Changing the rear brakes on a VW Tiguan

fred246

I bought a one year old car with two year manufacturers warranty. Got it home and front parking sensor was not working. I phoned the dealer and they said I could bring it in but if they couldn't find a faulty part to return to the manufacturer they would charge me a £70 'diagnostic fee'. I said I wasn't interested in their squabbles with the manufacturer and I wanted it fixing. They renewed the sensor and broke the bonnet lock which I ended up sorting out myself. I have since replaced parking sensors easily with my £17 vag-com system. The point I am making though is that there is a complex relationship between manufacturer and dealer. The dealer is a separate business that has to make money somehow. They charge extra because they have the manufacturer's badge on their garage. If I opened 'Fred's Hamburger Shop' nobody would come but if I opened a McDonalds it would be full of customers.

Fella

AdrianC wrote: »

Quite the opposite. It has been explicitly illegal for over a decade for a manufacturer to void the warranty because you've had the car serviced outside the franchised dealer network.

But completely legal to charge £300 labour for a 45-minute job. And completely legal to charge huge multiples of the actual cost of parts when selling them as spares (I'd love to see the maths spelling out what it would cost if you bought every single part on say a £15,000 car individually. My bet is it would be more like £50,000.)

As I say charging a little more is one thing but blatantly ripping off customers isn't on.

rich13348

(I'd love to see the maths spelling out what it would cost if you bought every single part on say a £15,000 car individually. My bet is it would be more like £50,000.)

You should check out spare parts on ovens they really have you over a barrel £80 for a handle £85 for a small piece of metal with numbers on it. You could buy everything to replace parts in an oven and you would pay 5grand+ on £500 oven.

AdrianC

Fella wrote: »

But completely legal to charge £300 labour for a 45-minute job.

Apart from the fact that's incredibly unlikely, since every single dealer publishes hourly labour rates - and every single job done in every single dealer workshop is charged at a standardised time which is published by the manufacturer - let me repeat... You Do Not Have To Use A Franchise Dealer.

And completely legal to charge huge multiples of the actual cost of parts when selling them as spares (I'd love to see the maths spelling out what it would cost if you bought every single part on say a £15,000 car individually. My bet is it would be more like £50,000.)

Find me one single complex consumer-durable where that DOESN'T apply.

As I say charging a little more is one thing but blatantly ripping off customers isn't on.

So don't use them. <shrug>

Fella

AdrianC wrote: »

Apart from the fact that's incredibly unlikely, since every single dealer publishes hourly labour rates - and every single job done in every single dealer workshop is charged at a standardised time which is published by the manufacturer - let me repeat... You Do Not Have To Use A Franchise Dealer.

Not sure what you mean by incredibly unlikely? It happened to me recently exactly that way. I was quoted £500 to supply & fit a £200 part. A local VW specialist ordered the same part from the same place for the same £200 then fitted it for £45. So no, not "incredibly unlikely" just "actually happened".

AdrianC wrote: »

Find me one single complex consumer-durable where that DOESN'T apply.

Ah, so it's ok to rip off customers if other people do it?

AdrianC wrote: »

So don't use them. <shrug>

Again, not sure what point you're trying to make here. I'm pointing out (correctly) a rip-off. "So don't use them" isn't really relevant. I could say the same about every rip-off in Britain but we all know that lots of people do fall for them because they don't know any better. Not really sure why you're so keen to defend a rip-off.

AdrianC

Fella wrote: »

Not sure what you mean by incredibly unlikely? It happened to me recently exactly that way. I was quoted £500 to supply & fit a £200 part. A local VW specialist ordered the same part from the same place for the same £200 then fitted it for £45. So no, not "incredibly unlikely" just "actually happened".

I wonder if the specialist took some short-cut, perhaps modifying another part?

Quite simply, I do not believe that an indie will take 45 minutes to do what would take a dealer two hours (£300 inc vat of labour is not three hours at a dealer), nor that a dealer would charge two hours for a 45min job.

Fella

AdrianC wrote: »

I wonder if the specialist took some short-cut, perhaps modifying another part?

TBH you just seem determined to try to win an argument to come out with something like that. The guy was hardly keen for the work (which made him very little anyway) as he was booked up for ages when I rang him. And he already knew what VW were charging before he quoted me his price meaning he could have quoted comfortably higher & still got the work if he was a scoundrel. Several reasons why it would make no sense whatsoever for him to then offer to do a quick bodge job that would make him peanuts. Add to that the specialist is very well respected & has been around for years & used by people I know personally who recommended him. He laughed when I told him what VW wanted to change the part & muttered "thieves". He also offered to let me watch while he changed the part in case I was interested. The repair worked immediately & perfectly.

AdrianC wrote: »

Quite simply, I do not believe that an indie will take 45 minutes to do what would take a dealer two hours (£300 inc vat of labour is not three hours at a dealer), nor that a dealer would charge two hours for a 45min job.

And yet it's true.