My son managed to get his first job after uni - only 3 months contract but he even travelled overnight to the interview in London and overnight back on the megabus.

Decided he needed to take his car a T reg Clio which isn't in bad condition and I paid out for a leaking driveshaft a couple of new tyres and checked over the car - looked generally ok and was MOTd last March.

After his first week at work he reported a slight noise from the exhaust so I said it looked very decent when he left but pop in in to get it checked over and let me know.

According to KwikFit the exhaust is so dangerous it "could take him out and any other road users behind him" there is also a leaking driveshaft boot that was fine a week ago.

The exhaust is "the wrong sort for the car and only held on by one bolt" I'm pretty sure its just a hanger or maybe two runbbers split.

It "needs a new manifold, new CAT and the rest of the exhaust replacement at a cost of £604 plus £90 for the driveshft boot"

What a joke !!

Can anyone recommend an honest garage around Dartford/Bromley please or anyone that could take a look for me please?

Ian

Yeh I wont go back.

I sent the wife down there for a back box, She phoned me to say they said it needed a FULL exhaust inclueding a cat. They had allready cut the cat of before getting the go ahead. (Cut it of not unbolted the flanges)

I went up the wall and drove it home with no exhaust despite them saying it would kill me and the world, I welded the cat back on and patched the back box and it passed its mot for four years after.

I have heard they where on the scam selling the cats out of the back door for beer money aswell as boosting there sales to meet targets.

[Edited on 22/9/12 by big_wasa]

Its beacuse they are profit driven and thieving bastards,

My best m8 at work, Pamela, had to take her car to VW, as it had a problem, (i was away!)
the car came back "fixed" but with an estimate for about £1300 worth of work for the MOT, that was due later that month
I poo pooed it all, and got the MOT done at my local place, and the bill was one outer CV boot

proves the point, that these "profit driven and thieving bastards" of main dealers, sorry stealers, and i include the kwik fit chains and the like in the same, are nothing more than scum

just my opinion

Are you saying there was nothing wrong with his shock absorbers?
Shameful that they were'nt more thorough!!!

[Edited on 22/9/12 by ReMan]

Avoid

I've heard a few horror stories i'm afraid and they seem to be on a bonus scheme that 'helps' to find things

A single women at work went to them for a 'free' check over and left with a bill of £450

Lady next door took her little jeep to the local garage, she has used them for years for an MOT's and servicing, they came back saying brakes were all shot quoted £650 to replace calipers and pads so she took the car to her fathers and purchased a replacement as the repair cost = its value.

A few months later her father took it to his local garage after it had stood for 2 months, passed first time.

It just goes to show that as garages are running low on work they will even work one on trusting customers, a harsh reality of the recession I am afraid.

These days a second opinion can be a very worthwhile, I note that this garage has also has lot of high end cars that are not shifting on the forecourt so must be down lot every month on devaluation.

if he doesn't mind driving 20-30mins then take it here.

http://www.snodhurstcarsales.co.uk/

its run by a chap called dick he drives a cosworth turbo tiger and is a member of the southern kit car club (not sure if he is registered on here).

they do car sales and have fully fitted out multi bay workshop that does all types of repairs and mot's. they are also trading standards approved and do work for trading standards assessing cars from less reputable garages.

anyway hes a nice trustworthy chap who loves cars and im sure him or one of his boys would be happy to have a look.

It's a dodgey area for that kind of thing and he's probably better off going out of his way a bit into Kent or Essex to find one in an area thats less 'london' if you get me.

If I remember rightly, one of our members lives in Dartford and either did or currently does work as a garage man.

While I would be worried to use an MOT to say whether work needed to be done, I can honestly say I don't trust any chains. Discussions on here suggest my recent Halfords 4 wheel alignment that highlighted my bent rear axle as a 'red' item is actually probably ok. Oh, and the alignment receipt highlights an 'amber' driveshaft problem. I'd love to know how they managed to figure that one out on a 100 yard test drive.

Don't get me started.

This is one of the reasons that I got out of being a motor mech, I was constantly being torn off a strip for not 'selling up' enough of whatever the required flavour of the month was. My problem was, apparently, that I was ONLY reporting as needing to be done, the faults that I could see that needed doing as a matter of some urgency, and, that I should stop putting on my inspection forms that 'other' items would only need further inspection at the next annual inspection.

I could tell you about a regional manager that told a customer (while I was off for a week) that he needed £40+ of repairs to his alternator wiring and a fan belt, when it ONLY needed a fan belt. The depot that I managed, mostly did not hit its targets. We also serviced the cars of Bedfordshire Trading Standards. I got replaced by the 'same' regional manager because I was not hiting targets, however the regional manager did not tell me about this until some 5 months after he had interviewed and employed my replacement, which was some four months after I had found out about his 'secret' plan. The best of it was that they then had to sack the new manager for 'theft' and his replacement then tried it on with one of the trading standards staff cars and as a result the depot got shut down, even making it onto the local anglia tv news with a filmed appology from the then regional manager. Did I laugh at the irony of it....................

