car repair nightmare

hothothot_3

Im 26 and delayed the luxury of having a car until last summer I bought a 10 year old ford fiesta outright I dont like to bother about finance payments, and got a good low cost deal on insurance (trying to get my no claims going). As I have very little mechanical knowledge at all my local garage said theyd look through the car and give me estimates if any work needed done. The list came with about 10 things but it could aswell be in a foreign language 'struts', 'gaskets', 'sumps' I dont like picking brains of mechanics I know their job is to just do the work......now I dont really care too much what these things are, aslong as they do whatever job there designed to do. So my repair bill came as a shocking 400 quid. I trust my garage in that they have a very good reputation but id be really interested to know if the following seems reasonable or if it would be worth shopping elsewhere in future?

1 oil sump gasket £12
2 top strutt mount £20
1 oil seal £2
3 brake pipe £60
2 exhaust clamps £4
6 hours of labour £260.

vat £53
total £411

I must say when I drove the car afterwards it feels much better, nice and tight, so I know something has been improved lol.

what do you all think?

harveybobbles

I must say when I drove the car afterwards it feels much better, nice and tight, so I know something has been improved lol.

they probably pumped the tyres up to the correct pressure lol

McKneff

Is it just me who thinks £43 an hour is a bit steep for labour costs. (plus VAT)
I think i would be looking at some of the smaller independent garages in the future. and ask for quotes for any repairs.

davetrousers

£40 an hour labour is pretty fair imho. The whole bill doesn't look too bad.

Volcano

Seem fair enough price to me, assuming the work was necessary of course.

A cheap way of having a car 'looked over' is also to put it through its MOT, do it at a council run centre where there's no chance of having 'extras' added.

Buy a Haynes manual and practise your own maintenance, it'll save you a fortune over the years, and the knowledge you'll gain will help prevent having the wool pulled over your eyes when you take the car in for any repairs.

hothothot_3

thanks alot for the helpful comments. I guess it was nightmare as im not used to paying repair bills - its worth it though, the buses have stopped where I live and they resembled more like mobile mental hospitals at some hours (especially school finish time).

I think i might try somewhere cheaper next time for the labour costs, and the Haynes manual is great idea.

cheers all

Pssst

The prices seem very fair and the hourly rate is about average for garages.

I'm guessing you bought the car from a friend or whatever and that it wasnt from a dealer?
It is ten years old so hopefully now it will give you good service for a few years.

If all that work was done then i believe you got a fair deal.

Despite what our biased media would have us believe,there ARE honest competent garages and tradesmen out there.

anewman

harveybobbles wrote: »

they probably pumped the tyres up to the correct pressure lol

Yeah it's funny how people complain of manual steering being heavy when the cause is probably just as simple as that!

hothothot wrote: »

the buses have stopped where I live and they resembled more like mobile mental hospitals at some hours (especially school finish time).

Lol, love the description. Sad fact is it would probably be a nicer experience staying 30 minutes in a mental hospital than 5 minutes on those types of buses