Nationwide Autocentres / Tesco Clubcard Vouchers

chrisaw

Has anyone used Clubcard vouchers recently to pay for a full service/MOT at Nationwide Autocentres? We booked one for last Saturday at a price of £175. OTT I know, but we were going to pay for the whole thing with Clubcard vouchers. Was fairly sure they were going to come back with stuff that needed doing, but reckoned that their (probably) inflated parts & labour charges would be offset by not paying for the service and MOT.

Anyway, hubby took the car in and presented them with the £180 of clubcard vouchers up front (I'd told him not to - it'd only encourage them to find extras that needed doing). When he came back he announced that the vouchers weren't going to cover the entire cost of the service and MOT on the basis that no discounts were available when paying with Clubcard vouchers. I let it slide and we ended up paying over £50 extra. When I check the receipt it lists MOT and service separately at £53.10(!) and £159.99 respectively. The service is described as "FULL - Fully Synthetic" which seems to mean that they've used synthetic oils. I don't know whether they would have had to ask our permission to do this or not. Then there's an additional charge for "Cleaners" at £20.00.

Needless to say that I'm a bit miffed that our "free" service and MOT ended up costing us £53 before a stroke of remedial work was carried out on the car, and I'm wondering if the same thing has happened to others?

photome

chrisaw wrote: »

Has anyone used Clubcard vouchers recently to pay for a full service/MOT at Nationwide Autocentres? We booked one for last Saturday at a price of £175. OTT I know, but we were going to pay for the whole thing with Clubcard vouchers. Was fairly sure they were going to come back with stuff that needed doing, but reckoned that their (probably) inflated parts & labour charges would be offset by not paying for the service and MOT.

Anyway, hubby took the car in and presented them with the £180 of clubcard vouchers up front (I'd told him not to - it'd only encourage them to find extras that needed doing). When he came back he announced that the vouchers weren't going to cover the entire cost of the service and MOT on the basis that no discounts were available when paying with Clubcard vouchers. I let it slide and we ended up paying over £50 extra. When I check the receipt it lists MOT and service separately at £53.10(!) and £159.99 respectively. The service is described as "FULL - Fully Synthetic" which seems to mean that they've used synthetic oils. I don't know whether they would have had to ask our permission to do this or not. Then there's an additional charge for "Cleaners" at £20.00.

Needless to say that I'm a bit miffed that our "free" service and MOT ended up costing us £53 before a stroke of remedial work was carried out on the car, and I'm wondering if the same thing has happened to others?

At my local nationwide centre a full service and mot is £216, so you wouldnt have paid enough with your vouchers.

I dont really understand about the synthetic oil, most modern cars use synthetic.

Did you get a price up front for a full service and mot, if you did that is what it should have been

TiTheRev

I cant understand, why when SO many people go and get ripped off at Nationwide/Kwik-fit/Halfrauds et al, that they keep going back and keep complaining about it??? Why, when you expected to be ripped off, did you take it there in the first place?

Was fairly sure they were going to come back with stuff that needed doing, but reckoned that their (probably) inflated parts & labour charges would be offset by not paying for the service and MOT.

Synthetic oils are the norm these days, and in fact only cars 15years old or more would actually be advised to not use a synthetic oil (unless performance engine etc). 'Cleaners' are probably engine flush and screen wash...but no way worth £20

chrisaw

My issue with the service and MOT costs is that nowhere on the NA site does it state that if you intend paying with Clubcard vouchers, then you should book the service and MOT as separate items and not as a combined item. If it had said that, then that is what I would have done, and then requested the correct amount of Clubcard vouchers. As it is they have imposed a condition to booking which is stated nowhere on their website (I've run a Google search of the NA website and in fact it doesn't mention Clubcard at all any more - a sign that they'll soon be pulling out of the scheme completely maybe?). It's for this sort of thing that we collect our vouchers. If it hadn't been for the claim on the Tesco website that you can pay the complete cost of a service/MOT with NA, then we would have gone elsewhere. Last year we paid £35 for our MOT with a small independent garage.

I knew they were going to come back to us with work to be done because items like the brakes had been mentioned as advisories on the past two MOT's. The first time I took advice from some people in the trade and was told that there was no cause for concern yet. Last year we were told they wouldn't get through the following year's MOT. So we knew we were in for some repair work, and decided to go for a free service/MOT to offset the costs.

On the plus side we have got a whole £8.78 cashback on it's way to us by going through TopCasBack.... woohoo :rolleyes:

TiTheRev

£8.78 off the bill I guess :rotfl:

hewhoisnotintheknow

TiTheRev wrote: »

I cant understand, why when SO many people go and get ripped off at Nationwide/Kwik-fit/Halfrauds et al, that they keep going back and keep complaining about it??? Why, when you expected to be ripped off, did you take it there in the first place?



Synthetic oils are the norm these days, and in fact only cars 15years old or more would actually be advised to not use a synthetic oil (unless performance engine etc). 'Cleaners' are probably engine flush and screen wash...but no way worth £20

exactly, small bloke in a garage would of done it cheaper etc

you are better off spending the vouchers on taking the kids to a theme park or something along those lines rather than spending it on rip off chains who just do things as quickly and cheaply as possible

terryya

I hate to be someone who sticks up for Nationwide but have to in this instance.

If you read the nationwide page of the clubcard website it has an additional information section which is easily seen at the bottom, that contains a link. If you follow it, it provides nice and clearly a list of 'things to remember' - one of which is -
Deals Token(s) can only be used against a MOT (VOSA Ministry Fee) or Full Service (fixed menu price). They cannot be used in conjunction with any other offer, scheme or promotion.

dekkard

Hello,

If you're paying for a full service at Nationwide Autocentres using Tesco Clubcard deals tokens, the Terms and Conditions say the tokens "...cannot be used in conjunction with any other offer, scheme or promotion."

Does this mean that I wouldn't be able to go through a cashback site (e.g. wepromiseto.co.uk) to make the booking at Nationwide?

Anyone done this before?

Thanks...

terryya

Yeah, you can still use cashback sites. To be honest though the couple of quid you get through them will be than offset by the hundred or more extra you pay to NW than you would at a proper garage.

Lum

TiTheRev wrote: »

Synthetic oils are the norm these days, and in fact only cars 15years old or more would actually be advised to not use a synthetic oil (unless performance engine etc). 'Cleaners' are probably engine flush and screen wash...but no way worth £20

That said, if you have an old car (OP doesn't state what car it was) then switching to synthetic can sometimes be a bad idea as it tends to be thinner than mineral oil and suddenly your engine starts leaking out of all the seals that were only being held together by thick oil and/or carbon deposits.

I won't be putting synthetic in my 18 year old Volvo (unknown mileage as the odometer stopped working at 123000 miles which was some time before computerised MOTs came in) for this reason, but my 16 year old Nissan (36,000 kilometers) loves it.

As for Nationwide, just remember, they're owned by Kwik Fit, so treat them accordingly.