Money Moral Dilemma: Should I abandon my local garage for a cheaper MOT?

Mal25

Can't believe you're even asking this question. Repay the fantastic service you received with a bit of loyalty.

JKB01

Stick with the place you know and trust. The big organisations use cheap MOTs as a loss leader to sell parts and labour, sometimes completely bogus parts and labour.

MABLE

With me I always get a major service done when the MOT is due with my local ind. garage. However I ways get the brakes, exhaust, tyres checked before hand at at specialised place because I know my ind. would be more expensive.

Also the MOT is about £54.00 but the service provided is excellent and to us feels like a new car afterwards.

A few years ago I went to Kwik Fit for the mot and service. Never, never again. They were just looking for work. It came to the point they even suggested they put a new engine in. Idiots.

Robisere

CapricornLass wrote: »

Another one for sticking with the local garage. He's provided good service to you for the past seven years and saved you a lot of money too- show a bit of loyalty in return!

Bear in mind that small garages depend on their local reputation to get and retain custom. You are llikely to get a much better job from your small garage than you ever will from the big garage, as the small garage has so much more to lose if things go wrong. And I can almost guarantee if any work needs to be done because of the MOT, it will be a LOT cheaper - in the case of my local garage, it was 50%, which was a lot when the big garage wanted to charge me £1500.

THIS ^^^: As a retired workshop foreman, that is exactly how I ran the place, we looked after loyal customers. And I have also carried out small repairs to loyal customers' cars, including exhaust welding, headlamp beam adustment, etc., for little or no money. Keeps a business in good repute, keeps customers happy to return.

Tassie01

Stick with your local garage. I used a cheaper MOT voucher with Halfords but you must check the small print as it did not include a 'free retest' and as my vehicle failed in the first instance I had to pay a full price MOT anyway so it ended up costing me more.

jimjames

ouraggie wrote: »

I go to our local council. Costs £45 and as they don't do repairs, only the test, it's not in their interests to invent unnecessary faults etc.

Local garage charges £35. Been going there years and always very fair.
So it is possible to have a cheap MOT and decent garage too.

crmism

I have no personal experience of it, but I've heard that some MOT stations which charge less have the habit of finding things wrong and making their money that way. There is always a danger of an unfamiliar firm cutting corners, too.

If an MOT by your local garage costs, say, £50 as opposed to £30-40, I'd stick with it. They did you a favour last year and are evidently reliable and not ones to profit at your expense. Loyalty does count for something, and getting to know the individuals who look after your vehicle is important - they will look after you, as they did last year.:)

dstanden

Joe_Horner wrote: »

Funny thing that, we tried to give a free lunch away last month. Genuinely - main course, sweet and drink of your choice at a local cafe and all you had to do was pop into the shop and ask for it. Not one taker!

Similar to Joe, as part of a national promotion to pregnant mums, I used to offer free baby photo shoots and it was really difficult to get anyone to accept that it really was free. I changed the price to £25 and they flock in. Go figure.


David

Joe_Horner

dstanden wrote: »

Similar to Joe, as part of a national promotion to pregnant mums, I used to offer free baby photo shoots and it was really difficult to get anyone to accept that it really was free. I changed the price to £25 and they flock in. Go figure.


David

It's the "you get what you pay for" syndrome, which is often a good rule of thumb but isn't cast in stone by any means. Unfortunately, the (generally over-priced) brands that have fostered it over the years have far better advertising than we do!

I also suffer it a little at the hands of the "posh" (in relative terms for the area) jewelers in town. They offer a watch repair service, which they outsource, and get far more jobs in (at around double the price) than I do offering in-house repairs about a hundred yards away.

I know they get that many more jobs, and I know what their prices are, because they outsource them to me. Yet people will still go to them and pay £35 for me to do a job I'd do for £15 direct because they're the "quality place".

Go figure.....