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Advice on poor garage service and costly repair
Terrorpenguin
Posts: 2 Newbie
in Motoring
Hello,
Just before Christmas our 2010 reg Golf slowly lost power and then would not start. Being just before xmas and in a lockdown, we did not have a huge amount of time to deal with this. So called the RAC and asked for it to be taken to the closest garage to our house. We've used this garage before for MOTs and Services and they have been fine. It's no flashy chain, but service has always been OK.
On this occasion it hasn't been. As we were a random tow in they said they were unlikely to get to it until the new year - no problem. We ring after the new year and it's not been on the ramp yet, give us a week. Again, no problem, we ring them back in a week and it's "John" who is dealing with it and not here - ring back on Saturday. Ring back - John has had it on the ramp and can't see the problem, but he's going to look again next week. Cue weeks of us having to chase them until they eventually book it in with an auto electrician (approx 6 weeks after having it).
Call is just in from the garage - it's the 'body control unit' and is going to be £600 parts, labour and VAT for the autoelectrician to replace. This is not really a surprise. However the next bit is "with our labour as well that's getting on for another £600".
Am I being unreasonable in thinking that £600 for us having to chase them every week - with never a sorry or reasonable explanation, is somewhat taking the Michael? They could be inventing any number of hours labour which ultimately did nothing and that they could have fixed six weeks earlier by admitting they didn't know what the problem was and taking it to the auto-electrician? We chased every week and kept asking about pricing but got a variation on sucking on teeth and saying 'well it's difficult to know'.
However, they have our car. Is there anything we can do in this instance? Am I being unreasonable to the garage owner?
Just before Christmas our 2010 reg Golf slowly lost power and then would not start. Being just before xmas and in a lockdown, we did not have a huge amount of time to deal with this. So called the RAC and asked for it to be taken to the closest garage to our house. We've used this garage before for MOTs and Services and they have been fine. It's no flashy chain, but service has always been OK.
On this occasion it hasn't been. As we were a random tow in they said they were unlikely to get to it until the new year - no problem. We ring after the new year and it's not been on the ramp yet, give us a week. Again, no problem, we ring them back in a week and it's "John" who is dealing with it and not here - ring back on Saturday. Ring back - John has had it on the ramp and can't see the problem, but he's going to look again next week. Cue weeks of us having to chase them until they eventually book it in with an auto electrician (approx 6 weeks after having it).
Call is just in from the garage - it's the 'body control unit' and is going to be £600 parts, labour and VAT for the autoelectrician to replace. This is not really a surprise. However the next bit is "with our labour as well that's getting on for another £600".
Am I being unreasonable in thinking that £600 for us having to chase them every week - with never a sorry or reasonable explanation, is somewhat taking the Michael? They could be inventing any number of hours labour which ultimately did nothing and that they could have fixed six weeks earlier by admitting they didn't know what the problem was and taking it to the auto-electrician? We chased every week and kept asking about pricing but got a variation on sucking on teeth and saying 'well it's difficult to know'.
However, they have our car. Is there anything we can do in this instance? Am I being unreasonable to the garage owner?
0
Comments
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We have absolutely no idea whether their £600 is a mickey-take or not.
How much time did they put into diagnosis before deciding it needed specialist skills and equipment?
How much is their hourly labour?
You could have asked the RAC to take it straight to the autoelectrician... but given that you asked for it to be taken to them, why would you not owe them fair recompense for the work they did?0 -
That's a fair point. As per most things the thing that has amplified it the most is the lack of any sort of customer service. And yes, I suppose we could have asked for it to go to the auto electrician in the first place however did not know that the problem was electrical in nature.
I am posting in the heat of the moment, having a £1.2K bill land on you when you've been asking for updates for weeks is difficult to process.
I will go and have a cup of tea.1 -
Ask them for a breakdown of how they have come to the £600 figure.1
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Which will, I'm sure, feed back into your decision as to who to use for future work...Terrorpenguin said:That's a fair point. As per most things the thing that has amplified it the most is the lack of any sort of customer service.And yes, I suppose we could have asked for it to go to the auto electrician in the first place however did not know that the problem was electrical in nature.
And now we're starting to get to the work they did in diagnosis, aren't we...?
No garage likes to have to farm out work to a specialist. It reflects badly on their abilities - as well as the eventual size of the bill for the customer. So they will have wanted to make sure it really wasn't something silly first. And that can take time.I am posting in the heat of the moment, having a £1.2K bill land on you when you've been asking for updates for weeks is difficult to process.
Unfortunately, whether they're any good at customer communication doesn't affect the size of the underlying problem or the amount of work required to resolve it.
I will go and have a cup of tea.
I think you deserve a biccy or two, as well, to help you get over the bill...0 -
Sounds like a story of 2 dodgy garages. I think the OP probably would have fixed it themselves with youtube as necessary faster than the garage.-1
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