Car mechanics-should we make a stand

ArsenalFC

Spiritus the garage did not inform you that a fee would be charge regardless whether the fault is found so you have a good case to make a complain to consumer direct. You could perhaps make a complain to the manager/owner of the garage first, but i very doubt they will hand back your cash. Tell that you will be making a complain to trading standard.

To all the people who says that time spent = fees, you are wrong as this was not outlined to OP. You can say what scenarios you like, its only fine if you were inform of the fee beforehand.

spiritus

Blue Haddock,

You clearly haven't read this thread in it's entirety.

My car was suffering from sluggish acceleration on the motorway ACCOMPANIED by a burning "rubber smell" coming from the exhaust area. I communicated both of these symptoms to the garage although the person I spoke to on the phone only communicated ONE of the symptoms to the mechanic working on my car.

When you take a car to a mechanic you assume you are taking it to a specialist. If he's got any level of experience then he should be able to draw up a mental shortlist of possible causes arising from the symptoms described.

If you don't think I was specific enough then I'm sorry but sometimes car problems are not specific. I described exactly what was wrong with my car and hoped a "specialist" could then help diagnose it.

Solicitors would inform the client of their charges beforehand. Most garages do not do this. They may tell you how much any replacement parts may cost but conveniently do not tell the client what their labour charges are. For all I know there's nothing to stop a garage from charging a Jaguar owner £ 75 per hour labour charges and a Ford owner only £ 30 per hour.

Out of interest, do you inform each client of your labour charges before commencing on any work ?

blue_haddock

The problem with telling a customer how much a job will take is you never know what else you may encounter so even a straight forward job like changing part of an exhaust can take a lot longer than anticipated. Often parts are siezed and do not come off easily so extra time is required to complete the job.

Yes garages are free to change their rate depending on job/vehicle - a 10 year old fiesta is a basic and easy car to work on but a 2 year old Jaguar is a lot more complex and will often need specialist equipment to work on it. Why should the fiesta owner subsidize the rate of the jag owner?

ArsenalFC - so you do not think that the garage should charge for diagnosis work? Do you think that if you go to a GP with a complaint and he has to refer you to a specialist to diagnose the problem that he should not get paid for the initial consultation? Or if a criminal lawyer fails to get you off the charge and you are sent to prison seeing as he has not won the case he should not get paid?

ArsenalFC

Blue haddock you are wrong again simply because you are inform of the charge beforehand when going to a medical specialist or a lawyer or whatever and you've agreed to go ahead.

Garage should charge for their diagnose time, however they must inform the client of this charge and for the client to agreed to undertake the work whether faults are found or not.