JGG

JGG

youve summed it up,

Dealers are Stealer's

god bless the national chains as they supply a steady stream of pissed off customers and poorly repaired cars to the small indepedant,s like me .

funnily enough i had to go and look at a renault 1.5 dci that went into kwit fit for a service and timing belt that suddenly developed a misfire after the belt change .kwik fit then condemned the injectors and fitted four new ones bringing the bill up to just shy of £2000 .

the way the law works you have to give the garage the opportunity to put the mistake right and the car went back for a couple of weeks and was returned to the customer with the same fault although they had replaced the mass airflow meter for some reason .

it was pretty obvious what had gone on and after pulling the belt covers off i found tippex marks on the pulleys so they had replaced the belt without locking the cams and crank

i took some photo,s and explained what had gone on before setting the timing up properly and the owners son went to the branch and asked to see the locking tool kit they used to time the engine up which of course they couldnt produce

he got every penny back from quick fit for his mum plus some high street vouchers

Probably the best fun I had (whilst I was working for an independant) with a main dealer was a VW golf owner who brought his car back to me about two weeks after I had changed the clutch, with a slipping clutch. Apparently 'I had fitted the clutch wrong'.
On stripping and inspection I found the clutch covered in oil, and, a small hole in the diff casing in the gearbox. In the inside of the bell housing I also found a 6mm bolt, all bent and mangled. As I looked up from underneath, the distributor had 1 old dirty bolt and 1 sparkling new clean one holding it in.
On speaking to the customer, it turned out that a couple of day before the clutch went 'faulty' he had had the hall sensor in the distrbutor replaced at the main dealers and it turned out that their 'mechanic' had 'lost' a bolt. The one that I found in the bell housing. Guess who paid for a gearbox and clutch.

Another example was failing a car on worn brake pads when taken out the thinnest pad was measured its' thinnest point at only 30% worn.

They get away with it because the MOT appeal procedure is rarely used because it isn't workable.

most of the spurious work that these chains come up with is pointed out before they actually do the mot as they leave themselves wide open to trouble if they test and actually fail these things that dont need doing , ive noticed that the suspension bounce check has gone from the test and at present if a component isnt in imminent danger of failure then it should be advised rather than failed .

Some local independants are arseholes too.
Local taxi driver took his Mondeo into a local garage four weeks ago.
They couldn't find the problem, so. . .
So far he has paid for a new replacement engine but that didn't fix it. He then paid out over £500 for a new set of injectors, after they brought in outside auto electrical bods, who decided this was the problem.
Four weeks later the car is still there, not working and he has bought a new car before he loses all his regular customers.
I told him to sue the arse off them.

You can't get thicker than a Kwik Fit fitter!!!

My sisters 206 went into a Nationwide Autocentre (now Halfords) to have the headgasket changed. It came out 1 week later hardly running and smoking badly with the garage saying it was beyond repair and a bill for £600. Turned out they had fitted the timing belt wrong and bent a few valves in the process. It was only when i got involved did they back down and ended up sending it to another garage for a proper repair at their expense. The tossers even tried to fob me off with some rubbish before they knew i knew what i was talking about.

[Edited on 22/9/12 by Davegtst]

My sister took her Corsa in for a service at Vauxhall a couple of months ago. They warned her that there were major problems with the suspension and it won't pass its next MOT. That would be the car that they themselves had given an all clear on its MOT two weeks earlier. I think it was the bushings. They don't go from fine to completely knackered within two weeks.

been taking the family cars to Halfords/Autocenter for the last few years to make use of Tesco vouchers. Anyways, previous year car failed on headlamp aim and was somat like £12:50 each to adjust. No thanks i'll tweek it myself. Day later and no adjustments made, car tested and passed, same garage....funny innit!!!!
This year my wifes car fails on the same thing, same answer, no I'll adjust them myself and save a whopping £30 for a few seconds work this time. Day later takes the car back and they don't even check !!!!! MOT issued
Straight on the phone to VOSA and report the scam. Ask VOSA for details on the station on most common failures they see there, but they are "unable" to provide such info. I'll not be going back to the station ever again..........
How many people do they con like this....nice little earner by the sounds of it
Money making scam reliant on peoples lack of motoring knowledge, must be worth £millions up and down the country !!!!

Never suprises me when i hear quotes like this, especially shit-fit.

I've used the same MOT test station for the last 33 yrs (Berkeley MOT,Cranford) They are just an MOT testing station, they do hold a small stock of wipers and bulbs as well as tyres at very reasonable prices.
My point is that many of the large chain tyre and exhaust fitting centres will attempt to nail you just like a lot of main dealers.

I like the fact that the MOT station i use give me information about whatever car i am having tested, eg what to look out for in future and provisionals to watch for the following year.