We currently have a long asphalt driveway. About 400 feet long by about
10 feet wide.

2/3 of the way down the driveway is a shop, perpendicular to the driveway.

I recently had the gravel drive to the shop that runs perpendicular to
the main driveway paved with asphalt. In doing so, the asphalt company
tore up the bottom 1/3 of the driveway pretty good.

Now, they claimed it was because there wasn't a "good base" under the
existing driveway. The previous owners of the house had issues with
this as well when they had a company come to install a mound septic
system and tore up the driveway pretty good. Rumor has it they made
this other company pay to overlay the entire driveway (so the main
driveway has been overlayed in the past couple years, actually by the
same company that did the latest work, the owner even told me he
remembered doing it).

Anyhow, he told me to overlay would be about 2000 bucks, or a complete
redo of the section would be over double that. Then went on to say "you
got a really good deal on this shop driveway". So, I said "do the
overlay" as I didn't want to argue and have them just stop working.

Just curious if this sounds right or not. Would the asphalt company not
have any liability for ruining the old portion of the driveway? And the
price seems pretty high.

For the shop asphalt it was $2100. This is for 1192 sq ft 3" mat,
digging out the area, and supplying base material, grading and
compacting. I also had them put in a culvert, and that showed up as
$500 (for about 36feet of 8" plastic culvert). Which sounds high too.
But I can live with that.

Then the extra $2000 for approximatley 1200 more sq ft of 1 1/2"
overlay... something smells funny. I could see paying some of it, but
all of it? Just because they claim "it wasn't done right to begin
with"? And it seems like I paid the same price for 1 1/2" overlay as I
did for 3" mat where they did all the prep as well.

Just curious on thoughts about this. Thanks!