A customer presented Watford Audi with a £714 bill for dinner after the dealership offered her a free meal as an apology for a mishap with a car she was buying.

After a used Audi A3 convertible Siobhan Yap had just bought for £20,000 was damaged before she could take it from the forecourt, management at Audi Watford gave her a courtesy car and offered to cover the cost of a meal for two as compensation for the inconvenience caused.

Yap subsequently presented it with a bill for £714.61 after taking her mother to dinner to L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon in London's Covent Garden, where they accompanied their meal with champagne, wine, cocktails and sloe gin.

Watford Audi, part of Spire Automotive, said the bill was excessive expenditure for two diners, but as it was keen to make amends for the incident it agreed to cover half of the bill. It said its offer was "a fair and reasonable amount given the circumstances".

Yap told BBC Three Counties Radio that Audi should pay the whole bill because she had to send the car back for further repairs, and the cost was "relative to what they put me through and their customer service levels".

"They put me through a lot of stress and it was a really nice restaurant," Yap said. "They should have specified a limit."

Responses on social media to this case are mixed. @rtmoneyboy tweeted: "Some people just take the p***." and @AndrewPemberton tweeted "Well done Watford Audi - stick to your guns".

However @chinnyhill10 tweeted: "An Audi garage in Watford claim a bill from a customer is excessive. Irony!" and @Berkorunner tweeted: "BMW would have paid in full."