Just wondered how people felt about leaving there Impreza in a local garage or body shop etc for work to be done on there cars or just a simple mot?

I go everywhere my Impreza goes. Only once i left it in a body shop for a few hours.

Mainly i think i don't trust places. You here stories like the Scooby Clinc pot holes and i know of a sprayer who was telling me about driving a customers Focus RS.

 

Any time I take any car to a garage and if I know I won't have eyes on it at all times, I will take a picture of the current milage. If there is any more than a mile on top of what I dropped it off with, you can bet I will be having words with the garage.

I once dropped my old van off for a small problem and when I went back, the guy said he had taken it out for about 20 miles to try and replicate the problem, which he didn't even manage to somehow! At no point had anybody suggested to me the van would be leaving the garage. I don't think it's right they would take somebody else's vehicle on the open road without their knowledge. After that was when I started with the pictures.

So I guess you can add me to the untrustworthy camp.

 

I only use garages that have a good rep.

I also take pictures of mileage etc.

The pothole incident at the clinic certainly didn't do them any favours BUT I used them this year for some diagnostic work and a power run and they were absolutley faultless. I'm a big believer in the fact that **** does happen sometimes beyond the managers/owners control BUT it's how they deal with it afterwards that seperates the good from the bad.

I use thwaites alot as its 20 mins from my house and earlier this year I lent mark my car for him to use to iron out a few niggles so he was using it as his daily car. I have complete faith in the guys at thwaites and never had a reason to not trust them.

I also use Chevron motorsport, I spent a great deal of money with them earlier this year and my car was there 3 weeks,I got regular updates from Simon and he never did anything extra without confirming the price with me. I even got a follow up email a week or so after picking it up to make sure everything was ok.

Scoobyclinic,Thwaites,Chevron are the only guys I use now.

 

 

Do most of the work needed myself.
If it goes to a garage for mot it gets the 'driving miss daisy' remap

 

The problem with Scoobyclinic was compounded by the owner failing to support the client, suggesting he was trying it on. There is no way I could trust that. Any business can have an issue with a client, **** happens; but it's how the business puts the issue right that matters.

 

I was wondering if to have a garage map. Could I make it so it doesn't rev over 3000 rpm?

 

Funnily enough, my Subaru is back in the garage today at the Main Stealers. Hate leaving it, but don't have a choice.

 

I do all my own work, Except MOT's.

 

I don't mind, as long as the garage is trusted. MOTs are done at the place at the end of the road, so they would have to drive past my office to do anything with it.

Mine's at TDR now, although I had to trailer it there for it's service as the immobiliser has died. I'm at work. This is purely down to this forum, as that many people being happy with them generally means they're OK.
I use a local company called Stealth Racing for my VW/Audi work. I've known the owner for many years, and have no problem leaving my car with them.

 

I have dash cam as a set of eyes for when i'm not around my WRX. I have it wired into the fusebox with all wires hidden away, it's compact and is obscured from the drivers view as its behind the rear view mirror. Everytime the ignition is on it will start recording and it also has a parking monitor mode which will turn the camera on and start recording for 1 minute if it detects any bumps or vibrations. It also records GPS speed and location. The parking monitor can record up to half and hour of video as it has an internal battery. I also set the camera so the screen times out after 10 seconds and all sounds are off so it's quite stealthy and doesn't attract any attention.

I did have a dashcam in my wife's car when it went in for a service and MOT which wasn't hardwired and it was unplugged out of the cigarette lighter socket which i only noticed upon getting the car home but the parking monitor mode still recorded a few clips. Not the reason I purchased a dashcam, but useful nonetheless in situations where i leave the car in the hands of others.

 

 

 

The reason I'm asking this as I'm going to have to leave my car in a garage soon for about 4 days, and they have a few young lads there that love Impreza's

I've bought a dash cam but yours sounds a lot better spec what you have as wanted gps aswell.

But I like your thinking. I liked Rockies idea of checking the miles, but this sounds more down my street.

 

i never leave my cars anywhere, i do all the work myself apart from mot's (obviously), a few years back i took my mondie ST for its mot , it was properly warmed up (20 minute drive from my house) and the mot tester decided to rev the nuts off it and i went ape ****, stormed through into the "garage", told him to GTFO my promptly left, wrote a letter to the owner who apologised and send me voucher for £100 IIRC

anytime they say "dropping it off or waiting?", im waiting pal............................................... .and watching

 

 

I'm glad I'm not on my own here. When I take mine for mot I wait by the garage door. Lol not sure what my mot guy thinks.

