"Ford Rapid Fit" or an "AA servce centre" - which is better

In news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com, Richard Salters decided to enlighten our sheltered souls with a rant as follows

Probably the Ford place. They *know* Mondeos.

Cost would probably be very similar, not enough to worry about.

I thought the AA service centres had all closed? Certainly around here (Southeast) they have. I understood the AA failed to find a buyer for them. They were dire anyway!

My local Rapid fit isn't too bad but if you can get recommendations for an independent it might be worth considering that.

Chris

Thanks for the reply, I've been quoted £100 (by the Ford Rapid Fit) for a service for a Ford Mondeo T-reg. Is that a reasonable price or am I being ripped off?

Type "AA service centre" in google and the first page leads you to plenty. Thanks for warning me about them though. Being a complete newbie I thought the AA was a name you could trust. Can I ask though why you say they're so bad?

Don't really know anyone in this area as I'm pretty new here.Tried asking people here for recommendations for a reputable garage but didn't any straight answers to that particular question. I suppose that's perhaps to be expected given that most are here DIY'ers :)

Sounds about right.

Thanks fior the info. A note to the earlier poster: here's the full name for the "AA centre" : "NATIONWIDE AUTOCENTRES:". It's "AA approved" so I 'm not sure it's what you were referring to. Here's the URL:

Richard Salters ( snipped-for-privacy@hereplease.com) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Probably more to do with the fact that there's few of us within a large number of miles of you...

Would go with Rapid Fit. Never had any problems with them and they are reasonably priced.

Matthew

Note that all my comments apply to the AA service centres that were part of the Halfords network. As another poster has said, the AA don't actually have their own any more. They use the Nationwide chain as an approved repairer. They also don't do reports on cars for sale any more, but instead recommend someone else.

I've a relative who was an AA patrol until recently. He likes to give a good service. When the AA owned the service centres he was instructed to take repairs that could not be completed at the roadside to the nearest AA one whenever possible. He saw so many faults misdiagnosed and so many botched jobs that he tried to avoid taking customers to them. He got in to trouble a number of times over it. He also had an alarming number of calls to customers whose cars had broken down

Chris