MOT Con at Nationwide Autos

Philip_honest_Mot_tester

Nish wrote: »

Dear People
Please be aware Nationwide Autos are offering £27 (half price) MOTs currently.

I took my car there(Coventry) on the 12 of December and the MOT failed due to exessively pitted rear brake discs. I was offered repairs totalling over £200 to rectify plus another £27 for the retest.

Unknown to them I had, had my car fully(major) serviced 14 days prior with Kwick Fit to highlight any issues with brakes, tyres etc and and the brakes were confirmed to be in excellent order on a car less than 4 years old with less than 24,000 miles on the clock. Again after the failed MOT I took the car back to Kwick Fit who again confirmed the brakes were fine.

Nevertheless I purchased some rear brake pads and discs and took them to an idependent garage to have them fitted. The garage could not believe that the car had failed to pass the MOT due to pitted rear brakes as they were in perfect condition with next to no pitting! They refused to change the brakes in question as they were in perfect condition. They carried out an MOT and the car passed.

I complained to Nationwide but they maintain that both Kwick Fit and the independent garage are both wrong.
So please be carefully taking your motors to Nationwide auto as you may well get ripped off.

Regards
Nish.

hi there :eek:
im an mot tester with 15 yrs testing behind me, .im also the quality control
i would have strongly suggested that you have asked the garage for a VT17 form once the mot had been comlpeted, then you would have had a very different result , no tester likes to hear any body to ask for that form, what it means is that you object to the test result be it a pass or a fail,oh yes and the garage has to assist you to fill it in as well, the next that would is that vosa then retests the car again for full fee but if they over turn the decision of the tester you get a refund and the tester has a serious problem, vosa take a dim view of testers failing or passing car for the wrong reasons, and i also cant stand it as it gives the majority of us testers a bad name.
i some time make the wrong decision dont get me wrong we are not all perfect, but i will not rip off a customer to make money for the garage or my self. while the tester is testing your car he or she is not working for the garage they are in fact are working on behalf of vosa to make our roads safe...
Phil

fimms

fimms wrote: »

Just as an addition, I took my car to Nationwide Autos for its halfprice MOT and it also failed.... people at my wife's work have had similar results and have taken their cars elsewhere for a second opinion and second MOT only for it to pass. I've booked mine in at a local garage to see what happens, and have cancelled my wife's MOT which was booked at National Autos for next week.

As an update, my car passed the MOT at the local garage. I asked if there was anything that was close to failing and was told that maybe the suspension will need looking at but not until the next MOT's due....

Saved £300 then...

rev_henry

fimms wrote: »

As an update, my car passed the MOT at the local garage. I asked if there was anything that was close to failing and was told that maybe the suspension will need looking at but not until the next MOT's due....

Saved £300 then...

Now you've done that, I'd write to Nationwide demanding a refund of your fee due to Non Compliance with the Road Traffic Act. Copy head office in as well. Glad your car passed ok.

joeyspecial

Kwik fit tried to screw me over. MOT failed, not disputing that, but the work they needed to do costed a bomb, and part of it they said would have to be done by a local garage and they couldn't tell me how much or when it would be done! I took my car along to this so-called garage and he was going to do some minor welding on the front panel for over 200 quid. I found another garage who said they could replace the panel with a new one for 170! In my opinion Kwik fit on Edge lane Liverpool are not helpful at all and were happy to rip me off and let someone else rip me off too

seafireroad

hi all,
we are kicking ourselves today. we have a 2 year old corsa, due for its second service. usual vauxhall dealer wanted £230.00 and as we are retired, we looked for a better deal. just re,newed the A A and they said would get discount at n auto. contacted them, said it was 2nd service, told them what v.hall quoted, and they said they would do it for £91.00
i double checked with them, then booked it. dropped it in this morning, was told 3/4 hours which seemed extreme. half an hour later, they phoned, telling us of all the requirements from vauxhall and said bill would be £333.00
we went back, told them what we thought, and just had basic service. we know now we were naive, but surely they should have said ( when they quoted on the phone ) that £91.00 was basic service BUT there would be v.hall requirements making the final bill 3 times that price.
so now we have not got full service history as they stamped NEXT years page in service book, and if we go back to vauxhall it will be another £ 230.00
their excuse was they did not know our car prior to us taking it in, BUT they would have known that the second service required work to be done on it.
we feel cheated

