Arnold Clark - Misleading Pricing?!?

sohurt

:mad:

Well, my car was booked in to get my radio and cd player fixed as it was damged by my ex. I specifically asked a good few times how much this would be, as the cd unit had to be sent away. The guy also looked at my radio aerial (as it is not picking up a radio signal) and he said that the connectors are all corroded and needs replacing. Prices given to me as follows...

Cd player - £100 tops..
Radio - £40 plus labour and VAT.

Got a voicemail from Arnold Clark to say that that is my cd player back and the total price, including fixing my radio is....wait for it...

£295.

I am going to phone in the morning to get a break down of these costs as I don't get how it could hike from £140ish to nearly £300 - double!!

I'm feeling a bit delicate at the moment and don't want to get into a big fight with Arnold Clark - any ideas on how to approach this? Also meant to add that I did ask for a written quote as I was going to give it to my ex but the guy said it's a 3rd party company that do the repairs and so they couldn't give a written quote. Is this my downfall...?!

sohurt

Anyone??

Riq

Whether a quote is written down or not it wouldn't matter since it is just that, a quote.

Just think how the FA feel when they got the Wembley quote and then the final bill!!

Seriously though they will bang down the extra money to labour almost certainly. They did that with car insurance repair bill anyway.

sohurt

That would make labour almost £150? To replace wiring in an aerial?

Jeez I hate Arnold Clark. lol

ckerrd

I suspect you will need to see exactly what was on the bill before you go in all guns blazing.

Unless you were given a guaranteed price it will only have been an estimate so basically they can charge more or less depending what work was done.

Not what you want to hear - sorry about that.

Arnold Clark are expensive for repairs. I only ever used them for warranty stuff, local garage for everything else. (That I couldn't do myself)

EDIT - and I bet there will be the old VAT element to consider which they would not necessarily quoted

sohurt

The 'radio' guy seemed pretty sure it would be around £100. Infact I kept asking are you sure and he eventually said £120 tops, and seemed quite sure about that.. so with vat on that = £140. Then radio parts were £40 + vat = £47. So labour still at over £100.

I know I'll need to call and see what the breakdown is, but at the end of the day I wouldn't have sent it away if I knew it was going to be this much, that's why I asked the guy so many times are you sure..

ckerrd

Depends how long it took and how many people worked on it but you just over £30 an hour might not be unreasonable.

sohurt

lol, that's the thing, it hasn't even been in yet! So no-ones worked on it..?

ckerrd

So is the £295 a new quote from them?
Is so - don't accept and get the car back from them and shop around.

sohurt

Hi

Yes the £295 is the quote from them now that they have my radio back - they have my unit in their service department. So I can't get that from them without paying for it? Plus I said to them to go ahead and order the parts for the radio? Arrghh garages ... ! This is all I need at the mo..

ckerrd

If they have done nothing with it then you should be able to get it back. You could even pay for the parts and take them away.

You should certainly make a fuss and see what they say - is it a branch you do a lot of business with, and is there a local alternative?