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Reg wrecks young driver's window and bills him for repairs

As if the price of young driver car insurance isn't financial burden enough, many UK motorists find themselves getting ripped off by car dealerships.

Stories abound of over-inflated service charges and scandalously expensive replacement car parts at dealerships, but the prize this week has got to go to Reg Vardy's Darlington branch in County Durham, and the unfortunate tale of Jason Humble.

Humble had only taken his car in for an airbag check, and so was justifiably surprised when one of the Reg Vardy team rang him up to report one of the electric windows had failed, slipped off the door rails and smashed into pieces.

"One of our guys wound the window down to talk to a colleague and it collapsed," said the dealership chain's regional director Michael Breen.

The call wasn't simply to inform Humble of the damage, however. It turned out the mechanics expected him to claim against his motor insurance policy for replacement glass.

Fortunately a few choice words were enough to get the glass replaced 'on the house' - but complications with the Rover 45 didn't end there.

Michael Breen picks up the story: "We paid for a replacement as an act of goodwill and we later found that the window mechanism no longer worked." Or, as Jason Humble put it: "Something went wrong with the motor and the window is now stuck."

Sadly, Reg Vardy's goodwill didn't stretch to the cost of a replacement motor. Instead, they quoted Humble £326 (this time out of his pocket rather than as a young driver car insurance claim) to fix a problem which Breen admits occurred while at his garage.

"We think it was fair wear and tear and could have gone at any time," he said.