Paying a garage which hasn’t fixed my car

fred990

It's why I like my local Bosch garage, they're happy to do bits I can't (high end tools/lift) or spend time explaining work-arounds that I could do at home. The manager never wants paying so I make a decent donation to the tea funds.
I'd be stunned if they charged for something they couldn't/didn't fix.

fred246

Just googling DIY car repairs. Not recommended says one site because DIYers often get the diagnosis wrong. This can lead to them replacing parts which costs money but doesn't actually fix the problem. They recommend taking it to a garage instead where they are experts.

born_again

fred246 said:

Just googling DIY car repairs. Not recommended says one site because DIYers often get the diagnosis wrong. This can lead to them replacing parts which costs money but doesn't actually fix the problem. They recommend taking it to a garage instead where they are experts.

Some common faults can be sorted online.
Trying to diagnose a fault from vague description online is never going to happen. It's amazing when you look at owner club forums how many new member post about issues, yet fail to give even basic info. (just look at the OP here for that)
Then get upset when people say better to go to a garage as we have no idea. We could sit there and say, well it could be, then wait for them to come back saying not fixed, then say well what about that... Till they have replaced everything on the car.

Garages are there to make money. Fixing or trying to fault find something for nothing is never a good business model, unless you want to go bust.

AdrianC

born_again said:
Garages are there to make money.

Well, indeed. Who ever walked out their house every morning to spend their entire working lives fixing other people's stuff for fun?

burlingtonfl6

fred246 said:

Call me old fashioned but if I paid for a repair I would expect the problem to be fixed. The job of the garage is to find what is wrong and sort it out. Ultimately if you ever ended up in court I think a judge would agree with that point of view. They need to be better than someone with no skill whatsoever.

Surely an expert like yourself could help the OP out with their problem. Nobody knows as much about cars as you

fred246

AdrianC said:

born_again said:
Garages are there to make money.

Well, indeed. Who ever walked out their house every morning to spend their entire working lives fixing other people's stuff for fun?

The point is that they aren't fixing it. They are only trying. What's the point of trying to fix if you get paid anyway? Just swap whatever part you feel like and charge the customer.

Herzlos

fred246 said:

AdrianC said:

born_again said:
Garages are there to make money.

Well, indeed. Who ever walked out their house every morning to spend their entire working lives fixing other people's stuff for fun?

The point is that they aren't fixing it. They are only trying. What's the point of trying to fix if you get paid anyway? Just swap whatever part you feel like and charge the customer.

You do know how garages work, right? Diagnosis work without a fix is still useful, because it helps rule out the stuff that isn't a problem.

This doesn't sound like something simple so they are working through the possible issues and not finding anything. That could still take many hours (especially if the OP keeps taking it to new garages and they have to start over), and someone needs paid for that mechanic/ramp time. There's nothing stopping them providing some good will discounts, but if it takes 5 hours to eliminate all of the obvious stuff, that's still 5 hours needing paid for.

They should now have a fairly long list of what's not wrong, and can take it to an electrical specialist.

[Deleted User]

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fred246

I was wondering what would happen to old motorhomes though. A 20 year old motorhome is selling for roughly £20K. So if it breaks down the option is to repair or scrap. Would you scrap something you had just paid £20K on? If anyone on this forum has a problem with a 10 year old car AdrianC will be straight on it. What do you expect? It's 10 years old. Vehicles are scrapped at 14 years. You should expect a 10 year old car to have loads of problems. If people can't fix things themselves there are going to be some expensive repairs I predict.

ontheroad1970

fred246 said:

I was wondering what would happen to old motorhomes though. A 20 year old motorhome is selling for roughly £20K. So if it breaks down the option is to repair or scrap. Would you scrap something you had just paid £20K on? If anyone on this forum has a problem with a 10 year old car AdrianC will be straight on it. What do you expect? It's 10 years old. Vehicles are scrapped at 14 years. You should expect a 10 year old car to have loads of problems. If people can't fix things themselves there are going to be some expensive repairs I predict.

Horses for courses.  A 10 year old motor home is a very different animal to a 10 year old car.   By their very nature, motorhomes hold their value way longer than an equivalently aged car.  A 10 year old motorhome will carry way more value than a 10 year old car.  For example, a 2011 T5 on Autottrader now is £15.5k.  You're going to try a lot harder to fix a vehicle worth 20k than and equivalently aged car worth £3/4k.  If you've shelled out that much and it has that much value then you are more likely to find parts for it, and by its higher value, you should take as much care as possible in finding the best tradesman for  the job.  However if you present it to someone else and they put their time in, then they should be paid for that time, unless something else is agreed before work starts.

As a footnote, It's got now that it's actually getting difficult to find a factory made motorhome on Autotrader.  I had a look the other day and most were modern conversions.  Two issues here: an oldish Mercedes Sprinter converted is going to be a very different animal to a Sprinter that was originally coach built as a motorhome. Who knows how the van was driven before conversion?  Could have been a courier van run ragged.  Also, a motorhome converted from a panel van will still be subject to panel van national speed limits whereas a factory built one will be subject to car speeds below a certain weight.