Charged 600 for service, but car has not been touched.

HeyBigSpender

My partner was charged 600 pounds for his car to be serviced. When he went to collect it, it was parked in exactly the same place, with the newspaper he left on the seat exactly where it was. Basically it didn't look like anyone had even opened the door.

He drove off, and it wasn't as smooth as it usually is after a service (we usually get it serviced elsewhere), and sure enough, the electronic gizmo at the front flashed up "car is due a service" along with several other faults that have been flashing up. The garage said that they definately serviced it, and that they must have forgotten to reset the computer. As if.

But the oil and tyres weren't checked. Nobody cleaned it. It really seems that the car has simply not been serviced.

We had to take the car in to them before (it is the nearest garage for our make of car) for some remedial repairs, and found their service really poor. When we tried to complain to the manufacturers that time, they said there was nothing they could do as the garages are essentially independent.

Not sure what to do about this or what our rights are. 600 quid is a lot of money for nothing. Can anyone advise?

iltisman

Think yourself lucky I took my volvo S80 to franchised dealer and was charged £700 and the thing never ran properly again and the central locking and alarm was very unreliable following this "service".
I sold the volvo and bought a banger off Ebay for £675 and serviced it myself.

custardy

what car?
pop the dipstick out and look at the oil,it should be fairly clear after an oil change.
if you know how to pop the airfilter out and again inspect it as a new filter is nice and clean.
garages can forget to reset the service indicators

kitchen_buff

I hope you havnt paid them or your stuffed.

davetrousers

Did you pay by credit card?

Look at the oil filter, if it is caked in grime then it probably hasn't been changed!

onejontwo

Maybe get an independent inspection (AA or RAC), and get them to write a list of the items and parts that should have been changed but were neglected on the service.
With this report you should go back to the garage and ask for all or a percentage back, and if not tell them your only course of action is to contact trading standards. (Or you could choose this route first but I believe they take a while, and you need this report whilst the evidence is fresh.
Good luck!!

HeyBigSpender

davetrousers wrote: »

Did you pay by credit card?

Look at the oil filter, if it is caked in grime then it probably hasn't been changed!

He paid by debit card.

I'll tell him to look at the oil filter, but I think he already checked the oil and it clearly hadn't been changed.

Gutted.

anewman

If your car is out of warranty and you have the time and patience consider doing the basic servicing jobs yourself.

I think you'll have the best luck with an independent written inspection as onejontwo says. Make sure to keep the receipt/invoice from the garage from the service, give them a call again then if they say they have serviced it, send them a copy of the independent inspection and I would be asking for the money back (if they're incompetent enough tol claim they serviced a car, and didn't, do you really want to push them to do the work?!) Give them a set amount of time to respond threatening court action. Then if no joy take them to small claims court, where with an independent report saying the works not done, and their receipt saying they have done it, you are almost guaranteed to win and get your cash back plus legal costs. Good luck!

devils_advocate

If you can get an independent expert to say that the car has not been serviced (and you need to get the report prepared as soon as possible), the garage is guilty of fraud. The police should be interested. You can also recover the cost of the supposed service through the civil courts as well as the cost of the engineers report.

photome

HeyBigSpender wrote: »

He paid by debit card.

I'll tell him to look at the oil filter, but I think he already checked the oil and it clearly hadn't been changed.

Gutted.

If it is a diesel it will be almost impossible to tell from looking at the oil as even after an oil change it would be black.

goldspanners

photome wrote: »

If it is a diesel it will be almost impossible to tell from looking at the oil as even after an oil change it would be black.

yes,the oil in a deisel will go black almost instantly.and in a petrol it is just as hard unless it is really old oil thats in it,as it will be fairly clean looking anyway.

the best way to tell is to look at the air filter,it should be spotless,the oil filter canister should be fairly clean,maybe a few grubby finger marks,and the fuel fitler if its a canister type on a diesel should be clean,usually an older filter will get a bit of corrosion around the top,a new one shouldnt.