Garages seem to think that they have a licence to print money.

I have been having a problem with my Hyundai Trajet’s brakes.

A year ago I took the car to the local dealer in Ipswich because of a problem with vibrations; the car was still under warrantee from an independent trader with whom I was in dispute. The main dealer traced it down to sticking callipers that had warped all the disks and ruined the pads. For this pleasure I was charged £680!!???#####...... (Over charging or what!!!!!) I eventually came to an agreement with the dealer and all was well. But I knew I would never use either of them again.

Well a couple of months ago the anti lock brakes started cutting in when in the final few yards of stopping. Having tracked the problem to a broken trigger wheel on the drive shaft I took the car to the local garage to have the works carried out.

Imagine my surprise when he phoned me back and said that the only place he could get the part from was the local Hyundai dealer who wanted £380+VAT for the pleasure. I work 60miles from home and so I phone the dealer here and he wanted £276 inc VAT for the same genuine part. Needless to say I bought and supplied the part for the garage to fit.

It’s not as if the Hyundai is a premium brand, its functional but that’s it but I am becoming more and more sceptical about garages as I had to find out what was wrong with the car in the first place and then track down the best parts deal, but in the end I saved £100+ for ten minutes phoning and 20 minutes driving.

HOW CAN THEY JUSTIFY THE PRICES THEY CHARGE???????

I know what you are all going to say “if you can build your own car why pay to have the work done” well the missus insists that I do not “meddle” with the family car as we are going on holiday in it next week.


Rant Over

Ditch

Once you find a good garage stick with them! I drive 25 miles to get to my "local" garage. Been stung too many times by main dealers and large garages...

I have finally found a Garage i trust! It's even convenient for me in the centre of Ipswich, only trouble....... they are an italian car specialist so when i get rid of the Fiat I will have to buy another Italian car.. Hmmmmm... now, what makes of Italian cars are available?....

my local friendly garage is 25 miles away too, ring round locally and the prices are stupid and the last time the ex went to a nearer garage she had problems with them.

Normally its aggro as being 25miles away i need to arrange a lift then drop the car off for a day or more but its worth having them do the work for the price and the peace of mind and lack of hassle.

Ned.

quote:

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Originally posted by joneh
Once you find a good garage stick with them! I drive 25 miles to get to my "local" garage. Been stung too many times by main dealers and large garages...

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people dont mind buying new cars for 10k plus when the manufacturer make billions£££ every year profit but they moan when they have to pay to have them fixed.

find a good independant garage or do the work yourself, you can build a car but not change a caliper?

luxuries are expensive, thats life.

Paul

mechanic by trade worst bill ive had to pay was £150 to get wifes clio serviced whilst under warranty and that broke my heart dealers are a law unto themselves average around £90ph labour rates upto £160-£180 in some places as people have said if you find a good garage stick with them and reccomend them to friends

i built my business up charging £20 ph but as its grown so have my overheads ,like any trade its all about trust and as electronic control is taking the place of mechanical lost of smaller places are being squeezed out by virtue of being unable to keep up to date. no doubt lots of garages overcharge but being eqipped to deal with modern cars costs money and that cost has to be passed on.

i used to do a lot of full services on triumph motor bikes,the 12000 mile service on the fuelinjected ones was the real killer.it used to take me 6 hours to to do it,,,forks out and replace oil ,headstock out and greese bearings,cams out to change shims ,ballance injector bodies then set up on the co machine ,strip rear suspension ,take off the swinging arm and greese the bearings,change fuel filter oil filter air filter and so on.most 12000 services need new pads,new chain and sprockets maybe a rear tyre but i'd allways ring the customer up to see what he wanted to do and gave them the option . most 12000 service bills were around £ 600 but the most expensive one was a little over £900 .the look on anyones face when you give them a bill like that is anough to make you feel you should give them a written apology to go with it lol but they allways came back as they said it was like riding a new bike again .the £900 service took me 8 hours and the bike had been neglected but still the labour was less than £400 .me and the bloke i worked with were allways glad we didnt work in the shop

Hi,

£680 for four discs, two sets of pads, four brake callipers and labour sounds like a bargain to me.

The build quality of the average people carrier is poor, let alone one built in korea. (isn't that where they've got road bridges falling down from poor build quality?)

The cost of repairing cars is only going to get higher because of the increased reliance on electronics. How many of your household electronics (ie dvd or video player) have lasted 15 years without trouble? let alone electronics in the harsh enviroment of a car.

David

quote:

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Originally posted by davidwag
Hi,

£680 for four discs, two sets of pads, four brake callipers and labour sounds like a bargain to me.

