Extortionate car service/repair bill

Hoof_Hearted

I always separate the MoT and service so I don't feel over a barrel with the dealer.

bobthedambuilder

mgdavid wrote: »

so did the OP - I fail to see how your post is helping her.

You may have noticed from my quotes that I wasn't referring directly to the OP, but to others' comments on the OP's situation.

One thing for sure. Your post is definitely not relevant.

marksandsparx

Strider590 wrote: »

Well it's still a bit of a p!ss take, because as long as the brakes function correctly, the level of wear to the pads/discs is not a pass/fail item.

g. a brake lining or pad insecure or less than 1.5 mm thick at any point


Pad wear is an rfr

Weird_Nev

You have 2 types of 'good' garage, IMO.

You get good garages where when you put your car in for a service, it comes back with all items, potentially problematic and actually problematic are addressed. The hinges and catches come back greased, the cambelt gets done with tensioners too if it needs it, they flush your coolant in an annual service, perhaps change your gearbox oil if it's a "major" service. All bulbs are checked, and all wipers replaced along with marginal brake discs and pads... And you get handed a bill for £550.

Then, there are good garages where you say "can you change the rear trailing arm bushes for me, they're knocking" and they do that. And they get your car through an MOT with a quality street wrapper over the broken tail light bulb and a knowing nod to the bloke with the probe on the emissions test.

I know and trust one garage of each of these types. The first type is a guy who would keep any car immaculate from new if you spent a few hundred quid with him a year. The second garage, they can keep any shed on the road for as long as you like for a couple of hundred quid a year. They fit their work to the budget.

It sounds like the OP took the car to the first type of garage and isn't happy with the cost of work there... well, it comes down to communication and planning. Had you got a Quote for the Locks (urgent) and MOT (Legally required) and then perhaps put off the service for a couple of months until it's not such a shock.

I remember a £500 service for my Nissan 200sx at a local independant... but then it had had discs and pads at the back, gearbox and diff oil, major service and it came back feeling fresh and bright, and like I say with every potential rust point addressed, throttle cable/bonnet release all nicely greased up, spanking clean and looking lovely. The mechanic gave me a full run down, said they'd checked the Limited Slip Diff and it was still performing well, Told me the car would be sweet for another 12 months and said they'd used Correct spec Oil in the diff which was hard to get outside of trade. Just made me feel good about the whole thing. Communication is key.

waynedance

Ok it has took two pages of posts to say one simple thing.

You took your car to a dealer instead of a local garage and your moaning about the bill, why? you let them do the work after they told you the price, ha.

Road_Hog

patman99 wrote: »

Whats the worst that can happen if you don't change the pollen filters?.[/QUOTE

You just remove the pollen filter. We managed a hundred years of motoring without them, I guess that 6 months without one isn't going to be the end of the world.

Road_Hog

Weird_Nev wrote: »

You have 2 types of 'good' garage, IMO.

You get good garages where when you put your car in for a service, it comes back with all items, potentially problematic and actually problematic are addressed. The hinges and catches come back greased, the cambelt gets done with tensioners too if it needs it, they flush your coolant in an annual service, perhaps change your gearbox oil if it's a "major" service. All bulbs are checked, and all wipers replaced along with marginal brake discs and pads... And you get handed a bill for £550.

The trouble is, that they are few and far between.

I've just started to do a service on the wife's car, prior to its MOT. It's a 4 year old C3, that she's had for a year (since it was 3 years old). It belonged to her parents (in their 70s) who bought it from new and had it serviced by the Citroen main dealer.

Having watched the rugby in the afternoon, I only got around to replacing the air filter (which should have been a 2 minute job, but actually took almost half an hour, due to the usual PSA way of making life difficult and much knuckle skin lost).

I was somewhat dismayed to see, that the filter was almost black and obviously the original filter from new. Why pay garages premium money to service cars when they won't even change the basics?

I had a look through the service schedule. It is all, check, check, check, or top up, not replace anything. I want my oil changed, my oil filter changed, my plugs changed, as an absolute minimum, before other things are checked, such as brake fluid, pads, etc.

Really, garages are !!!!! and over priced.