Garage charged 3-10x parts markup - advice?

goldspanners

psdie wrote: »

Hi Goldspanners - the idea isn't to hold garages to fixed price fees, but to give customers a clearer idea of the rough cost of common maintenance. This works both ways: it highlights if a garage is taking the Michael .. but equally would reassure customers that apparently pricey work (like the Micra's wheel bearings) is actually reasonable value!



What I'm proposing is akin to making public the rough "book times" for common jobs (bracketed by broad car groups if it makes a big difference), along with guidelines to typical reasonable price ranges for commodity parts.



Again, in practice the garage usually *doesn't know* what work is going to be required until they've carried out at least some strip down examination work, which presumably needs to be paid for regardless of whether we decide to proceed. I've never had a garage give "worst case" pricing up-front - it's always (across various garages) gone up as new issues are "discovered".

RE getting a quote before authorising: of course, I always do, and most garages will volunteer this. The problem is that you get the garage rep on the phone saying you need X, Y and Z and they'll cost £XX. Most people, myself included, have little idea whether £XX is reasonable for the work. The quote is almost inevitably accompanied by "your car is dangerous until that's fixed!", so it makes little difference whether we can actually afford the price being quoted - it just apparently has to be done.

I'd feel so much more confident in this situation if I could ask for a breakdown of the quote, then query if there are any items that are clearly well over the going rate (as those "in the know" can do off the top of their heads!). If this is due to complications, the garage can explain these. If there's no explanation and the garage isn't prepared to improve the quote, we have the option to go elsewhere.

This just isn't possible in practice for the average person at the moment - the garage quotes a high number, tells you it's essential work and you agree through gritted teeth and knotted stomach. And if you're my partner, you then burst into tears because it was supposed to be the holiday money.

you could ask them to rebuild the car as it is as you are going to get some more quotes to carry out the work (this will cost you more money as you will need to have it stripped down again).

to find prices of parts and see if they are fair or not you could always ring a local factor or use thier website, to find out labour times call the main dealer and ask what the book toime to do a certain job on a certain model would be, or again ask on owners forums. this all takes time i know but there isn't much of a choice other than you getting your hands dirty and learning a bit about cars. i would still advise you joining a forum specific to your cars, read through some of the threads you will find common faults and things likely to go wrong and how much to repair.

red_eye

Strider590 wrote: »

The Micra exhaust back box was at least 2 or 3 times the actuall value. Need I say more?

Consider contacting trading standards too.

You get what you pay for.
Is there a slight possiblity that the price you found was for a cheap badly made pattern and your garage probably supplied and fit a quality part. Problem is that you dont know how much of a hassle it is to fit a cheepo and that it is not worth the garage taking on the job in the first place.

grizzly1911

It is not always possible to just add a mark up as other factors will come into play.

1.) Premises costs and location.

2,) Labour costs

Both of the above will depend where you live too.

Complexity - sometimes come apart as you expect and go back together easily sometimes they don't.

The garage will have had to spend time sourcing, acquiring the parts.

Using the internet to evaluate part costs when you don't know what you want and how quickly you need it doesn't work in my experience.

The garage isn't going to hunt down the cheapest part possible as a.) you wouldn't want them to charge you for that bit of the service b.) they pass the cost on to you.

You presumably wanted the work done quickly so wouldn't want to wait around for postage or to pay the £10/20 next day premium.

Learn how to check for simple things your self bulb and windscreen wipers aren't difficult.

Prepare for the MOT, do it early as a PP has said and get quotes before they start the work. from what others have said the prices aren't a million miles off, overall, anyway.

Finally don't give them your repeat business.

red_eye

forgot about overheads.

I would not even bother with the cheapest part they just badly made patterns that need an extra 30mins to beat up with a hammer to get it to fit

Biketrials08

Kwil Fit and the like do charge more as they get away with it because thay are oftern the first port of call for those who don't know about cars but the same could be said about main agents. If you want to save money and beat the system when comes to routine jobs is go the DIY route and use motor factors for parts (can usually haggle a discount of parts too). Many are too scared to give DIY a go so resort to the aforementioned garages. Now there is a median to be achieved in supplying your own parts and getting them fitted but note this can throw up difficulties if the part fails, as it won't be the fault of the fitting garage unless the manner in which the part was fitted caused it to fail.

King_Nothing

I think it's a non issue personally, if they've said; this all needs doing and this is how much it will cost you, then you say ok go ahead, where is the problem? They've gave you a list of work, and you've agreed a price. Doesn't matter if a part they've used cost X but charge you Y. A music CD costs next to nothing to make, does that mean you can go in to HMV and say that didn't cost £15 to make so I want it cheaper? It's a service not a charity.

forgotmyname

OP was last year........ Bit late now... lol

muckybutt

Why oh why dig up threads from a year ago ?????

ROY47

It's all very well saying the parts are cheaper on line or via e bay etc.
yes we all know things are cheaper online , BUT could the original poster fit the parts concerned ??

Never mind the fact you can't get worse than a kw.. fit con man
IF the parts fitted were needed for an mot I reckon price paid was quite reasonable

Everyone slags off a mechanic for overcharging ,yes I know some do and watchdog have proved it etc.

BUT if your washing machine breaks down and you know nothing about it ,many people are happy to call out Mr dai washing machine man to look at it and give a rough idea for repair

or your electrics blow a fuse etc.

Mr dai wasing machine man charges around £50 for the first 10 minutes and £10 every 10 minutes after so that's £100 an hour :eek: :eek: :eek:

But your happy to pay that because you can wash the clothes again or turn your lights/tv on without blowing a fuse
But pay £90 an hour to have a road legal ,road worthy car (on the day of the mot before someone has a go at me ) No it's a rip off !!

p.s. I'm not a mechanic

atrixblue.-MFR-.

Hammyman wrote: »

Err, no. By the time you hear a knocking noise, its at the point of catastrophic failure. Firstly its picked up by testing for play. As it gets worse, you get a drone when turning the wheel in one direction. Next stage is a constant drone and finally the one you mentioned just before it falls to bits and the wheel parts company with the car.

last time i seen that happen was on a R reg VW polo as it collapsed it took the rack ends, suspension arm with it.