Having a laugh?

Flatulentoldgoat

So it looks like I've apparently made the fatal mistake of buying the oil and filter for my interim service. Garages are flatly refusing to do it as 'their insurance doesn't allow them to fit customer supplied parts'. What a load of rubbish. Who wants free oil and a filter....

Mercdriver

Someone will suggest you go to youtube and follow the instructions.  Fred?

There are legitimate reasons to decline self supplied parts.  What if there is a fault and it messes up the engine resulting in a new engine required?  Will you simply assume it is down to the mechanic?  Would you accept that it was a fault with the part?

Flatulentoldgoat

Mercdriver said:

Someone will suggest you go to youtube and follow the instructions.  Fred?

Quite. I'd have honestly have done it myself but the filter on this engine is in the worst possible location. It's completely recessed behind numerous hoses. The only feasible way is to go in underneath via a lift.

onlyfoolsandparking

Having had a conversation just a few days ago with my (good friend) mechanic, that very thing came up when we were discussing how parts are not as easy/fast to source currently and got on to customers supplying their own parts, he went on to say he now refuses to fit 'customer parts' as too many of the parts were wrong and it was costing him time and obviously money contacting customers and (hopefully) getting them to get the right parts, don't know about your garage saying their insurance won't let them do it part but might not be the load of rubbish you think. 

fred246

Sadly taking your own oil in is often the only hope you have of getting a garage to use the correct specification of oil. Even then it's not guaranteed that they will use the oil you have supplied. Most people supplying their own oil would be doing it so they can be assured that the best oil was used rather than it being cheaper. The independent garage I occasionally use often suggest I take my own parts in because I am very particular. If you phone around you should be able to find a garage that will use your oil. At the end of the day it's all about profit. They make up 'legitimate reasons' why they can't use your parts but loss of profit on parts is the real reason. Having said that there are some reasons why using customer supplied parts will cause occasional problems.

Mercdriver

fred246 said:

Sadly taking your own oil in is often the only hope you have of getting a garage to use the correct specification of oil. Even then it's not guaranteed that they will use the oil you have supplied. Most people supplying their own oil would be doing it so they can be assured that the best oil was used rather than it being cheaper. The independent garage I occasionally use often suggest I take my own parts in because I am very particular. If you phone around you should be able to find a garage that will use your oil. At the end of the day it's all about profit. They make up 'legitimate reasons' why they can't use your parts but loss of profit on parts is the real reason. Having said that there are some reasons why using customer supplied parts will cause occasional problems.

So there are no reasons why a garage shouldn't use customer supplied parts, but there may be some reasons why doing so can cause problems.  Yeah, makes perfect sense.

caprikid1

Never ceases to amaze me this, I never go to a restaurant and take my own food, I never go to a football match and expect them to play with my ball. That said my garage did fit some discs and pads I supplied as I ran out of time and wanted a service done also.
The only time I would expect someone to do this is if the car was a classic car and it was more of pain for the garage to source parts or they were rare unobtanium OEM parts.
If you don't think the garage is going to use the right quality choose a different garage, if you think they are too expensive do the same.
Yes garages put a markup on parts but that is part of the overall profitability of the job.

sweetsand

Flatulentoldgoat said:

So it looks like I've apparently made the fatal mistake of buying the oil and filter for my interim service. Garages are flatly refusing to do it as 'their insurance doesn't allow them to fit customer supplied parts'. What a load of rubbish. Who wants free oil and a filter....

Most won't and I can understand why.
go to another garage but most won't.
They often state that if things go wrong as the oil could be fake, etc, etc - though I don't agree I can
see their point
ATB

RobM99

OK so you supply a garage with cheap knock-off parts and they fail. Then what?

ratrace

We do fit customer supply parts, but we do tell them that if the part is wrong and the car is stuck on a ramp for extra few hours etc... they will be charged for that time as they are prevnting us from working on other customers cars etc.... if the car can rolled outside we will do this and not charge for extra time as we can pull a new car in, But the job now will go at the back of the que we have had cars sitting around for 2 or 3 days just waiting for the correct parts to show up

and they dont want to pay for the quality parts we fit as we cannot take the risk of supplying crap parts just to change them again in 6 months time because the shocker failed as it was made of choclate, which in turn costs us more time etc... so yes we will fit your parts but if they fail because they are a ebay special etc... we charge you again to do they same job which i think is fair 

treeroy

I think it generally depends on who the garage is and what your relationship with them is like. 

If you are a new customer, then from their perspective why should they risk you giving them wrong parts? If something goes wrong it can end up costing you time, or if there's a fault then the customer can come back and blame you when it might be their own fault.

On the other hand if you are a regular customer and you know them and they've done lots of work for you before then I'm sure most garages would work with you for whatever it is that you source yourself.

With that being said, I've no idea why you would buy oil and filters yourself, these are pretty generic things and its not like the garage is going to get that wrong...