Rip off MOT and servicing

I live in Calgary,Alberta I took my truck to Vintage Automotive to have some minor work for an oil leak and a proportioning valve.I told the young man at the counter about all this and stressed that I need a proportioning valve.Fred Armstrong calls a few hours later and says she is ready to go.I get there and it's raining Fred tells me that it was the tappet covers and he resealed them and fixed the leak.I was charged 110 per hour,my bill came to 180.00 on the bill It said checked brake operation and needs proportioning valve,that cost me 110.00 for something I had already stated and no proportioning valve was put in.Next day I see a leak do the tappet covers myself and see that they were never touched as it took me sometime to get the old gasket off and found that the leak was coming from a cracked oil sensor line,so for as pricing I would pay top dollar to any honest caring professional mechanic who took a little pride in his or her job.and did the correct and honest thing for the customer and the safety of our kids and fellow motorists.If I hit my brakes too hard the wheels lock and I skid,all the mechanics say that I will have to go to a wreckers to get my part,just to stop safely.

I understand, all sides of the story. I also don't like to pay a fortune but I just gave my old vehicle to my daughter and wanted to make sure it was safe for her, yep I think the costs where extremely high as when I was a mechanic years ago I knew how the profit magins work, but costs rise and so do parts etc. So extra money or low level safety which would you choose. I chose the money, cos it guaranteed the safety.

My husband owns an independant garage and sympathise with the Rochdale garage. The labour cost does not just cover the mechanics wages-it also covers all the overheads involved- I agree their are some 'cowboys' (do a cheap job using cheap parts and have no qualifications)out there but they are slowly being weeded out and most reputable garages, llike us, will give their customer a fair deal....if customers are unhappy they need to lobby goverment so that every garage meet a recognised standard..any good garage would be happy to comply.

You say you were charged £294 for six and a half hours work. Work done by mechanics who have the cushy job of getting themselves filthy, lying on cold floors crawling under cars all day long.
Firstly, you seem to have the experience to say this job should have took only three hours. Therefore could you have done this work yourself. If you were not capable or couldn't be bothered, then don't complain.
Secondly, how long do you think you would have spent in a dentist's surgery or even worse, obtaining the work of a solicitor to rack up a bill of £294 (perhaps about ten minutes for the latter)
Think about which services really rip people off. How about the ones that charge us £50 to fill a few forms in. Although I have no connections with the motor industry I did work in an industry which charged about he same if not a little more than them and they had to invest in very expensive equipment & years of employee training to carry out their line of work. More expensive than a pen to push anyway.

I am a Aftersales Manager for a franchised dealer, we spend alot of money on Brand training, Equipment and special tools, Have customer who have spent alot of money with fred in the shed and want us to repair the vehicle for cheap, we can justify our preimum, does Fred have any quality checks, are they measured by their customer satisfaction, do they offer courtesy cars the answer to most will be NO. The amount of call we get from Fred about technical information when they by parts and then they return the parts because its not fixed. I do feel sorry for customer who get bum deals, I have always worked in the aftersales side of the business, I want my customer treated fairly all the time by my staff. We have a measure for customer satisfaction and we are rate in the top 10 in the 90%, Reality check we can not please all of them, but we are quick to resolve any justified issue or complaints, we have independent auditors looking at our business and processes, so to summarise we invest in people and you pay for the experience and getting the job carried out correct with complaints procedures if needed.

A garage called trade tyres in sandhurst ripped me of big time. I had to sell my nearly new car after their bill. They were liar and charged me £1200 labout and were asking for £1800 for part.
The owner was rude and even told me that he would sue me if I dispute.
I would advice everyone to be away from them.

I had my Vans MOT done at a Council run Garage and it only failed on the emissions. I had the work done to repair the problem (blocked injectors), by their recommended garage as council don't do repairs. Anyway as the 2 week retest time was up by now I decided before taking the van back to the council run MOT station that I would have the emissions checked at a third garage accross the road from me. Here lies my problem, the emissions test came back as passed, great so I thought it'll pass now. the third garage said "as the Van is here would you like us to MOT it for you." well as they had done a free emissions test and because the garage was 3 minutes from my house I agreed. The Van failed again only this time on a list of things the length of my arm. At this point I told them that I had had the MOT done by a Council run garage just over two weeks earlier and the only fault was the emissions and everything else had passed, therefore I'll take it back there for yet another test, as it should now pass. to which he replied that I did not owe them anything for the test I had just had. and that was that, I left.
My Question is are these garages deliberately inventing problems with vehicles, to boost profits or is the Council run MOT station not doing a thorough test?

"To ensure the warrenty I had to bring my 11 month old car to Nissan in Dartford and was told that the service charge would be £280.00"

You have been misled. You DONT have to take a car to any specific garage to retain the warranty - this practice was made illegal a few years ago. You can take the car anywhere - some dealers ask that they carry out a yearly (free) inspection for certain elements such as paintwork warranty but you can service any new car anywhere.

We bought an ex demo Renault Clio from Tates in Brighton. When it was 2 yrs 11 months old we took it back for its "free" MOT for life. We were told one rear spring was cracked and would need replacing but when challenged Tates stated that Renault would not replace the items ("they must be replaced in pairs sir") despite the fact the 3 yr warranty had not expired. I took the car away and phoned Renault who said of course the items would be replaced under warranty. On relaying this to Tates they then said that they could only replace one of the pair of springs under warranty as that was all that was necessary. It also turned out that the car was not just a demonstrator but had been lent out as a courtesy car and had been involved in a number of minor accidents. The salesman stated it was accident free! Guess who will never darken the door of this company ever again.

check out www.findmeagarage.co.uk.

It has a directory of most UK garages where you can search for your local one. There are ratings and reviews too so you can see how good they are.

Do not buy a new car from Nissan. To ensure the warrenty I had to bring my 11 month old car to Nissan in Dartford and was told that the service charge would be £280.00. WHY? It is a new car. They have us by the balls. Nothing can justify the way they treat their customers. I will never buy another car from Nissan. NEVER.

The worst culprits are the franchised dealers.
My Nissan has developed a fault where the windscreen wipers when used,remain on until the ignition is switched off. The local auto electrical repair shop declined the repair due to the unavailabilty of Nissan technical data.
The Nissan dealer agreed to run the diagnosis program on the car for a minimum charge of £74.
After less than half an hour they diagnosed an internal fault in the wiper motor. Their only solution was a new motor complete with linkages, an estimated cost including labour of £300.
The motor itself is working perfectly, but due to a policy of always replace and never repair (sound like a good green option !!!!) the garage is benefitting enormously from the failure of a minor electronic component probably valued in pennies.