Female takes her car into a garage......

stokegal

sdavi3680 wrote: »

edit-lol. I replied to the OP not realising this post was 3 years old! Stokegal, how the hell did you find this to resurrect it?

I did a search on wheel cylinder and this post came up,

I've already spoke to one garage and they have said that if it is what the initial garage diagnosed then i'm looking at no more than £150, conning robbers!!

ukjoel

I used to audit the large franchised dealers on workshop performance and we routinely put in cars with blatant faults and hidden elastic bands, ultraviolent markings and such like to see what they did.

In 3 years I did over 200 of these and not one ever did 100% of what they were supposed to do.

Part of its down to book time with the bigger manufacturers. They know how long a job takes but this is based on their trying it out in the garage they use for training with all the tools to hand and no interruptions.

In the real world Sids borrowed your airgun and Dave needs you to hold a door he is removing on the next ramp so in order to make time up corners are cut.

It might be small things like making sure the washerjets hit dead centre of the window, it might be bigger things like checking the brake fluid or it could be key things like not taking the tyres off to check the brakes properly.

The problem with the industry is its all done behind closed doors, I think if you could see the techs working and they could show the customers their cars then the trust would come back.

mikey72

photome wrote: »

To the Op

why not tell everyone the name of the first garage and location so we knoe where to avoid.

And name the second so we know where to go!

mikey72

ukjoel wrote: »

I used to audit the large franchised dealers on workshop performance and we routinely put in cars with blatant faults and hidden elastic bands, ultraviolent markings and such like to see what they did.

In 3 years I did over 200 of these and not one ever did 100% of what they were supposed to do.

Part of its down to book time with the bigger manufacturers. They know how long a job takes but this is based on their trying it out in the garage they use for training with all the tools to hand and no interruptions.

In the real world Sids borrowed your airgun and Dave needs you to hold a door he is removing on the next ramp so in order to make time up corners are cut.

It might be small things like making sure the washerjets hit dead centre of the window, it might be bigger things like checking the brake fluid or it could be key things like not taking the tyres off to check the brakes properly.

The problem with the industry is its all done behind closed doors, I think if you could see the techs working and they could show the customers their cars then the trust would come back.

My garage still has mechanics, and don't have viewing areas, you go and stand under the car and chat to them while they work, but than again they know I do most of my own work, it's just the heavy stuff with the lifts they do.

stokegal

Just to give you all a quick update - I took my car into my local independant garage who replaced my wheel cylinders, shoes and changed the brake fluid and cleaned the brakes... all for the grand total of £106 inc vat... A lot different from the £230 + VAT that I was orginally quoted from the national chain

jd82

I took my old Corsa to a Vauxhall dealer for a free safety check as my brakes were making a noise. They said the noise was caused because the pads were too big for the discs but it was nothing to worry about. They did find leaking shocks (I knew the shocks needed replacing but wasn't aware they were leaking) and split CV boots. They spoilt it by quoting over £500 to have the work done. I had it done at my local indie for £130 and he agreed with everything they found.

Two months later the head gasket went but that is another story