Car Went into Uncle Arnolds for Service and MOT

would never even buy a wiper blade from AC.

bought a 1 year old Golf Gti for the missus from a Main ac VW dealership. car was plastered with 'vw approved used' stickers and stuff - turns out the car was a parallel european import.
 
Yv said:
Main garage prices - no I am not going to defend those either to any real extent, but do bear in mind, a big garage on a prime site, with technicians that HAVE to undergo manufacturer training [which they pay for], etc, will naturally have higher overheads than the guy in the arches who may be an equally good mechanic but can afford to charge less.
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I used to go to the local jaguar dealership whose hourly rate for mechanics was higher than my lawyer....
 
heres a tip i have heard before - if you buy a car which gets a new MOT from a dealership, often they will give you the mot certificate without the advisory notes attached. You can however get a reprinted MOT from any MOT station now (costs about #10), and since all the notes are stored on the central MOT database, you will get this sheet with your reprint.

This way you will know if the pads/tyres etc are close to needing replacement when you buy the car
 
wack61 said:
This is what they want you to think,they sell peace of mind with new cars and 3 year warranties.
i've never owned a new car in my 30 years of driving because of the huge cost of depreciation, that £250+ people spend every month is an awful lot of repairs.
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I've owned 3 new cars and depreciation never bothered me. But then being a Ford employee, the discount I'd received buying the car offset a huge amount of the depreciation anyway. Hopefully I'll be in the position to buy another new car before the year is out and I intend to keep it for quite a number of years so depreciation won't matter then either.
Plus it's alot easier to buy a new car built to the spec. you want than to hope you can find one second hand or settle for the nearest you can get.
 
wack61 said:
This is what they want you to think,they sell peace of mind with new cars and 3 year warranties.
i've never owned a new car in my 30 years of driving because of the huge cost of depreciation, that £250+ people spend every month is an awful lot of repairs.
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agree, I haven't been driving 30 years though (havent even been born that long :lol: )
 
lazaroonie said:
would never even buy a wiper blade from AC.

bought a 1 year old Golf Gti for the missus from a Main ac VW dealership. car was plastered with 'vw approved used' stickers and stuff - turns out the car was a parallel european import.
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You'll enjoy this one then - a few years back one of Clark's sons did a deal to bring in a huge load of Daewoos from Eire at a "bargain" price, only it turned out the 3-year service plan + warranty was a UK-only scheme and didn't apply to the Irish cars...

Clarks had to pay for all the servicing and warranty work out of their own pocket :lol:

lazaroonie said:
heres a tip i have heard before - if you buy a car which gets a new MOT from a dealership, often they will give you the mot certificate without the advisory notes attached. You can however get a reprinted MOT from any MOT station now (costs about #10), and since all the notes are stored on the central MOT database, you will get this sheet with your reprint.

This way you will know if the pads/tyres etc are close to needing replacement when you buy the car
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Or save yourself a tenner and go here -enter the details from the MOT and you can view the info for free ;)
 
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friend of mine had his 3yr old (first mot) BMW M3 fail it's mot on front + rear discs + pads.

He came to me and asked me to source the parts and fit them.

I order said parts and have the car in to my garage ( i prepare rally cars and maintain a fleet of vehicles) and took the 'failed' parts off to find the pads had 60% left on them and the discs were un marked, nope not even a slight lip.

Chris (owner of said M3) had only done around 2,000 miles in the car, he bought it as a toy basically and the wife stopped him using it because he got 3 points in his forst week of ownership, then they travelled the world for a year.

took the car back to mot centre, i jacked it up in the car park, whipped the discs + pads off and took them in to ask why the vehicle had failed on these items?

I got an aggressive response telling me that i wasn't an MOT qualified tester blah blah blah. they wouldn't re-do the MOT free of charge and tried to charge him for the failure. to this day the MOT has not been payed for, and will not be!

They're all at it, find a 'little old man' and see what his rates are like (normally 1/2 dealer if not better) , if the quality of work is good then keep using him and reccomend him to friends + family.

I charge £40 an hour for car work, plus parts (obviously) but parts cost is trade price so still cheap. I had 1 friend who 'took the risk on me' and now have 14 customers (so to speak) who come back everytime they have a problem/rattle or annoiance, these 14 include a 911 turbo (out of waranty), a DB7 and 2 M3's.

Go find someone local, and small, they'll generally be better than the dealers who are robbing c****'s
 
Flash In The Pan said:
You'll enjoy this one then - a few years back one of Clark's sons did a deal to bring in a huge load of Daewoos from Eire at a "bargain" price, only it turned out the 3-year service plan + warranty was a UK-only scheme and didn't apply to the Irish cars...

Clarks had to pay for all the servicing and warranty work out of their own pocket :lol:



Or save yourself a tenner and go here -enter the details from the MOT and you can view the info for free ;)
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thats brilliant, never seen that before.
 
c_robinson said:
Go find someone local, and small, they'll generally be better than the dealers who are robbing c****'s
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Did that many years ago, still going to the same guy and have never been unhappy with the work or the price. After having been charged £50 for 5 litres of oil (£5 per 1/2 ltr) by the dealer at my new vehicles' first service he was a breath of fresh air.
 
Steep said:
Did that many years ago, still going to the same guy and have never been unhappy with the work or the price. After having been charged £50 for 5 litres of oil (£5 per 1/2 ltr) by the dealer at my new vehicles' first service he was a breath of fresh air.
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similar, 'back home' at my parents we always use the same local garage, cheap, good service, reliable and always helpful (its a 2 man, bloke and his son outfit) and we've never been disappointed, he even lent my dad his car when his own car failed its mot so he could get to work.

up here i use a local garage that is highly regarded by everyone at work, again good value, good service and a generally nice bloke that runs it

would never go to a dealer, not after the local ford dealer experience, ' you need new rear pads, that'll be £190 please....'
 
kwik fit are lovely people.
failed my father in laws astra van a few years ago. needed new pads n discs on the front, and a coroded fuel pipe replacing.
i went back down with him.
pointed out I changed the pads n discs weeks before, and the "corroded" pipe was just dirty, and PLASTIC.

ten mins later , i had an apology form the manager, a full refund of the MOT fee , and a certificate.
and the spottyfaced muppet who did the test wouldnt look me in the eye.
 
KWik fit staff are on sales targets, so they get a few quid for every set of pads/disks/exhaust/shock absorbers they sell.

If you have a fleet car, you will get a new tyre pretty much every time you go in, and if you know the staff, can get a lightly used tyre very cheap that has come off the fleet car.

A friend of mine used to work there and he new all the tricks.

Dealerships are big, hungry money monsters. Think of the costs involved in running that shiney showroom, and the majority of this cost has to come via the service desk. Sales have been slow of late, putting even more pressure for servicing to be more profitable.

Hourly rates in excess of £100 are common, and as Yv pointed out, they have a book of hours which tells them how long a job should take, and that is what you are billed for. However, if the mechanic can do it in half the time, you will still be billed for the full amount as that is what the book says it should take.

A local garage is the best bet, and you don;t even need to wait until the car is out of warranty any more. A thing called Block Excemption means that Europe has decided that as long as the parts used are either manufacturers or of the same quality (i beleive, don;t quote me on this) then the manufacturers warranty is valid.
 
lawrie29 said:
A thing called Block Excemption means that Europe has decided that as long as the parts used are either manufacturers or of the same quality (i beleive, don;t quote me on this) then the manufacturers warranty is valid.
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True, but if it comes to the crunch then I'll bet a penny to a pound you'd have a fight on your hands getting the warranty honoured.....
 
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