So you reckon that your car mechanic takes his time – two weeks without the car, waiting for a spare part; it’s hell, but spare a thought for José Cortés.

You see, Sr. Cortes has been waiting over 14 years to get his car back. Yup, that’s not a typo; we’re talking about just under 5,300 days!

The said car owner took his Ford Sierra in for repairs in January 2003 after being involved in a road accident in Analfarache (Sevilla) – he is from a nearby town in that same province, by the way.

The mechanic said that the necessary repairs would cost almost 10,000 euros, which was a bit of a blow, But don’t worry, said his normal mechanic; there was another garage that specialised in ‘compatible spares,’ i.e., much cheaper, called Hermanos Capdevilla.

This second garage gave a quote for 2,405 euros, which Sr. Cortés snapped up! The deal was 2,000 up front and the rest upon collecting the car, which, the mechanic said, would take about 20 days…

Well, the mechanic must have been referring to Venus days, which last 243 Earth days each, but even so, he was still too optimistic. By the way, did you know that a Venus day is longer than a Venus year (224.7 Earth days). I digress…

Well, as you can imagine, Sr. Cortés ended up reporting the garage owner to the Guardia Civil, as well as to the Consumer Rights Association.

What does the garage have to say for itself? The garage says that back in those days the garage belonged to two brothers, one of whom decided to take the job on himself, privately. However no mention was made about what happened to the money nor why the car was not repaired and handed back.

Sr. Cortés has the receipts for having paid and pointed out that he couldn’t give a damn if the brothers had had a tiff or not – he wants his car back, which is why he is now suing them to get his car back in a repaired state, or just his car in its original state and his money refunded. Fair!

(News: Analfarache, Sevilla, Andalucia)