehicle had been stressful and that Smiths of Geelong was now demanding he return the loan car, even though he hasn’t secured a replacement ute.

‘Since we got the insurance money back last week, they’ve been trying to say, you have to give us the car back and I’ve been arguing they should pay me the money outstanding,’ he said.

‘As of today they’ve threatened to call the police to say the car is stolen.’

Mr Kruse said he had a contract loan agreement allowing indefinite use of the loan car, and a verbal promise it would continue until the ute’s value was replaced.

‘I’m not asking for anything extraordinary,’ he said. 

‘I’m just asking to basically get me back to even where I started. 

It’s just such a headache and a nightmare for something that they caused.’

The Daily Mail reached out to Blood Auto Group service, who did not respond.

However dealer principal Brian Blood told the Geelong Advertiser the group serviced 78,000 customers annually and was ‘not perfect’ but was ‘transparent, honest, accountable and communicative’. 

Mr Blood agreed the car was written off, which he said was ‘unfortunate but accidents do happen’.

He said the customer chose to deal with the dealership’s insurance company, accepted the insurer’s offer and received payment.

‘We paid the excess and at no stage asked the customer to pay for it,’ Mr Blood said.

‘We had no negotiation at all in the process, this was left with the customer and the insurance company.’