The Great 'How much should you pay for common car repairs' Hunt

jase1

I found a good mechanic about ten years ago. He's inexpensive, honest, does a good job, looks after the cars and is friendly.

I see no reason to look elsewhere.

RosePearl

Firstly " tyres, servicing, oil changes" cannot be considered to be "repairs" these are running costs, almost all garages will have a menu price for servicing. It's more a case of ringing round and seeing who's going to offer you the best deal for your make and model of car, the main thing is to know what sort of service your car needs and again compare like for like. As for tyres, there a variables in terms of quality, again you have compare like for like. I always use a mid range tyre and that's what I ask about when I ring for quotes. True repairs, are as others have pointed out tricky to universally price as so much is dependent on make and model. If I need a repair on my car I will ring my local repairer (the one with the "that's helpful, that's..." motto) and I get a quote from them for the work. I know from talking to the manager, that they have to work to sort of price guide set by some outside body. But it doesn't stop me seeing if I can get a better price elsewhere. If I can they will nearly always match the price, they've let me down a couple of times but that was when I had a VW that started to misfire and they said I would be better taking to a VW specialist. The best thing I ever did was to go to a night school course to learn about the basics of how to maintain my car.

minicooper272

I agree this is a highly variable cost depending non the car, but agree, it is easy to be duped as a woman. If I'm trying a new place, I always call the old place and ask them how much they would charge for the same works, and this can help bring costs down.

I was ripped off recently - my car was a bit jittery, but I needed to get my brake pads done anyway, so I took it in, told them what the problem was and left them to diagnose. They called to say it was dirty brakes, and charged me £160 for 2 new pads and to clean the other 2 pads, and I had thought diagnostics too. Problem didn't go away, so I took the car back and took the mechanic out for a drive (could not believe he hadn't already done that!) And it turned out to be spark plugs. They tried to charge me £140 to change them (no discount for doing the wasted works) so I called my old garage, who quoted £90 :mad: it does them no favours - have met quite a few new people to the area, and when asked where I get my car fixed, I tell them these guys are cowboys.

Westmead_Fan

this cannot work for starters someone saying 'oh my garage done my service at £160 all in'

here is the questions that need answering
1) what service full service or small interim service & what did they do?
2) what parts did they use genuine from main dealers, OE equivalent like bosch or cheap aftermarkets or imported parts that you wouldn't trust?
3) what oils did they use some cars like Chrysler 300 use 5w-30 C3 low sap oil which is expensive another garage might just chuck some cheap 5w-30 semi synthetic which costs peanuts?
4) one customers car might be a 20/24 month service & no extra things are needed like cambelt but another vehicle on 100k/60 months might be time for a timing belt & water pump change, all vehicles differ.

if some places are cheap there might be a reason for it like cheap parts that will not last & you'll be back within a short period of time for more repairs

lkate

£25 - per tyre
£20 - brake discs

Strider590

minicooper272 wrote: »

And it turned out to be spark plugs. They tried to charge me £140 to change them (no discount for doing the wasted works) so I called my old garage, who quoted £90 :mad: it does them no favours - have met quite a few new people to the area, and when asked where I get my car fixed, I tell them these guys are cowboys.

:eek::eek::eek:

The first price is a complete joke, the second price is about £50 too much.

I did my own spark plugs for about £20 and they were some sort of fancy pants Bosch "Super 4" plugs.

OddballJamie

lkate wrote: »

£25 - per tyre
£20 - brake discs

Haha love it!

Limey

jase1 wrote: »

I found a good mechanic about ten years ago. He's inexpensive, honest, does a good job, looks after the cars and is friendly.

I see no reason to look elsewhere.

I did too. It's me.

Billy_Bonkers

If you supply your own parts the garage will often add something to the labour time because you are doing them out of the profit on the parts which is part and parcel of the business's legitimate income.

To the lady who runs a Silver Ghost: 3 years for £1500? You've been very lucky. Prepare for more. Are you adhering to the manufacturer's services schedules?

londonlydia

I usually always supply my own parts to my garage, and they dont mind at all...saves them trying to source the parts.

First thing I always do is RESEARCH my problem online. There is so much information online, specific to your car. It's not guaranteed that you've got the right fault, but will help identify common car model problems.

As a personal example, I have a Suzuki Swift that a couple of years ago had the ABS light flashing like crazy. My friend had a similar problem beforehand and the garage had charges to switch the whole axle (more than £500). I went online, other people had said the same. But also online a lot of people said all it is is the ABS rings split. So I purchased two, for the pricely sum of £3.50. As my car was due to have it's disks replaced anyway, I told the garage about it all and asked if they could put them on at the same time. They only charged me an extra £10 in labour to put them on! So all in £13.50, for a job my friend paid over £500 for!