Outrageous mechanic bill!

marcouk76

I just really need to vent! I brought my 1 year old scooter in for servicing yesterday and also asked them to fit a new wind screen.

I told them I did not want to standard screen as that was really small and wouldn't cover me from the rain, so if they could find a taller one that fitted. Also I left all the fittings and screws there so it was just a matter of screwing what is essentially a piece of plastic to the existing fittings and go ahead with the regular service (oil, filter, spark plug, etc).

I get the call today that the scooter it's ready and she casually mentions the bill is £313 :eek:

I asked why she did not see it fit to give me a call before going ahead with the job and her reply was that I never asked and that they cannot do the "impossible"!

I told her they just lost a customer, but obviously she doesn't care! I am so mad right now I could punch someone!

lesalanos

have you got a break down of all of the costs? what was the cost of the screen?

newbie007_2

Get a breakdown of the bill, you shouldnt pay for the things you didnt get told or given permission to have other work carry out.
If they deliberately added other items without your permission then they are just another bad garage.

marcouk76

For now I just spoke to this lady over the phone and she mentioned that the screen alone was £100 (they even gave me a 10% discount, apparently... how generous!), plus 1 hour labour to fit it (!) at £60/hour + VAT and the rest was for the servicing (I brought them my own oil, so it's only for the filter, spark plug and labour -I think she mentioned another 1.5 hours).

So:

• New screen £100
• Labour for Screen: £70.50
• Labour for servicing: £106.00
• Parts for servicing: £36.50

That's just according to my calculations as I don't have the bill yet.

marcouk76

newbie007 wrote: »

Get a breakdown of the bill, you shouldnt pay for the things you didnt get told or given permission to have other work carry out.

Well, her position is that I did tell them to fit a "non-standard" screen and never mentioned anything about price or about giving me a call before going ahead with the work.

My complaint is that I don't believe it would take them 1 hour to fit a screen (10 minutes at most since the fittings were all there already!), and 1.5 hours labour to change the oil, filter and spark plug also seems very steep!

newbie007_2

Well you can argue with them about time spent on fixing screen is very unreasonable and the oil, filter and sparks shouldn't take longer than an hour to do.
Attempt to ask them to reduce the labour time by an hour, well you need to insist really otherwise they probably wont back down.

£36.50 for spark plugs and oil filter, which cost them about £10; however they are a garage and needs to make money.
You could of done most of these things yourself and save a lot money. DIY next time, get a rapid place to change oil and filter only.

lesalanos

how long does it take you to change the filter, oil etc? How long does it take you to change a screen? Presumably they also had to spend some time sourcing a screen as well.

Hammyman

marcouk76 wrote: »

Well, her position is that I did tell them to fit a "non-standard" screen and never mentioned anything about price or about giving me a call before going ahead with the work.

My complaint is that I don't believe it would take them 1 hour to fit a screen (10 minutes at most since the fittings were all there already!), and 1.5 hours labour to change the oil, filter and spark plug also seems very steep!

Firstly, you already said you wanted one fitting so there was no need to ask for permission.

Secondly, jobs are billed by the hour or half hour, not the minute. Its not simply a case of "just bolting it in the place of the original" with non-standard parts. It'll have needed some fettling to fit. You've been billed correctly for the labour.

You got exactly what you asked for. I fail to see the issue other than you not bothering to check the price first. If it was so easy to change the screen and "should only take a few minutes", perhaps you should have done it yourself?

marcouk76

I did change the oil once and it took me about 20 minutes, but it was my first time and I wasn't too sure on how to proceed. I guess that a mechanic could do that with his eyes closed in half of that time, but I have no idea how long it'd take to change the filter and spark plug.

I understand I asked for it, and never told them to check the price, but I still think that if the final bill goes over a reasonable limit (and to me £313 for a 1 year old scooter is definitely over that limit), they should give the customer a call.

I did not do it myself as the scooter was due for servicing and I did not have a spare screen, so since I had to buy a screen from them anyway, and I had to leave my scooter there to have the servicing done, I thought I'd ask them to fit the screen as well. I never thought it could take them an hour to do it as it is really a very simple procedure and as I said all the fittings were already mounted so it was really just a matter of fitting the plastic and screwing it tight! They said they only had one other screen, so it's not like they had to try and fit 10 different ones! They took the only other one they had, luckily it was a good fit and they screwed it on!

Keith

marcouk76 wrote: »

Well, her position is that I did tell them to fit a "non-standard" screen and never mentioned anything about price or about giving me a call before going ahead with the work.

My complaint is that I don't believe it would take them 1 hour to fit a screen (10 minutes at most since the fittings were all there already!), and 1.5 hours labour to change the oil, filter and spark plug also seems very steep!

Where is the spark plug on your bike?

Keith

Lets remember here that we're moaning about a £142 for the service, which as it includes parts isn't much. Although they change the oil/filters they also check/lube the bike and spend time doing that.

You changing the oil would be simply that.