rev_henry

seafireroad wrote: »

hi all,
we are kicking ourselves today. we have a 2 year old corsa, due for its second service. usual vauxhall dealer wanted £230.00 and as we are retired, we looked for a better deal. just re,newed the A A and they said would get discount at n auto. contacted them, said it was 2nd service, told them what v.hall quoted, and they said they would do it for £91.00
i double checked with them, then booked it. dropped it in this morning, was told 3/4 hours which seemed extreme. half an hour later, they phoned, telling us of all the requirements from vauxhall and said bill would be £333.00
we went back, told them what we thought, and just had basic service. we know now we were naive, but surely they should have said ( when they quoted on the phone ) that £91.00 was basic service BUT there would be v.hall requirements making the final bill 3 times that price.
so now we have not got full service history as they stamped NEXT years page in service book, and if we go back to vauxhall it will be another £ 230.00
their excuse was they did not know our car prior to us taking it in, BUT they would have known that the second service required work to be done on it.
we feel cheated

When you originally booked in at Nat Autocentre, did they say the £91 was for 'the 2nd vx service' or 'a basic service'? If the former then they've mislead you, especially considering you told them what vx quoted you.

seafireroad

hi
when i phoned them, i originally said interim service, then i asked them if that was correct, telling them that it was the 2nd service, and telling them the quote from v.hall.after they phoned us yesterday (while they were working on the car ) , they just kept saying that the basic service was £91.00 but that they were merely telling us of the v. h recommendations as reported to them by the technician servicing the car.
i said that i had told them how much v, h. wanted, and they had told me their prices were much cheaper than the main dealer.
they then tried to insist that v.h would have charged for the rec: on top of the £230.00, which i know would not have happened.
also, the fact they told us 3/4 hours for the work to be done, they were obviously expecting to do the "extras".

as we booked it in we reminded them how much we had been quoted, but they were still saying 3/4 hours.obviously they expected to do more work than the £91.00. having not used them before, we just thought we had to wait our turn in the queue.

i still strongly feel that they knew we had mis-understood, but did not attempt to put us right BEFORE they started working on the car. had they done so, we would have taken it, and gone to v.h. as it stands, they wanted about £100.00 more than v.h.

rev_henry

seafireroad wrote: »

hi
when i phoned them, i originally said interim service, then i asked them if that was correct, telling them that it was the 2nd service, and telling them the quote from v.hall.after they phoned us yesterday (while they were working on the car ) , they just kept saying that the basic service was £91.00 but that they were merely telling us of the v. h recommendations as reported to them by the technician servicing the car.
i said that i had told them how much v, h. wanted, and they had told me their prices were much cheaper than the main dealer.
they then tried to insist that v.h would have charged for the rec: on top of the £230.00, which i know would not have happened.
also, the fact they told us 3/4 hours for the work to be done, they were obviously expecting to do the "extras".

as we booked it in we reminded them how much we had been quoted, but they were still saying 3/4 hours.obviously they expected to do more work than the £91.00. having not used them before, we just thought we had to wait our turn in the queue.

i still strongly feel that they knew we had mis-understood, but did not attempt to put us right BEFORE they started working on the car. had they done so, we would have taken it, and gone to v.h. as it stands, they wanted about £100.00 more than v.h.

Yeah sounds like they could have been a bit more helpful really. I'd suggest sending a letter to head office might get you somewhere. Maybe some vouchers towards the proper service next time (not that you'll want to go back!).

rara879

Have seen a lot of negative reviews about MOTs done at Nationwide Auto Centres so just wanted to share my experience today -

Last year had MOT done with Kwik Fit who I am positive found as many faults as they could that a normal garage would have passed and they also issued an advisory.

I misplaced the advisory and so didnt have any of these things done before I took it to Nationwide Autocentre in Beckenham this morning.

I booked online on Friday which only cost £27.42. Took my car there at 8:45 this morning and they were done by 9:25. The mechanics were all very friendly and best of all my car passed straight away and with NO ADVISORY!

I mentioned to the mechanic that I was a bit wary of taking it there after I had been advised that big chains are more likely to fail cars and he said he knows a lot of people think that but they have a very strict policy there not to do that as the regulators come down twice as hard on them as they are a big chain.

Will definately be taking my car there again in the future!