Garage ignored my wishes

Heating, car space, disposal of old parts, lighting, hourly fees for professionals and new parts.....you have a justifyable bill.

Don't forget that you are paying for all of these things aswell as your new parts.

Besides, people very rarely ask for an approx bill, they just allow work to happen and then throw a fuss when they hear the costs.

I do understand where people are coming from though.

After having broken down in a busy area in the rush hour, l had my car towed by the emergency services to the nearest garage which did repairs. My car is an S reg peugeot 106 whose clutch had gone. I expected a bill of around £200 going on previous experience. (a new clutch kit is only around £90.) What l got was a jar dropping bill for £430, which included four and a half hours labour!!
Can this be right? is there anything l can do apart from warn others about this?

To those people who insist on buying their own parts for their cars, I suggest they fit them theirselves. You do not take your own food to a restaurant and ask them to cook it for you - so why should you buy some crappy cheap parts that take the engineers at the garage twice as long to fit, because they only fit where they touch!!!!!
Conciencious, good garage owners often know the pitfalls with cheap parts and should refuse to fit them.

If you've bought a high performance and rather expensive car, wouldnt you rather pay extra for good parts that you know will be good enough for the car ?

Thanks all. This is the first information that I have had which gives me positive advice and a direction to follow. I admit I was naive to be so trusting and take the garage on their word. I have been to a garage used by my uncle to have the car checked over. They highlighted the CV boots and the engine mounts and showed me them.. I have since paid them a visit and they are adamant that the use of a paddle clutch would not cause undue wear on the engine mounts. They have said they have experience in building GT1 race cars and know nothing of this. They were adamant that it was impossible that the spark plugs were not changed. "The list has them ticked off". Only accepted it when I suggested that I thought they could have been overlooked it. The older team member denied seeing any wear on the track rod ends but his partner(his son) though this was a claim to far and corrected him saying that there was wear on the track rod ends. They refused to accept that the 8 month old weeping CV boot was theirs. Then when they did accept it after I reminded them they did it whilst I waited a few minutes. They still wouldn't accept that it had been applied using the cut and stick method rather than the long method. They concluded they owed me a set of sparks and that they'd sort something out in terms of getting the engine mounts sorted out. Lost a lot of faith in them had none of it restored after visiting them. They were only interested in supporting their actions rather than addressing my issues but overall they are very good at being nice about things which makes things that bit more difficult.

You need to know if this garage guarantee their work as all reputable garages should do.

I myself am a self employed mobile mechanic and if I do any repair or service I offer the customer their old parts in a carrier bag if they so require them. That way they can see the parts being supplied. The only thing I omit from the carrier bag is the old oil filter as this needs to be disposed of correctly as it still has around 1/2 ltr of old oil saturated in the filter.

A letter to the trading standards would not be such a bad thing. They say they ordered the clutch already and couldnt cancel it but did you give authority for them to order it? If not then they have done that off their own back and it is down to them to suffer the consequences.

My strong advise would be to take your car to another garage and get a second opinion on the repairs carried out. Most garages will give you an honest report about another garage as they normally view you as a new customer and want "one over the other garage". They will feel that they are nicking you as a customer from the other garage so they will not lie about things.

Sorry this garage has again dragged the motor repair industry name into the gutter. I can assure you that we are not all like them!!

Cheers

Jason

I concur with John on this. They should be able to at least give you some sound advice on the matter. These rip-off garages need to be governed some how because they've been getting away with this for way too long now. I personally advocate some sort off a public rating system and spot checks from an industry body!

Sounds like a trading standards phone call is needed.

Ring your local centre, and ask for advice.