Car stuck at a repair shop: estimates, storage fees and selling it from the lot

Can a repair shop in Illinois keep your car until you pay?

For work you approved, yes. Illinois lets you take the car once you pay for the labor done, the parts installed, parts ordered for it that can't be returned, and storage charges the shop disclosed before the repair. A shop that skipped the estimate rules can't hold the car for the unauthorized part of the bill.

A common version of this goes: the car is towed to a mechanic, the diagnosis comes back as a dead engine or transmission, and the repair costs more than the car is worth. Now the car is on someone else’s lot, and the question is what it takes to get it off. Illinois has specific rules for that.

The estimate decides what you owe

The Illinois Automotive Repair Act (815 ILCS 306) sets the ground rules for mechanical repair shops. A shop may not start paid work over $100 without your specific authorization, given after its required disclosures. Then it picks one of two ways to price the job:

• An itemized estimate for parts and labor, which it can’t exceed by more than 10% without your consent, or
• A written price limit, which it can’t exceed at all without your consent.

The estimate has to carry every charge needed to finish the repair, including any fee for the estimate or the diagnosis. It also has to describe the major parts and say whether they’re new or used, say whether each repair is required or only suggested, and show what taking the car apart costs if you then turn the repair down. If the shop later finds the estimate was too low, it needs your consent before doing the extra work, and a phone approval has to be written up with the date, the time and who agreed. You can waive the written estimate by signing for it, but the shop can’t use the waiver to dodge the Act.

Saying no to the repair

Turning down a repair is your right under section 30 of the Act. After the estimate you can approve the work, ask for the car back in pieces, or ask for it put back together in about the same condition you left it. The shop then has 3 working days to make it available, unless parts aren’t available. It can charge only for items on its schedule of charges, such as the teardown cost the estimate showed.

The same 3-day window applies when a shop can’t finish by the date it promised: you can ask for the car back, assembled or not, and pay for the work actually done.

What you pay to drive (or tow) it away

Section 70 lists what you owe to remove the car, during business hours and with reasonable notice:

1. labor actually performed
2. parts actually installed
3. parts ordered for your car that can’t be cancelled or returned for cash or credit
4. storage charges, if the shop disclosed its schedule of charges before the repair

Storage only makes that list when it was disclosed up front, so ask for the daily rate in writing when you drop a car off. And a shop that broke the estimate, consent or invoice rules is barred from claiming a lien for the unauthorized parts or labor (section 75). That’s the line to quote if a bill shows work you never approved.

If you just walk away

Leaving the car doesn’t make the bill disappear. A shop that worked on a car at the owner’s request holds a lien on it. For bills of $2,000 or less, the Labor and Storage Lien (Small Amount) Act lets the shop keep that lien while it holds the car. If the car isn’t redeemed within 90 days, the shop can sell it after publishing a notice in a local newspaper and sending you a copy by certified mail 30 days before the sale. Money left over after the bill and costs is held for you for 6 months, then goes to the county treasurer.

Bigger bills come under the Labor and Storage Lien Act (770 ILCS 45), where the lien can outlast the shop handing the car back: it ends 60 days after delivery unless the shop files a lien notice with the county recorder in that time. Either way, settling the bill and selling the car yourself keeps the decision, and any money left over, in your hands.

Body shops play by a different law

The Automotive Repair Act doesn’t cover collision and body repair facilities, which fall under the Automotive Collision Repair Act instead. If your car is stuck at a body shop after a crash, start with the Attorney General’s auto sales and repairs page, which covers both laws. If the airbags went off in that crash, our guide on deployed airbags walks through the repair-or-junk call.

Selling the car straight from the shop

Once you’ve decided the repair isn’t worth it, the car doesn’t need to come home first.

1. Get the final bill in writing and pay what you owe under the rules above.
2. Tell the shop the car is being sold and collected, and ask when the lot is open.
3. Send us the year, make and model and the shop’s address on the offer form. Our free pickup loads from shop lots like any driveway, and you’re paid at pickup.

Shops have their own reasons to move a car along. In Lockport, for example, open storage of vehicles awaiting repair on lots in nonresidential zoning districts is limited to one month unless the Zoning Administrator extends it for hardship (§ 156.092(E)(5)). More pickup questions are answered on our FAQ page.

If the engine failed and the car is a 2011 to 2019 Hyundai or Kia, hold off on any sale until you’ve checked for a free engine repair.

Where to complain

When a shop knowingly keeps up a pattern of breaking the Act at one location, that counts as an unlawful practice under the Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act, and the Attorney General and State’s Attorneys can enforce it. The same Attorney General page has a link for filing a consumer complaint.

Short answers