is it too expensive?

WLMJ

Hi guys,

I really appreciate some advice here.

We sent the car in this morning for MOT. The guy worked for the garage said our car has below problems: Roll cage link snapped, Corroded break fluid pipe, a stirring spring snapped.

He charged £350 to fix the problems so our car can pass MOT.

It is a 1998 Ford Mondeo.

Is this price reasonable?

many thanks

hewhoisnotintheknow

doesnt sound outrageous, depends how much is labour and how much is parts

bit late asking now anyway as its been done

Heliflyguy

I think you mean roll bar link not cage and a quick search finds them at £14.00 inc p&p on e-bay.
Bit of brake pipe shouldnt cost very much.
I have no idea what a stirring spring is, you need to confirm this part, or maybe hewho etc etc can advise as they seem to know???? and to me its already sounding a bit steep.
Can you say how much was charged for parts and again for labour you need to break it down.

hewhoisnotintheknow

i took stirring spring as either a suspension spring or part of the steering rack

a ARB might be £14 on ebay, but a garage will charge you a lot more than that, they put a big mark up on parts

blued

You really need a break down of the bill for us to be able to tell you if it is expensive. Can you post this up?

hewhoisnotintheknow

blued wrote: »

You really need a break down of the bill for us to be able to tell you if it is expensive. Can you post this up?

it would be good to see, but i guess this exercise should of been done before paying

lisyloo

quick search finds them at £14.00 inc p&p on e-bay.

A garage aren't going to get parts off ebay.

As others say, you need a breakdown.
I would guess labour is in the region of £40 per hour.
You need to include VAT as well.
Normally you get a receipt that breaks down parts, labour and VAT.

There might be ways of getting things done chepaer than just putting it into a garage e.g. sourcing parts yourself from ebay.
However this will take time and your car might be off the road, so you have to decide if it's worth it.

atrixblue.-MFR-.

mondeo stabalizer link bars are cheap parts and 10 mins to replace on a ramp.
also theyre common to wear quickly. break hose is copper pipeing sold in x amount meter lenghs depending on lengh is relativly cheap and about 30 mins -45 mins to do, or the break caliper pipe short piece of rubber pipe attaching to the copper ones and calliper easy to do and about 20 mins.calliper break hose relativly cheap part also, bleading the breaks easy done in 10 mins on ramp replaceing break fluid 1 litr about 8 quid inc vat, spirring spring? aint gotta clue what that is do you mean suspension/coil spring? front or rear?

sounds steap to me too.

a garage once told my aunt that her suspension on her pug was gone on the drivers side as it was leaking the went on to tell her that they couldnt repace one suspension arm that it would inbalance the whole car and the whole cars suspension and springs needed to be done in order to pass MOT costing £589.00 in a tizz she called me to have a look at car and chat with garage, he tried to say the same to me till i told him he was talkin rubbish as ive never heared of one suspension arm leaking causes the whole car to be un balanced if replaced and i useto work in a motor factors and repair cars myself then it changed to oh sorry miss i miss i was informed myself on what work needed doing i then shook the advisory note at him saying it was the driver side only not the whole car! then he changed again to sorry times are hard at the moment, the garage was swiftly reported to trading standerds who werent surprised as theyve been reported numorouse times for the same similar situations. in the end only cost my aunt £95.00 includeing mot. and garage has different owners now!

WLMJ

thanks guys. I will share the breakdown when get the car this afternoon. The car was sent off already : -(

Can I claim some money back even if job is done on the basis that they overcharge us?

tks

Heliflyguy

lisyloo wrote: »

A garage aren't going to get parts off ebay.

This I know as I said a quick search and even if they were twice as much from an auto factor the total bill still seems high however if the op is refering to suspension springs/coils then that would be 2 off and puts the price possibly closer to the mark.

da1seggy

I'd advise taking your car to council/local government run MOT test centres.

So many times you hear stories of garages adding on "faults" knowing most drivers will give them the repair job for sheer convenience.

The council run centres don't do repairs, so there's no point in them making up faults, as they're not going to be the ones who'll get paid to fix it.