And because there is no responsibility to a third party you can quite easily say "Sod it, it'll be OK". As well as that, most DIYers do not possess the knowledge to check things properly. To most DIYers a service is oil, filters and plugs.
IME thats most of them.
-- Conor
An imperfect plan executed violently is far superior to a perfect plan.
-- George Patton
After experiencing awful service in the past from garages myself, and reading the last 2 or 3 Which surveys on the std of servicing one can expect from them. I get the impression that anyone with reasonable intelligence and a w/shop manual, would be hard pressed to do any worse. I gave up using garages for anything apart from body repairs, in the late
70's. IMO the average garage mechanic is just as likely to return a car in a worse state than it was before they got their hands on it. Mike.
I've nver left the wheelnuts off my car though. Ford did that to the company mondeo, as well as fail to bleed the brakes, charge for work not done and punch a hole in the sump god only knows how. I doubt it ever went anywhere near the test gear either as the tape over the diag port was never moved.
But if you look at your service receipts that's all that gets changed most of the time anyway. The biggest chunk of what you're paying for is their labour.
The message from Chris Street contains these words:
Northern Motors in Orpington did that to my company Astra. Well - they put the bolts back but didn't do 'em up. I noticed half way through the ford at Eynesford.
words:
In the late 70's I drove my car, a P6 Rover, for 3 days before I noticed the new m/cyl, fitted by the local main dealer, had been fitted with only 1 nut attaching it to the bulkhead, instead of 2. Any hard push on the pedal could have resulted in the ally m/cyl flange breaking, and it disappearing into the engine compartment. Followed by no brakes, apart from a fairly useless h/brake. That was serious enough to dissuade me from allowing a garage to do any mechanical repairs on any car I've owned since.. Mike.
I beg to differ. If you're paying for a main dealer service your supposedly getting a whole load of scheduled checks too, checked by a person who should have intimate knowledge of your car.
In reality...
You must have been having a quiet day...
Then you're wrong.
Of course its the biggest chunk of what gets changed...THEY'RE CONSUMABLES, THATS THE WHOLE POINT. And yes you're paying for labour. You're paying for the time it takes to take the wheels off, remove drums for brake inspections, check all the lights, horn, washers etc, check all the bushes and shove the thing on a diagnostic machine to check the engine is running OK.
Takes about 1.5-2hrs to do a service.
Company car, as in leased? You do know most leasing companies do their own servicing in house don't you?
Did you recheck how tight they were after 60 miles?
Assuming it's done properly - and every independent survey that has ever looked at garage servicing will point out that it very rarely is.
Kev
Conor - how can you possibly say that when, as pointed out above, every single survey that is carried out into garage servicing demonstrates that standards are abysmally poor? They simply do *not* do the work that they are charging you for. Because I am a DIY servicer (when my cars are out of warranty) I know what to look for when my car is returned from service. I know that things that should have been checked - haven't been. I could fill page after page with my experience of appalling garage workmanship over the
40 years or so that I have been motoring.Kev
In _your_ opinion. Mine, like Kevs, is based on personal experience, and the result of surveys into garage std's. Yours is based on what? Mike.
The message from Conor contains these words:
I'd only got about ten miles.
It was owned outright by the company and serviced at the local Ford stealership - after the third cockup and an embarrassed phone call after it fell on the disc I started servicing that one myself.
The Freelander was leased though.
Hmm. CA + rest of world vs Conor. Safety in numbers I think.
That's about the time it takes me to do one at home. Oil and filter I've got down to about twenty minutes, rest of the time is spent crawling underneath the things looking for rusty brake pipes and other associated crud Neighbours think I'm batty every two months having it up on stands but mine starts first time every time unlike the BMW over the road....:-)
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