Dispute with garage - diagnostics cost

Danii27

Hello,
Long post alert!


My car has been in the garage since a breakdown on 15 dec. I took it to somewhere that specialises in mini.bmw on a recommendation of a colleague. The car was intermittently losing power at junctions, no lights coming up on dash board, the AA scanned it and said a timing chain sensor fault code was coming up.
It’s a 2009 Mini Cooper with 80,000 miles on the clock.

Left it at garage, he said he only did a diagnostics scan before Xmas which he told me would cost £30 and said the same thing AA said, I also went to him because I have AA BRC which covers up to £500 on parts which have failed and he is an approved garage.

Anyway after the diagnostics he said he would need to look more at the engine, after Xmas as he was shutting for 10 days.
He never made any mention as to how many hours that would take or what the cost of that would be. I was continually asking him to provide some kind of estimate but nothing.

He asked me to come to the shop last week Friday so he could show me the problem. He showed me one of my timing chain guard rails has sheared off and he suspected that was in the engine. He also said something called a vanos needed replacing and while we were doing all of this we may as well change the timing chain.

So he said he would price it up and get back to me. After chasing him again this week he finally gave me an estimate totalling £3170 inc VAT. I told him immediately that given he age of the car that was not economical and I would not be doing the work. He had mentioned that there were parts on there that might not be necessary but he wouldn’t know till he opened the engine. Even the AA suggested this was over the top. He said he would need to add 2 additional hours labour to put the car back together.

He’s since provided another invoice for me to get the car back after his investigations of £575 inc VAT. £30 diagnostics test 3 hours labour at £75 an hour checking for the fault and another 3 hours @£75 putting it back together.

I don’t know much about cars and he knows this. But I honestly don’t believe he spent the times he’s saying. I have a picture of my engine when he showed me the guard rail problem. Does it take 3 hours to get to this part. Also if you admitted verbally that you wouldn’t know
If you needed certain parts till you got in there how has it been 6 hours work. He never provided me verbally with his hourly rate or time he thought it would take and i only got the written estimate for the first time yesterday.

I’m not sure what to do, I have to pay it to get the car back. I want to get the car back on the road and have looked Into a garage to move it to. Do I have any grounds to dispute this bill? Greatful for any advice. I could provide a link to the photo of my engine and the invoices if that’s helpful?

AndyMc.....

What do you want to dispute?

Danii27

AndyMc..... wrote: »

What do you want to dispute?

The cost of the diagnostics.

I just feel £575 for nothing is a rip off! Plus he’s had my car for near to a month with me continually having to push him to give me time/money estimates- which I never got

Stoke

But he hasn't done nothing? He's diagnosed why your car is !!!!ed....

AdrianC

The diagnostic test is plugging a computer in, and asking the car's computer what fault codes it has. That's a fairly finite list of codes based on what various sensors are telling it, and not some highly clever robot that can actually look inside.

After that, he's spent time taking bits off the car. That's enabled him to get at something that would cause the problem - in this case, he's pulled most of the chain guide out, but there's some still in there. That could have damaged more things - or it could be about to, if not found and removed. There is simply no way to know until more dismantling is done.

If you're going to ask him to scrap the car for you, then it probably doesn't need putting back together. If you want to be able to drive it to another garage for a second opinion, then it does need to be.

I presume you were aware of what his hourly rate was when you took it there? £75/hr + vat isn't that unusual for a specialist in premium brands like BMW/Mini, and is closer to a general garage's rate than to a BMW/Mini main dealer, especially if you're in a fairly expensive part of the country.

Danii27

Stoke wrote: »

But he hasn't done nothing? He's diagnosed why your car is !!!!ed

He didnt agree a plan or give me an estimate that just diagnosis would be X hours work at his hourly rate. If he told me in advance that it would cost in the region of £575 to diagnose I would have said, Thanks but no Thanks.
And I was asking him to provide an estimate and only got one yesterday.
Maybe I have to suck it up and move on.

Danii27

AdrianC wrote: »

The diagnostic test is plugging a computer in, and asking the car's computer what fault codes it has. That's a fairly finite list of codes based on what various sensors are telling it, and not some highly clever robot that can actually look inside.

After that, he's spent time taking bits off the car. That's enabled him to get at something that would cause the problem - in this case, he's pulled most of the chain guide out, but there's some still in there. That could have damaged more things - or it could be about to, if not found and removed. There is simply no way to know until more dismantling is done.

If you're going to ask him to scrap the car for you, then it probably doesn't need putting back together. If you want to be able to drive it to another garage for a second opinion, then it does need to be.

I presume you were aware of what his hourly rate was when you took it there? £75/hr + vat isn't that unusual for a specialist in premium brands like BMW/Mini, and is closer to a general garage's rate than to a BMW/Mini main dealer, especially if you're in a fairly expensive part of the country.

I can’t post the link to the picture but to my untrained eye it just looks like he took off the top cover. He told me he had removedthe spark plugs.
He showed me a piece of metal he said he found balancing on the timing chain which he said was a guard rail and he said some of that had sheared off and he suspected it was in the engine. As far as I’m aware that’s as far as his investigations went. He hasn’t started looking for this missing piece. I’m not sure does that sound like 6 hours worth of work?

I was not aware of his hourly rate beforehand. My mistake not asking directly. Although I sss asking for a rough estimate so would expect someone to tell me their hourly rate at that stage.

Aylesbury_Duck

By your own admission you know very little about cars and their workings, yet you seem confident in claiming the mechanic has ripped you off and has overstated the hours he's worked and in fact, has done "nothing" at all.

Don't you think you're being unfair?

I think you should have asked for the hourly rate early on in the process. It's too late to be complaining about it now.

TheTalkingDead

The mini of the era has always suffered with timing chain guide failure its a common problem on them, ask me how I know, couldn't wait to get rid, Power steering, rear suspension, and the dreaded timing chain tensioner nonsense put me off mini's for life.

System

Danii27 wrote: »

The cost of the diagnostics.

I just feel £575 for nothing is a rip off! Plus he’s had my car for near to a month with me continually having to push him to give me time/money estimates- which I never got

You didn't get nothing. You got 3hrs of labour to take the engine to bits to diagnose the faults which needed to be done to find the problem. You then got charged 3hrs of labour to put it back together again when you said you didn't want him to do it.

it didn't cost you £575 to get it diagnosed, it cost half of that. The other half was the cost of putting the car back together. You would have had to pay someone to diagnose it, nobody is going to start to put spanners to an engine for free.

What did you expect, him to do 6hrs of work for free, 6hrs that he could have been working on someone else's car charging £75 an hour labour?

Danii27

Aylesbury_Duck wrote: »

By your own admission you know very little about cars and their workings, yet you seem confident in claiming the mechanic has ripped you off and has overstated the hours he's worked and in fact, has done "nothing" at all.

Don't you think you're being unfair?

I think you should have asked for the hourly rate early on in the process. It's too late to be complaining about it now.

People i’ve shown the picture to say he’s only taken off the rocker cover. Maybe this takes 3 hours to take off and put back. I don’t know. I get that I may not be able to disprove he did 6 hours work.

My issue really is that he wasn’t transparent or upfront at the start at what it would cost per hour and the estimated time. I was asking for an estimate and a time estimate. I wasnt given an opportunity to say no it’s to expensive, i’ll go elsewhere thanks.