with 20,000 members,wont a few work in a dealership? We could start a new forum,where you could post the quoted price and the members who have access to price lists can check it?

 

i work in a dealership and i agree that screenwash can be a touchy subject but people who blatently mark things and seal things with the view of catching people out are sub human imo all you need do is check it when you get home then politely ring the garage and query it people who come back with a massive attitude problem get no where at most places including ours but the people who understand that mistakes do happen because we are all human get a lot further.

 

I service my own Scoob. I don't trust any car dealers they will rip you off every chance they get. Mistakes are not to be tolerated, when you are talking about machines that can kill if brake pads etc are not replaced, when you are told that they have been. If a chef makes a "mistake" you could end up with Ecoli. If a mechanic makes a mistake other road users and pedestrians can end up dead. Forget this "only human" cr@p, if you can't do your precision job at 100% all the time, then you shouldn't be working on a car, or whatever.

 

I agree with the last comment 100%. Mistakes may happen, but should not be tolerated where safety is concerned. Considering the financial side, charging for parts or work that has not been carried out is fraud, plain and simple, and should be treated as such. If we can't have confidence in the factory-trained professionals, who can we trust?

 

I wonder about Trading Standards. I also wonder about computers. This wouldn't work for screen wash or brake pads, but it would certainly work for inflated parts prices. Surely all dealer invoices are done on computer these days, and an electronic record kept for X months? In which case, if Trading Standards heard of a problem, I wonder if they have the power to get records of the receipts of the past 6 months and check them against "real" prices to see if and how much they have been inflated. Trouble is, law of contract; I would guess if the customer agrees to pay 300 notes for brake pads when they are officially only 200, as long as the customer doesn't know they should be 200, then I don't see anything there that is illegal, just unpleasant.

 

Well the invoices are done on the computer, but I have a theory they have different rates for different people! So the wage rate etc can vary.

The problem with servicing is it costs a lot of money and we don't know enough about the subject, to know if we are being stitched up or not. Yes mistakes can be made but most people have a horror story to tell which seems remarkable.

 

When we imported our first FTO many years ago we where surprised by the cost of the Mitsubishi auto box oil (only available from them), so we phoned around and were astonished at the price for 5 litres of oil.
Dealer 1 £55.00 plus vat
Dealer 2 £60.00 plus vat
Dealer 3 £84.50 plus vat
Seams they make up their own prices.

 

you can get killed by anyone who undertakes a manual job not just mechanics so don't lay that one on us. everybody makes mistakes even you engineers, i could probably end up dead cos of something you failed to notice but i'm not on here whining about it and saying i have to do it myself because it's done better. if i had to buy your car or a main dealer serviced one your gonna lose out cos as far as i'm concerned you don't know enough about it to know that it is safe.




'

 

Took my FTO to a Ralliart dealer for a service & find the cause of my squealing brakes, they failed to notice that my front brake pads were worn down to the metal.
Rang up & complained & they agreed to fit them for free, went back & got brake pads fitted, started to drive home & they were still squealing but I thought the new pads just needed bedding in.
Checked the brakes when I got home & the rears were also worn down to the metal & they'd failed to spot that too ffs.
Complained to Mitsi UK but they failed to take any notice.
I could sort of understand this from a normal garage, but not from one of their 'specialist' performance garages.
Service all my cars myself now...

 

people who blatently mark things and seal things with the view of catching people out are sub human imo

Cant say i agree with that opinion at all. Why are customers, yes CUSTOMERS, sub human because they dont trust someone to do a job? and in the case mentioned, such a practice subsequently found blatant ripping off. If people were honest about things then such practices would not be needed. Marking things etc is only the same as trading standards would do during a check, are they sub human too?

Granted a customer who gets the wrong end of the stick and goes off on one is a total nuisance, but mostly thats all it is. A customer being ripped off to the tune of £100s even £1000s of pounds is a tad more than a nuisance event.

Find it quite sickening that SOME "skilled" people trade on the publics general ignorance and fleece them, thereby giving the impression that youll be lucky not to be taken advantage of when requiring their service, in whatever profession.

 

Subhuman?

I only marked it as the previous time the car was serviced there I couldn't prove that they hadn't bothered to change some parts, the plugs in fact.

So that time I thought I would prove it one way or the other. I would say the subhumans are garage owners/technicians who try to blatantly rip off customers.

I agree that having an attitude problem will get you nowhere but complaining about being blatantly ripped off is hardly having an attitude problem. Any chance of naming the garage you work in so I can avoid it?

[Edited by NACRO - 4/26/2003 6:52:32 AM]

 

Too many garages invent work at our cost. Do what ever you think necessary to catch them out. Buy a cheap FM style "Bug for £20.00 and mount it in the engine bay. Sit inlisten to what ever the mechanics are talking about..in your car down the road. Not legal....but nore is been a thieving monkey.

 

Marking of parts etc is a well-known practice and I for one always do it. How else can you verify that parts have been removed and replaced without standing over them? If workshops and their employees have nothing to hide then they should have no problem with the customer (who pays their wages) taking a few sensible precautions to ensure that their hard-earned cash isn't being handed over to crooks and thieves. As far as safety is concerned, I have experience of a brake safety check being carried out (allegedly) by mechanics who must have been magicians too as they managed to remove the wheels and inspect the brakes without touching the wheelnuts....

 

One main dealer wanted 2hrs to fit a prodrive quick shift @ £70 ph + the dreaded....= nearly 200$$ When I questioned this they said it was a two hour job and that was standard.......Cheam motors did it in 1hr.....said it was standard charge of 1hr 15 minutes @ 50$ ph hr, cost me less than 80 quid seemed to be right. no rip off from them just for the record. and a job well done while I waited.