The build quality of the average people carrier is poor, let alone one built in korea. (isn't that where they've got road bridges falling down from poor build quality?)

The cost of repairing cars is only going to get higher because of the increased reliance on electronics. How many of your household electronics (ie dvd or video player) have lasted 15 years without trouble? let alone electronics in the harsh enviroment of a car.

David

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I don't think all this reliance on computers at main dealers and big garages is any good. When I meet a mechanic he'd better have overalls on and oily hands. If he looks like he could lift a pinto on his own then he's OK. If he's clean, about 8 stone and under twenty, I'm taking my car elsewhere.

My BMW started stalling. Not too bad, but as its an auto its a pain in the ass. Took it to one garage, who hooked it up to the computer. When it stalled it didn't log any faults so they didn't know where to start. Took it to another garage, they hooked it up to their computer. When it stalled their computer didn't find any faults. Both garages washed their hands of it!

Finally a third, proper garage had a look at the oily bits. Replaced the fuel pump and filter. Car goes like a dream now.

Funny thing is a mate has a year old SAAB, which stalled and wouldn't start again. Took the main dealer nearly a week to find it was the same fault, the fuel pump. The computer didn't tell them there was anything wrong! He is very glad that all of that was done under warrantee.

Sorry for the rant, but it's not just main dealers who don't know their arse from their elbow.

Mike

I work in the parts business and unfortunatly many of the dealers prey on the "you will lose your warrenty" trick. Now this used to be the case but there has been a change in the law called the block exemption which basically means that you can supply parts of an equal quality and your warrenty is un affected. Now if you had bought the brake parts from Partco, they would have got them from my company and we buy from ADL who buy direct from the OE supplier to Hyundia. Without all the details £300ish is what I would expect.
Now on the labour costs, don't blame the garage, the costs you pay do not go to the mechanics, the rates, cost of buildings, health and safety, tax to goverment, training, insurance all have to come out of it. We ahve a branch in London and the cost between our sheffield depot is unbelivable. we pay £10k per month for a warehouse and pay £2.5k for a bigger one up north. Everytime the goverment has a good idea, the latest consultation is to legislate 28 days paid holiday for everyone prpbably just before an election I would guess. This is great for us individually, but we now have to make more profit in a shorter time and bills will rise. The enviromentalists want cars that run on fresh air, electronics is the only way to do it and so ever more sophisticated things appear which break, so now the average mechanic is a fitter, fitting the bits a machine suggests. At least we still can tinker as long term there are people who's aim is to make car repairs the domain of qualified peopleonly. and don't think I am talking bollocks here just look at in home electrics where you can do the work but to comply with the letter of the law any work has to be checked by a certified electrician.

this is all why i like the idea of makin a kit car- locost style, as the more you learn building it, you should know why it has gone wrong (if it does) and also how to fix it. id much rather fix my own car than let a garage do it, whilst charging a very large amount, but i understand ditch couldnt do that, as the missus is involved!!!

quote:

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Originally posted by joneh

quote:

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Originally posted by davidwag
Hi,

£680 for four discs, two sets of pads, four brake callipers and labour sounds like a bargain to me.

The build quality of the average people carrier is poor, let alone one built in korea. (isn't that where they've got road bridges falling down from poor build quality?)

The cost of repairing cars is only going to get higher because of the increased reliance on electronics. How many of your household electronics (ie dvd or video player) have lasted 15 years without trouble? let alone electronics in the harsh enviroment of a car.

David

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If thats a bargain, then your current garage is shafting you royaly

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david i think your fighting a losing battle here i concentrate on testing now as i never make much money on diagnostic work and have recently forced snap on to refund me for their latest scanner as the rep wasnt clued up and promised me it would code keys which it didnt

it seems that everyone expects the labour rate to cover the man costs and all the kit just appears out of thin air i think il go over my tool accounts and see what i spent last year and il bet my own personal spend is around 6k. the big manufacturers dont help either im sure they remove key ways from pulleys just to annoy the smaller garages when they come to do belt changes

The mark up on parts from the manufacturer is disgraceful.

We are the OEM for steering columns on a few popular cars. The electric jobbie on the corsa sells for under a ton but a call to your local Opel dealer will see the supply only price over £500. That doesnt include the ecu that IS included (and costs us £35) on the column supplied to GM.

The whole busuness is corupt but I dont understand who makes the money. There is no middle man. If you have access to OPELor TOYOTA (for example) the prices ar level at the OEM price. Order it from the dealer, who gets it from the car plant and the price rockets! Dealers claim not to make any money on parts while plants seem to sell at OEM prices.


Who is telling the lies???

OEM steering columns for sale at ebay prices.