Audi dealer con artist

There are some things which are somewhat a matter of opinion in an MOT - but brake balance? Emissions?

It's very common to see signs of cracking on a rubber bush where it shows

- but the bit which does the work is perfectly ok.

I hope he's sent a copy to Trading Standards, though having said that, I didn't have much joy with the Bournemouth branch over another matter altogether! I've now found a small local place that I trust implicitly and I noted the other day, that they're one of very few on the local Trading Standards list, so perhaps that's a good place to start, rather than the main dealer, your sentiments about which, I totally agree.

Andy C

On Sun, 27 Nov 2011 11:27:23 +0000, Dave Plowman (News) stammered:

Exactly. The figures on the brake balance sheet were *totally* bizarre too. I haven't got them here, they're at my office but I'll post them tomorrow. They were so far out of balance that if you'd tried to brake, you'd have crashed.

Oh yes, seen it plenty of times, but a)the bushes weren't cracked at all, b) they said the metal of the ARB itself was cracke and it all needed replacing.

The A4 has a shit-shield plastic collar on the rear ARB. They sometimes crack, but they don't affect the ARB, it's fixings, or it's function.

Its called on selling.

Most dealers will do that!

On Sun, 27 Nov 2011 22:47:48 +1100, Rob stammered:

No, it's called being conning bastards. There's a difference between a garage telling you that you need a new set of pads or whatever, and a supposedly trustworthy goverment agency tester telling you that your car is unsafe when it's not, just to get money out of you.

Then in the case of MOTs, VOSA should be informed, and they should be stripped of their testing licences removed.

It's already happened to two garages who tried it on with me. I hope it happens to this lot as well.

Just out of interest, are those 'must do' or 'advisory' according to Audi?

The new format MOT prints can make it difficult for non-experts to interpret.

On Sun, 27 Nov 2011 12:10:54 +0000, SteveH stammered:

No, they were "must do" and the brakes had been marked as unsafe.

It had an advisory for a tyre on the back left that was close to the limit.

The missus's Berlingo has a new-style MOT cert, looks horrible!

If you are certain of your facts you really ought to 'name and shame' the garage.

Had a similar one many years ago with 2.5 year old car bought from local BL dealer at about 18K miles & sold, in those days, with 3 month BL warranty. Removed all their identifying stickers and booked it back in to their MOT testing before the three months were up. It failed on a very long list of specious faults.

On pointing out to them that it had just been sold by them and should therefore be fixed under warranty there were a lot of attempted excuses and back tracking. Had great fun insisting they replace perfectly good brake hoses, CV joints and boots at their expense :-)

Chris K

why people dont appeal is a mystery to me, we get them in at work, "I'm not happy with *insert garage name here* as they failed my car, can you give it another test,ok, its your money", but rather then spend it on another test, if they are so sure it shouldnt have failed/passed use it to appeal the original test !

you dont even have to leave the house to get an appeal form vt17

In message , Mike P writes

Rip-off story.

Not to me, I have had 5 MOTs on my Mondeo, and only one required any work, - rear sub-frame bushes, £303 including MOT. That was Evans Halshaw, where I also have it serviced, about 2 months after the MOT.

Good idea, except that I find it convenient to have the repairs done there and then once it has failed, rather than hawk a failure around to find somewhere with the parts in stock.

In message , David Bowman writes

I agree. I have had 5 consecutive MOTs, and only one cost me more than the basic charge.

No, it's called fraud.

Yup, they will.

Steve

I know its a fraudulent practice.

On Sun, 27 Nov 2011 15:28:39 +0000, reg stammered:

It's the ballache of going through the process, having the vehicle reinspected etc - if it's your only vehicle, and it's un-MOT'd, then in cases like this is easier to just get it retested somewhere you should have taken it in the first place.

On Sun, 27 Nov 2011 19:01:52 +0000, Gordon H stammered:

I will do, but I'll make sure I get the name right. The paperwork is on my desk at work, and I'm not there until tomorrow...

On Sun, 27 Nov 2011 12:56:27 +0000, David Bowman stammered:

I will happily do so, I can't remember the exact name though, so it will have to wait until tomorrow. I'll even post a scan of the fail sheet...

Mike,

If your local authority MoT test their own vehicles, then you have such a facility. Under the regulations, they must offer MoTs to the general public but cannot carry out repairs to privately owned vehicles - and I used such a facility for over ten years for the family's cars, which only failed (rarely) on genuine safety related faults. And the bonus was that if I presented the repaired vehicle for a retest (after the repairs were done) within 14 days and less than 100 miles of usage on the odometer, then the (full) retest was free.

If your aforesaid authority also runs a bus service, and they maintain their own vehicles (including MoT Tests), then the same rules apply.

If you have subscribed to

then search that site and you should find more information about LAs and MoTs there Cash

Did you actually read the post you replied to? Mike stated that the vehicle was taken to the LA test station and re-tested.