 

I used to own a fiesta turbo, and the rest of my family had fords. Everytime a car went in for a service at the main dealer, we ALWAYS got a call saying the pads and the discs needed changing. Always said no and had a look for ourselves, literally loads of life left in each component each time.

 

scoobynutta - yep, my thread "dealer servicing" shows the same behaviour

 

just seems then a lot of people are very insecure and can't trust other people

 

I am a qualified mechanic who has worked in a few garages from a Family run business to a cowboy enterprise..
I would agree with the fact that some garages do rip you off but if you think about the cost of running and maintaining a garage then you might be able to have half an idea as to why the costs off servicing has gone up/is alot.

If 2 mechanics work on ya car for 1 1/2 hrs each and do a full service, by this i mean oil and filter, plugs,leads,air filter and fuel filter, check brakes all round with wheels off and check all other things like lights,wipers,horn,door locks,exhaust and its mounts, then find they have to change a set of pads and discs.

Right you get a bill for x amount...just think the garage has to pay the 2 mechanics for the 3 hrs, the garage had to supply the ramp to do the service on, had to supply the electrcity for the lights that the mecahnics used.
He had to buy the parts in at trade plus vat and had to supply any specialist tools like air guns and high impact sockets.

Snap-ons cheapest air gun is over £250 plus vat....
And a rail of impact sockets is £100 or so.

Then you get a bill for lets say £270.
Cheap when u consider some of the things garage owners have to pay for, i know you dont think that electricity is something you have to be charged for but it still is an overhead to him as is water and gas to heat the place.

Simple but it has to be paid for.

I have a few mates who run garages and it works tghe other way as well, one is owe over £200,000 since sept last yr due to people who dont pay/cant pay.

If you dont trust a garage then find another.
I have an Rs turbo escort and had my engine rebuilt which cost over £1800 and died within a yr, i now have a garage i trust and was happy to spend another £1300 to have it built to my spec and im very happy.

 

It's not the pathetic attempts to rip me off that pi$$es me off at garages, it's the sheer damn incompetence taht gets may gander.

Like my wifes golf TDi that went in for a service and dumped about 3 gallons of diesel on my drive as they had left the fuel filter loose. Or the time I collected a car and the front wheel nut were loose - eg had about 2 turns of thread into the nuts. or the time my new saphire cossie had the bolts on the turbo sheared and odd bolts slung in to bodge it up. Or the time the fuel rail bolts were left out allowing the fuel to leak from the injectors...... need I go on?

 

Scoobyboy, I worked for Lotus for six years as a mechanic, I know how to service my car.

 

JoeRST

A garage is set up as a business it works out it's costs and sets pricing accordingly to meet these costs.

Of course a garage has to supply the equipment needed to do the job. That's why a customer pays xxx per hour and parts are marked up at xx percent.

All business have overheads they are covered in the mark up.

In your example lets assume 3 hours @ £40 an hour labour. I don't think anyone on here is so nieve they believe 'labour' is simply the mechanics pay (i.e £83,200 a year based on a 40hour week!) Labour charges include the overheads of the business.

The nature of the job is the 'overhead' has to be measured in £ vs. hour hence we get hourly charges. Quite simply if a garge operating costs are £100,000 a year then the garge needs to make c£2000 a week, £400/day on a 5 day week, 10 hours a day they need to charge £50 an hour.

As a business it will have set up costs and these will need to be repayed and included in the operating costs.

To say a bill is 'cheap' because the garage have to buy the stuff in the first instance is a bit short sighted. they recoup this in the rates they charge.

Matt.

 

i shouldnt think many people mind about hourly rates so much, as long as whats being done IS done. In a number of cases this isnt the fact.

One trip from a service from FORD i had to tighten up jubilee clips from intercooler as they were totally lose, and making the weirdest noise, i didnt even complain.

 

and i don't suppose you had any comebacks at all did you

 

I'd never give a garage my 4.5 liters of special oil to be put in the car at service time. I would never know if the mechanic had taken it home instead and replaced it with the garage 'one size fits all' oil.

I'd agree that if you know the hourly rate up front and what is going to be replaced IS replaced, then it's fair.

F

 

I wasn't working on customers cars!

 

Hi all

great now i can tell you a few tales

we wil cover the wifes car first
rover 216 gti twin cam (honda engine)
it needed a cam belt change the prices were as follows
Rover dealer (main) £250 ex vat
Independant garage £200 ex vat
Honda dealer (main) £117 inc vat + parts!!!

guess who got the job took em 2 hours and the car was ready to the minute they said it would (2 hrs)

now the scooby
2.0 gl wagon (no mods)
scooby main dealer £350 ex vat
reason they need it for half a day?? and the belt was £100
that means 250 for 3 hrs work... yea right and to add more salt..
i could have a cam service (change oil and plugs) cost another £100 are they kidding!!!


Independant (AA garage) £171 inc parts + vat
and if AA member -10%

only exception was if the tensioner needed doing that would be on top

guess who got the work!!

as it was the car went in at 2.30 and at 4.30 they phoned to say it was ready... total time allowed on the book 1.7 hrs
and less my 10% it came to £154 result

If main dealers want to promote themselves better they should offer value for money.. and not rely on £20,000 cars need £2000 services on them!!

think about it xxxx car main dealer only covers that car as long as they have the franchise... a local dealer near me has been a ford garage a rover garage and a toyota garage!!

keep em coming

Mart

 

Bottom line is that with main line dealers, with warranties linked to having your car serviced by them they have got you by the short and curlies. Just as an interest point, hourly rate for maintaining a large passenger jet, about £30 an hour!!!