My consumer rights in a motor garage??

samantha.b.mcgregor

This is my first time posting and I'm not entirely sure it's the right place, but thought it's as good a place as any to start!

Basically I needed the locking wheel nuts taken off my car (a VW) so I phoned around and found that the VW garage near me would be the cheapest place to have them removed. They told me it would cost £21.60. The next cheapest quote I had was £30.00. I took my car in and after about 30 mins a guy came out and told me that it was taking much longer than they had expected to remove the locking wheel nuts, so the charge would be £84 and not the £21.60 I was originally quoted. I asked him to tell the men working on my car to stop because I could get the work done cheaper elsewhere. He went off to tell them and came back 10 minutes later telling me that miraculously they had managed to take three off and were working on the last one, and if I hung on for another 10 minutes they'd be done. I resumed my seat and proceeded to wait for a further half an hour for the man to come back out and tell me that the last one had been tricky to remove. Then came the price... £54.00. He actually said the words "I'm willing to meet you half way" - I thought to myself "Do you think you're doing me some sort of favour?!" Anyway, I told him I thought that was unreasonable, since I had asked him to tell them to stop working on it as soon as he told me the price was going to change, but he told me that the work had been done so there was nothing he could do. SO I paid the £54.00 and had a little cry as I drove home!!

I don't know what my rights are as a consumer in this situation... I feel the need to write a strongly worded letter to the manager of the branch, but I don't know what good (if any) that would do, or if there's a more official complaints procedure I could follow... If I'm entitled to complain at all?!?!

Any advice greatly appreciated!!

Thanks

A confused and mildly enraged Sam

TUS

You would have been better sticking to your guns and disputing it there and then before making payment.

I know it's not help now ... but I personally would have refused to pay that in the circumstances.

TiTheRev

Samantha, I work at a VW Dealership, and it sounds like you've stumbled across an unhelpful service advisor. A quote is a quote, regardless of actual time taken. In this instance the only 'complication' would have been if they no longer had the master set with your bolt in it, but realistically this is not your problem.

Write to or go see the site MD and/or Service manager and im sure they will be more helpful. You should get a refund for the difference too. Customer service is a big thing with VW this year, so any issue like this will be more than dealt with by management. As posted previously, next time take it up there and then with who ever is most senior. It shouldn't have to be that way, but sometimes someone has a bad day and the customer suffers.