Saving money on MOT failure

Pound

I just took my car in for an MOT and I got a call about faults. Two I knew about, headlight bracket broken, wiper broken. I didn't think these would cause MOT fail but apparently they would so I asked about fixes.

I was quoted £240 for a new headlight, plus £20-£30 labour. I was quite taken aback by this because I was planning to fix the headlight myself and I'd bought a second hand one for £25, even a brand new one is only £60! They did agree to fit the one I had though.

I had him quote a price for a wheel fault which was £12, which I agreed to as it seemed quite reasonable.

Coming to pay, I was charged:

£35 labour for replacing the headlight. More than quoted.
£11 x 2 for new wiper blades. Not sure where the x2 came from I was only told the O/S was faulty.
£13 for headlight alignment. Reasonable price but I wasn't quoted this.
£12 for inflating tyres. Reasonable price, I would have agreed to this but I wasn't asked.

Looking back I could have knocked the price down by doing some basic maintenance myself. Tesco charge 20p for air to inflate tyres. A wiper costs about £4. There's £30 of savings I could have made.

I also should have jotted down quotes and paid only that. It cost me £47 to replace the headlight when I was told £20-30, then there's the wiper blades I authorised but I didn't ask for a price.

On the plus side I was at least clued up about headlights. There's no reason the garage wouldn't have got the lights for £60, and that would be £180 of profit for nothing. This garage did at least charge me for actual faults when a different garage did make up faults that I pay them to fix them.

It seems like garages make a good profit out of inflating prices of parts, doing repairs that weren't agreed to or charging more than quoted.

s_b

as you admit if you did some work yourself you save pounds
garages have overheads apart from the roof
how do you know they could get the headlight cheaper? their trusted supplier might have mispriced this article to them because remember they cant go on ebay all day looking for lights that might end up as rubbish when delivered
my local factor (andrew pages) are never competitive with headlights

Joe_Horner

I'd be a little concerned that they charged £35 (presumably the nearest hour?) to fit a headlight but then charged alignment separately - alignment is an absolutely standard part of fitting a new lamp unit.

Wipers marked up to £11 each (including timeto fit) doesn't sound too bad, and it's generally accepted good practice to replace both together - they will have had much the same use so the other one's likely to be close to failing. Would have been professional to mention that when quoting though.

That said, allowing them to go ahead with a £12 "wheel fault" without checking that it involved 20 pence of air says it all really ;)

Lesson learnt hopefully?

captainawsome

I can't believe you payed someone £12 to inflate your tyres.

You probably paid more than quoted for fitting the light as he probably quoted £20-£30 plus VAT.

Pound

Joe_Horner wrote: »

That said, allowing them to go ahead with a £12 "wheel fault" without checking that it involved 20 pence of air says it all really ;)

The wheel fault was a nail embedded in the tyre.

Joe_Horner

Pound wrote: »

The wheel fault was a nail embedded in the tyre.

Ok, so was it £12 to repair the puncture (you didn't mention that in the costs list) and another £12 for the air, or was the £12 for puncture repair + the air?

If it was the repair + air then that's not too bad, although quite a few places do free puncture repairs (in the hope of selling you a new tyre once it's off the rim )

Pound

Looking again I don't see any charge for the nail in the tyre so this was probably went under inflating tyre. Also, the price for this was quoted as £12 and this did include VAT.

Joe_Horner

So looks like most of it was more-or-less fair charging for a garage (as sb says, with overheads) but a good lesson in what can be saved by a little planning - new wipers each year isn't a bad idea anyway so make them an automatic replace before you book the test! - and a little DIY (maybe have a go at fitting the light yourself next time and just pay for the alignment?)

Good saving by sourcing the headlight yourself, though!

Road_Hog

The question that no one has asked, is, why didn't you sort out the known problems before the MOT?

Pound

Road_Hog wrote: »

The question that no one has asked, is, why didn't you sort out the known problems before the MOT?

Because I didn't think they would cause MOT fail and because I didn't consider them serious faults.

The broken bracket didn't cause the beam to be out of alignment or unsecure so wasn't dazzling other motorists. The wiper only missed a small patch at the top of the windscreen, I could still see the road.

s_b

Pound wrote: »

Because I didn't think they would cause MOT fail and because I didn't consider them serious faults.

The broken bracket didn't cause the beam to be out of alignment or unsecure so wasn't dazzling other motorists. The wiper only missed a small patch at the top of the windscreen, I could still see the road.

so its superfluous to the headlight then and wasnt needed at manufacture

i dont think so really do you:)