Conned by garage, can I do anything?

akira181

khcomp wrote: »

It's just a lesson learnt - crap garage, crap service.... take your business & cash elsewhere next time. I would suggest that you have a valid claim against them as they failed to fix a specific issue, then charged you again for the same work. I'd certainly have it checked over elsewhere - it may be worth having an independent MOT done elsewhere, such as a council testing station.
Always use a garage that someone you know, and trust, can personally recommend. A decent, local, independent mechanic is worth serious money.

He'd probably wiggle out of it and claim he tried to save me money by only cleaning the caliper but has no guarantee. I debate whether or not he actually did that as the second time, I helped the mechanic clean everything while we replaced the caliper. Extremely dirty and not a drop of copper grease anywhere.

I did call a council MOT place but they had a 16 week waiting list for public MOT's. My usual mechanic has moved away so now I'm trying to find a new one in town. Definitely won't go back to that one again

Faraaz

I'd always report to everywhere you can, I once had a garage mess up a clutch replacement then shut down shortly after! are they on trustmygarage?

UglyJoe

akira181 wrote: »

Sorry for the long post but I feel completely robbed by this garage and I think I need to go into detail so I can get advice on what I can do next or if I'm just overreacting.

My front driver side caliper was sticking and my MOT was coming up in 3 weeks so I decided to book it in early. I found a deal on Groupon for a MOT and full valet for £20, and since my car was in dire need of a clean, I went against my gut instinct and bought it.

I sent the garage a few messages on Facebook to book it in and said the front driver side caliper is sticking. He called me later in the day to say MOT failed due to driver side track rod end, brake pipes, and all 4 calipers are in bad condition and quoted me £380.

The car is only worth £700 at best but since the brake pipes were a previous advisory, steering was getting loose, and the brakes were a little noisy, I decided to go ahead with it. Got the call today, work complete, MOT passed, picked it up, paid cash cause the card machine was broken, drove it and before I got to the traffic lights at the end of the block, I could hear the front driver side brake rubbing harder than before so I took it straight back to the garage.

The boss called a mechanic over he drove it a meter and said the car is undriveable like this and went to put it back on the ramps. As he was driving to enter the garage, he stopped on a hill and the car didn't roll backwards. He even stuck his feet out with the handbrake off and bounced bounced in the driver seat prove it was barely moving to the boss. So the garage actually made my brakes worse but it passed the MOT.

The boss said he cleaned all 3 calipers and replaced the rear passenger side one as that was completely seized. He claimed the front driver side caliper piston pushed right back in when he cleaned it and it passed the MOT no bother.

Back on the ramp and the front driver side brake is completely seized. Even a metal bar was bending as he tried to rotate the hub. After a little troubleshooting, he said a new caliper is needed. Boss started talking and a caliper started off at £55 to £60 pound. By the time he was finished, it was £73 for the caliper and he'll give me half price labour to a total of £110.

By this point I was completely fuming as if I had been quoted £500 at the start, I'd have refused and sold the car for £200 and bought another one. For example, same car as mine on Autotrader 6 miles away, one year newer, half the miles, £1000 list price.

But since I just paid for the MOT and I need a car to work this weekend, I bit the bullet and stupidly agreed without thinking it through.

The caliper arrived and the mechanic fitted it (delivery van had the website on the decal so I looked up a cost of a caliper, £45 +VAT, insult to injury that was). As I was chatting to the mechanic, he himself told me he wouldn't come back here cause the other mechanics are family of the boss and not very good.

We had a look at the passenger front brake as the other mechanics didn't do a good job of that, bled the brakes and, I drove off. Brake pedal is very spongy but least it's kinda driveable now. I'm going to give the brakes another bleed and check the master cylinder after I've cooled off a bit.

Also had to get the valet guys to redo it. Streaks of dirt down the side of the car (boss saw it and said it was rust and didn't bother to do anything about it), missed bits inside, cigarette ash on the carpet and I don't even smoke. Also my sunglasses and a couple microfibre cloths I had in the car have gone missing.

This guy is clearly using an attractive Groupon deal to rip people off and not even do a good job of what work they do do. I'm assuming I have no chance of getting the money back but can I report him to stop him or something from doing this to other people?

So, if I understand you correctly from this long post, you went to have an MOT and were quoted £380 to have a load of work done to pass the MOT.

You gave the authorisation to have the work detailed carried out.

Part of that work was the replacement of 4 brake calipers (so all four wheels to be done)

I'm not sure what 'guarantee' that particular workshop offers, but I do think on any viewpoint, if one of those replaced brake calipers is proven to have siezed within 5 minutes of leaving (and presumably within just a few miles at most), then I really don't understand why the garage are charging you to have it replaced again (let alone why you agreed to pay again, unless under protest)

In regards the valet that you also had cause to complain about, then you should have inspected the car and raised any issues at that point before taking the car away (or even before paying) - however if you just want the ashtray emptying, I'm surec they would have done that in the circumstances as a matter of goodwill. I do not think you will get any compo now for having to empty it youself.

In regards to the missing items unconnected with the car, unfortunately that is a risk you take whenever you take a car anywhere. Do not leave valuable items in the car. (or if you must, advise these to the receptionist on arrival and check they are still there on collection)

Unfortunately, as you appear to have taken the car away before you even noticed the sunglasses missing, I very much doubt they will entertain any claim for that.
In regards old rags (microfibre cloths) you left in the car you knew was going for a valet, well they presumably dumped them as part of the valet they performed.
Again, if you had wanted to keep them, you should have advised them of that fact on arrival, sorry.

arcon5

Doesn't sound like much of a con to me.

The caliper way faulty, they tried to restore it, didn't work, had to replace it!

Where's the con? If anything they've created themselves more work for not much more money.

And this is the reason why a lot of garages want to replace parts rather than fix parts nowadays - because the times the fix doesn't work the customer then moans they would have replaced the part if they knew it wasn't repairable - all with the benefit of hindsight of course

Rain_Shadow

akira181 wrote: »

I read reviews on groupon and they were generally positive apart from stuff going missing from inside the car. I made sure everything expensive was taken out before I handed over the keys. The guy even said he doesn't want to rip people off just to reclaim the voucher but wants repeat business instead. That had the opposite effect and made me more suspicious.

..

Which is the point at which I would have moved on.


Seriously? You didn't think that reports of 'these guys steal stuff from your car' wouldn't mean they might try to rip you off for their service too?