rip off merchants

[robb]

Dropped my daughter off at the local car centre and went home .She phoned me and said her Chrysler voyager had failed its Mot on handbrake and a hole in her exhaust, so she was leaving it to be fixed.Low and behold half an hour later she got a phone call saying it would cost £700 to put right .Automatically I went into WTF mode and told her to phone them back saying that she would pick up and Sorn the car until she could afford to have it done .While we were on our way to the garage she had another phone call to say they had managed to sort both problems out and it would only cost £70 .When she spoke to the mechanic who did her car he said he reclamped the exhaust and sorted the handbrake ,and that the guy in the office was always trying it on so in the end it cost her £70 and the price of the Mot was included in that I. keep warning her about these places but she thinks everyone is honest.

[Welly]

That's quite common I'm sadly. Some of these places need the income if things have got slack and 'pick on' whoever they think they can

It's a bit like the 'service centres' which offer to check the thickness of your discs for 'free' and then offer to tell you the car is dangerous and they wouldn't recommend it travels another 3 feet without a complete brake overhaul costing £600.00+

[steve_earwig]

Tossers I'd really like to name and shame these sorts of crooks on here but the madness is no+one wants to do that because it'd be your word against theirs Could you just allude to the place - town, vague location, etc.?

I've just been off looking to see if anyone's doing this on a site located in foreign parts - nope. There's always the Good Garage Scheme but it appears all they need to do to appear on this is sell Forte products

Btw nice sig Welly

[steve_earwig]

I've been checking out this Good Garage Scheme, they are meant to sell Fawlty products but the customer is allowed to opt out of using it, there's also a feedback form on the GGS website - hopefully this is real and they don't just go in the recycle bin... Not wonderful but better than a kick in the breadtray hopefully.

This is my dad's local garage: http://www.goodgaragescheme.co.uk/garag ... k/MzEwMA==

Also, there's no reason why we can't recommend GOOD garages on this forum

[TRAVIS BICKLE]

I ran my own garage, doing servicing and repairs for about 3 years. The business failed as I'm too honest I couldn't make enough money to survive. I just coulnt rip anyone off and my hourly rate was very reasonable. The workshop was broken into twice and equipment stolen. All my mates expected work done for next to nothing and I'm not really the kind if person that can say no.

I would have probably done a lot better and still been in busines if I'd had someone running the front desk and me just weilding the spanners. I was so disheartened I now drive for a living, although I still look after family and friends cars.

[FarmerPug]

main garages know how to charge i have an aunt who is an accountant and drives a 1 series but it gets serviced every time at bmw sometimes the cheapest service is £200 the key was lost and all the locks were replaced at £1500, it may mean there is a good service history but there has been enough spent on that car to keep a fleet of 406s running till the end of time.

and the hilux got its door damaged and although it was insured the bill was about £1100 and for that the old door card, mechanisms, window winders, mirror, handles etc were reused. on the bill it said invincible decal and 3.0d4d decal the pair of stickers cost over £100.

[robb]

Tossers I'd really like to name and shame these sorts of crooks on here but the madness is no+one wants to do that because it'd be your word against theirs Could you just allude to the place - town, vague location, etc.?

I've just been off looking to see if anyone's doing this on a site located in foreign parts - nope. There's always the Good Garage Scheme but it appears all they need to do to appear on this is sell Forte products

Btw nice sig Welly

Due to legal reasons for myself and the forum I cannot name and shame them much as Id like to as they are the big time boys:frown: .but what does bug me is I have a mate who is a self employed time served mechanic who Ive known since I was six and he sometimes struggles some weeks to earn a crust he too is a bit too honest for his own good .My daughter didnt use him this time as the one she booked in at was near her place of work hopefully she will have learned her lesson .

[D9406]

My son has got a beemer and it had thrown up an engine fault light and kept stalling. I phoned the garage he bought it from who said it was a crankshaft sensor and it was a 6 hour job to change, it is I checked, and would be a minimum £500 to fix possibly more. I poppped it to the garage I use who read the fault for free, it was a cam sensor, cleared the fault and said that if it happened again bring it back so that they could see what fault codes were showing and then go from there. Car hasn't played up since.
So the indy beemer garage misdiagnosed, admitedly over the phone, quoted a high labour rate and when I questioned the cost said "If you can't afford it you shouldn't be driving one."
Maybe not rip off merchants but once the car was out of sight would the correct diagnosis have been made and the same action have been taken, I wonder.

[jasper5]

Come on guys get real

I've been in the car repair business, successfully, without ripping people off, and being totally honest for 31 years!!!!!!!!

There are rip-off people about, everyone knows that, but you don't stay in business for 31 years without being good at your job and your prices being reasonable.

You don't have to be dishonest to make money in any business. I find it offensive to insinuate that you must be a rip-off merchant if you make money

Regarding the BMW....I had a similar thing with my next door neighbour's 523i....I had the management light on, code related to camshaft sensor but there are 2 of them and one of them is under the inlet manifold and a real pain to get at...lots of time to change it

After changing these cam sensors the cam sensor code went away but was replaced with another that was very confusing....to cut a long story short...the fault turned out to be the throttle body siezed requiring removal of the inlet manifold, an absolute pain of a job.

I only charged him for repairing the throttle body fault and the 2 cam sensors even though I was quite in my rights to charge for the considerable amount of labour time taken to replace the cam sensors.

I didn't charge for the code read either.

[D9406]

Not having a pop at you at all Jasper. It was the attitude of the BMW garage that anoyed me, he operates from a small unit and may well be good but it was his if you have to ask for a quote a Beemers too good for you that annoyed me. The other garage specialises in french cars and are very good, they ring round for spares prices, charge £50 an hour labour which is fine considering the service they provide, pick ups drop offs loan cars etc and work quickly keeping labour costs down. I would recommend them to anyone, no problem.
I've no problem with people making money at all. There are good garages and bad ones, the bad ones dont last very long and to be in the buisness as long as you, you must be doing something right.
And yes BM's can be a pain in the ass. It is an 03 318 2.0 and to get to the crankshaft sensor everything has to come off, hence a 5 hour job the camshaft sensors are dead easy on the front of the block with nothing in the way. Funnily enough he likes my estate because it swallows all his golf and cricket kit easily, I'm trying to persuade him to buy a 2.2.
Sorry if I offended you I didn't mean to at all