He does take it down the road to test the brakes, but he owns a track car and an evo so I'm not to worried.

If the cat needs warming up he tells me go take it for a blast. Car needs body work doing that's out of my skill league.

 

Not on esl.
I just turn the boost right down

 

My dashcam is one of these, has great mobile app which let's you watch and download videos without taking it out the car or removing the memory card, might want to wait for a discount to come up which is when I got it for around £70-£80. Had mine about a year and I can't fault it, have the same camera in both my cars:

Anker Roav Dash Cam C1 Pro, 2K Resolution 2560X1440, Built-In GPS/WiFi, 2.4" LCD, 4-Lane Wide-Angle View Lens, G-Sensor, WDR, Loop Recording, 2-Port Charger, 32G microSD Card, Easy Sharing https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B072FVX74Q/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_p88TBbRVC9T28

Grab a hardwire kit (£8) and the appropriate piggy back fuse kit (£4 to £6) off Amazon and you are sorted. I can link those bits if needed.

 

Am I Local?

 

Ah ok cheers, do you have to be close to it to download videos i guess?

 

Ditto on both points

​​​​​​​Tony

 

unhook the actuator arm then no boost

 

I always use a couple a good local independents for MOTs (And check the mileage before and after) then Tim Farmer does everything else on the driveway.
Find someone you trust and stick with them.

 

Yeah it works a reasonable distance away but practically I usually pull clips off onto my phone when I get home while still in the car. Easy to just quickly connect my phone and get the clips off I want. It's got a quick disconnect mount so you take it indoors to get the clips off wirelessly if you want to get alot of them off. You can plug it into your smart TV or PC if it's got USB ports and just watch the videos on those. The video quality is great, even at night.

 

My car is not as important as my children or grand children. So don't give a flying f*#k as I live in the real world.

 

Not very confident in leaving my STI with any garage due to negative experiences with 2 supposed specialists in the past.

1st time had to drive it up a very bumpy track and leave it there for 3 days to cure an ABS problem. Car had 3/4 tank of fuel,avg mpg in high 29's established over a few thou miles). Collected it the following Monday with fuel light on,only 53 additional miles on the clock,ave mpg in 23's,lower arm bushes fcuked and a wheel on with rotational tyre facing the wrong because I had an apparent puncture. Safe to say that no more money was spent there and the only explanation I was offered was "it's been extensively road tested!"
2nd time I used a 'Subaru specialist' under recommendation in West Mid's. A disgruntled customer tried to torch the place while my car was in there overnight. Had parts that are expensive to replace removed from my car during an engine build and not returned,when I confronted the owner about it I was threatened with a home visit to sort it out. Ended up with all my working parts sent back to me in shoddy packaging smashed beyond use or sale.
I do my own work on my car now because of chancers like this.

 

We're not asking ppl not to do their job correctly, we're just making sure our cars are treated in the correct manner without some spanner monkey mistreating it.

 

thats ****ing shocking mate, who are these specialists? pm me if you prefer.

i would love it for somebody to threaten me with a home visit.............2 can play at that game lol.
i see your in warwick,if you ever do need a garage then i highly recommend thwaites racing developments, mark,tony and michael are are top bunch and i have never ever heard of a bad word about them.

 

My local garage used to be a Subaru dealer, so they know the cars very well - although I don't think they take on a lot of custom work or modifications. I'm happy to leave the car with them though. What I will say though and this goes for all my cars; I never take a car to a garage unless I can specify exactly what I want them to do and provide the parts where possible. So with the Scooby, it's usually either jobs I can't do or ones I don't want to (such as replacing the front O2 sensor which invariably requires a lot of heat or a new bung welded in). I'd never take a car to a garage and let them diagnose a fault and replace parts carte blanche.

Wherever possible I will attempt to do the work myself. It may take me the whole weekend to do a simple job but that's because I take my time carefully undoing stuff and making sure it's all put back together properly, tigthened/torqued as specified, using the right parts. Spent too much time pissing about with cars where "professional" have bodged jobs, overtightened fittings, cross-threaded nuts, parts missing etc.