astraboy

This is precisely why the cossie only gets taken to my mate who works in a garage. He drives hard, but I know he wont overdo mine cos he has his own cossie as well.

astraboy

Besides, the garage is only round the CORNER so I can take a short detour from work and pick it up.
astraboy.

dsmith

He shoots....and misses

NotoriousREV

Strange how this subject always starts a debate. IMHO, there are some occasions where a car should be driven and plenty when it shouldn't.

If the car is there for a problem where the symptoms are only noticable when driving, then obviously the mechanic will need to drive the car, otherwise, they should only be driving it in and out of the workshop.

For a wheel and tyre change, there is no justification for driving it. The wheels are balanced dynamically on a machine. The argument that the machine doesn't fit the weights is a load of crap. When the tyre fitter has fitted the weights, he should be rechecking the balance on the machine. That machine is far more sensitive than any driver, if it says it's balanced, then it's balanced.

All the people here who say "it's only 10 miles", fine, let me borrow your car for 10 miles with no comebacks on anything that happens to your vehicle. I guarantee I can change your mind. Maybe read that thread about what to do with a hire car for an indication of what can happen

If you're putting your hard-earned into your car, then it's yours to thrash, and no-one else's.

SimonJM

Hi Janner,

I also live in Plymouth and would like to know which garage it was. I can understand that you may not want to post their name on here - can you please e-mail me off-line.

Cheers

Simon

KRIS

Why dont you go into the garage all nice and polite and your opening gambit should be " A friend of mine saw this car out on the road the other day .... has it been out of here ? " If the answer is yes ... then let them explain and if the answer is NO .. then drag the geezer over to mileage and start on about how you hate being lied to ....... should sort things out !!!

K

stevebt

iTrader: (8)

well as i though recieved car back from garage after testing my abs and £20 worth of optimax gone, car have fuel light on when i picked up, sick as f**k

Carlos The Jackel

My local garage (who are pretty clueless most of the time) ask you to go with them on the test drive, which is why i always use them.

There is a well known tyre fitting place just along from my work, which made the papers a while back after a BMW M3 owner dropped his Brand New M3 in to get the tracking checked. He only got 40 yards from the place when his car went speeding past him wheelspinning they tyre fitter bloke didn't manage to get round the first roundabout he came to and wrapped the car round a lamp-post.

For all the people that say its only a car (a pretty expensive one) I would be happy to visit you all for a 10 mile shot FOC and to be driven as I like I don't just mean Scoobs, Evo's & Cossies welcome too!

Kippax

come on dunk you dont really think that. anyway, its not just the potential materialistic loss; its the principle. like someone else said, if they want a spin just ask.

[Edited by Kippax - 12/14/2002 12:43:14 PM]

AnthonyJ

I used to have an M3 convertible in for a service at a BMW dealer. They rang me just as I was about to pick it up to say that there would be a delay. It turns out that a pigeon had flown into the windowscreen broken it and lost the tax disc. I wondered at the time why they needed to test drive it at all but also how fast they'd need to be driving for a pigeon to smash the windscreen and why they'd needed the top down whilst testing (which is how they lost the tax disc!!). The cheekiest bit is that they wanted to claim from my insurance for the repair!!!!

I'd say that a note on the steering wheel seems to work wonders (i.e. "please call me before driving this car off the premises" with a phone number and mileage). This has to be securely sellotaped to the windscreen so it can just "fall off"!

Haven't there been quite a few cases with people having GPS trackers sueing garages etc?! Maybe it is time to get on of those?!

Brian the Sn@il mk2

If the garage was not a Subaru Dealer i would understand they would like to take the car for a spin,
But if it was a subaru dealer, they get loads of high powered cars in all the time.
Its just another car too them, they would think it too be a pain to take it out to bed the tyres in.

scoobyboy

so then notoriousrev have you ever seen those tyres where there are two wheel weights fitted with a big gap between them if not well it means that the fitter who fitted them got the first one placed slightly off centre and has had to put another on to counterbalance the excess a good fitter could do it with one weight but some people can't . also some cars require the wheels to be balanced on the cars where it's not as accurate (imo). so it's not crap and like you said he SHOULD recheck the weights but then maybe he couldn't be bothered to.
if we ever have to use a separate company to balance the wheels on a car i always go on a test drive to make sure it is ok just because i don't trust anyone other than myself to make sure it's right and i don't want an angry customer giving me earache coz his steering wheel shakes.
but then at the end of the day thats just me and working at a dealership i just don't get that excited over subarus coz i get to drive them everyday

WRX SEE

quote:
Its quite funny with the brakes story, i just took my wrx to my dealer out here in Germany and I asked him to check the brakes out while it was in for an oil change, I basically told him when I am for instance slowing down using progressive hard braking from about 160kph the car makes a hell of a racket, a similar noise to having fractured or warped discs, which I have had before on my old MY00.

A bit off topic...but it sounds like your pads are fried - I same problem with my WRX this summer on the autobahn. It only took once hard braking down from 240km/h for a truck. Get the pads replaced and the noise should disappear.

SilverSmith

Simple ( )solution to calm your paranoia. Get a tracking device fitted and ask the tracking company to provide a printout for the period the car was in the garage, if its a GPS enabled device they will be able to tell you the route and speeds in question, they may make a small charge for the service but it will either give you proof to confront the garage with or allay you fears.

SJobson

I've got to ask - did you expect them to fit the tyres while the wheels were still on the car? I've never found a tyre fitter yet who could do that!

When I got tyre for my old (11 years old at the time) 1.6 Scirocco (so not even the fast one) they were just taking it out for a test drive as I arrived. So I saw the chap driving down the road. He didn't hammer it, he tested it - and I assume an old Scirocco is not such a desirable car that they really fancied a 'razz' in it; I'm quite pleased that they did test it, to check all sorts of things (like the nuts being done up right).

A couple of years later, I bought a Corrado VR6 and got it serviced by the same chap I used for the Scirocco - ex-VW main dealer who set up independently, who became a friend. He took the Corrado for a run, and told me he reckoned it managed 0-100 in under 15s (hyperbole, obviously, but he told me the road he tried it on and he couldn't have managed a standing start). He also told me he took it up to 140, so I felt happier maxing it at 150 (on the clock) on the M40 on the way home. He was insured, his experience with the car backed up my feeling that it was OK, so I had no problems at all with it.

NotoriousREV

Are you serious? You don't check the tightness of wheelnuts by drving the car!!!! You use a bloody wrench!!!!!

Phil Harrison

So, what was the outcome, Janner??

Phil

Janner

Spoke to the garage and they say its company policy to take it for a drive to make sure everything is OK. They took it a little further as their set route was disrupted due to road works. What they mean is they couldn't get enough speed up so they had to go a few miles further out of town to hit triple figures. They said they were going to look into it but I never heard anything back. I will just leave it and not go back to them again as I don't think anytthing will come of it.

SIMONJM - I'm from Plymouth but currently in Glasgow!! Doing the short drive down their next week even though its cheaper to fly!!!

Cheers