Personally I think it's a disgrace. If I tried to charge £100/hour I wouldn't
>get any work at all and that's despite what I do being several orders of
>magnitude more specialised than some spotty teenager changing your cars spark >plugs.
All you need is a swanky office out front, preferably with some highly attractive but witheringly unavailable totty sat behind desks polishing their nails, and you can up your charge 100%. Did they teach you nothing at business school ? ;-)
[Yes, £150/hr is seriously taking the piss. If the argument is that rent and rates and staff costs are higher, why isn't the new car in the window carrying a 50% premium too...]
That's obviously not true. My brothers a master mechanic and works for a franchised dealer - the management are the problem. They employ some numpty cos he's the bosses aunty's nephew and then because they treat their workforce so badly the turnover of skilled mechanics is a problem as no-one teaches the permanent dead wood how to do a proper job. They give him all the easy jobs cos he hasn't got a clue and all the skilled mechanics get the shit jobs, until they get sick of it and move on.
The spotty teenager isn't getting 100 quid an hour for changing spark plugs though. It's the management where the problem lies.
I recently took my Renault Megane (hardly an executive motor!) to the local Renault dealer for a 'major' service (which did not include cambelt, even though I thought it should). The charge for this was about £350. I also asked them to investigate a humming noise from the rear, which I thought was a knackered wheel bearing.
Sure enough, phone call that afternoon to tell me that in addition to the service, the car required both rear wheel bearings replacing at a cost of £250 (Both rear wheel bearings gone? On a 4-year-old, 40,000 mile car? This has to be a design fault!). Oh, and the front brake discs and pads also need replacing, at another £250.
Having collected my lower jaw back off the ground and re-hinged it, I told them to do the wheel bearings, as I had no idea whether that would be DIYable (turned out that they come out with the drum, though I don't know whether you need a hydraulic press to get them off). I reckoned that they discs and pads would be an easy DIY job, though, so I told them to forget that.
When I picked up the car, I went to the parts desk to get the new pads and discs, expecting to pay about £70. No way - they came to £140! Still, at least I'd saved £110 on the labour, and it really wasn't a difficult job - it took me 2 hours, including the time taken to find all the tools I'd chucked into a corner in the garage and lift the car onto the stands, so I reckon the dealer could've done that in about half an hour flat. Easy money for them!
Anyway, I felt thoroughly ripped off. I left the dealer with a £700 hole in my wallet, and still having work to do on car myself. Still, at least they'd cleaned it and fixed the noisy bearings.
According to the newspaper report about this, modern dealer "technicians" are 'a world away from old-style mechanics with a spanner - they're white collar professionals with a laptop computer.' This I find rather difficult to believe!
And I'd like to see one of these professionals try and undo a hub nut with his bloody laptop computer!
My local garage back home in Devon is absolutely bloody brilliant. £25/hr labour, and I would trust them with my life. I have gotten to know the guy that owns it, and now he knows what I want from my car. I go in there, give him the keys and its generally accepted that he does whatever it takes to keep the car on the road, and that he just does what it takes and ill be ok with it because its always reasonable. He knows that if tyres need doing, I wont want a budget on the corner so gets one to match the others etc etc.
Example:
The other day, i had a 6000 mile service. This included the 3 different filters, new engine oil, new sparks, new dizzy cap, new rotor arm, new alternator belt, and the labour. All in all, inc VAT it came to £120. I was very happy and that is why I travel back there from uni to get stuff done to the car, rather than have it done by quikshit in Southampton.
My BMW dealer in SW London is well over 100 quid an hour - and I probably wouldn't object as much if they were honest and competent. But their high charges doesn't stop them inventing things to be done, or they say they've done, or skimping on ones they have. Of course, the dolly bird on reception and the service 'advisor' who knows f*ck all about servicing - but everything about making excuses - have to be paid for somehow.
There have been changes in this area, and I thought that the last few major manufacturers had finally capitulated. It should now only be necessary to have servicing done to their specification, and the onus may be on them to prove otherwise when trying to decline a warranty claim (such as discovering a sub-standard part, for example). I admit there's probably still a lot of grey areas, but the principle has, I'm sure, been established.
In 15 years of car ownership, the only time i've spent money at garages is for the mot test.
When my mate (vauxhall technician) changed the head gasket on a early astra gte ... he asked me to lift the head off the block, and while holding it he pulled out the old gasket and fitted the new. No regard for dirt on the faces. No thoughts of stripping the head, polishing/regrinding/skimming and new valve seals.
The car has recently blown its head gasket again (3 years on).
Thats a typical 2 hour garage fix, for which they charge for 6 hours work, including prices for parts unfitted!!!! (Valve stem oil seals??)
The last head job i did took 14 hours work ... although 1 hour was taken making some wet liner clamps to hold the bores in place, and another 1 hour was taken checking and double checking the true piston top dead centre using a dial gauge (fitting a performance cam), and other stuff like changing the water pump and timing belt tensioner because my cars reliability is far more important than having saturday afternoon with my feet up!!! And i trust my own work .... 3 years/28000 miles later, the sh*troen ax that i modified has been used for camping/touring holidays around the uk, as well as a daily thrasher around to work.
Thats the difference between someone who fixes cars for a living and has bad habits .... and someone who isn't.
The vast majority of the time it's the same for me, but with a few exceptions, the main one being cambelts (or anything involving engine timing), where I'll take it to a main dealer or a trusted specialist garage to get it done. All the other basic servicing I'll do myself, not only to cut costs, but so I know the job's been done properly.
When the Audi needed its 1st oil change since I'd owned it, I bought the oil and filter from an Audi dealer (at surprisingly reasonable prices) and took it to a small garage near work to get them to do it. £15 the bloke said, fair enough (I mentioned in advance it had a big engine undertray fitted). It's a small father and son type outfit I think. The guy let his son get on with it. Drained the oil, took the oil filter off, and put the new one on. I asked him "aren't you supposed to put some clean oil on the seal on the oil filter?", to which he replied "should be ok, there's some left where it goes on". That being the oil and doubtless small amounts of grit etc., that should be cleaned away properly before fitting a new filter. I didn't make a fuss about it, just kept a very regular eye on the oil level (it was fine btw) and swore to change the oil myself in the future.
Precisely. When I did the stuff for the Audi for the MOT (anti-roll bar bushes, CV boot, discs and pads), I went to the special effort of getting a decent torque wrench to do the job properly, when I bet the vast majority of mechanics would do the nuts up extremely tight and that would be enough. I took my time getting it right, and would much rather that than pay some garage muppets £££££ to do the job not quite as well as I'd have done it myself.
With the Seat Inca van, I knew full well that all that was needed was to take the clutch pedal out and get someone to properly weld on a little plate to the end to stop it happening again. Having said that, my first thoughts were a snapped clutch cable. Given that it's only a 10 minute job to change one, and the fact that I find it extremely bloody fiddly messing about with the fitting at the top of the clutch pedal I thought I'd get a garage to do it - surely it's only going to be around £50, right? Around £25 for the cable, and £25 or so for labour?? Phoned up Mr Clutch and they wanted £85 to do it - said they'd use dealer parts at around £25, and it's an hour and
20 minutes' job. Yeah right! The guy did say to check if it had just unhooked, and I went and had a look - also looked under the bonnet to see where the clutch release lever (and hence the cable) was, and couldn't see it. Took a few bits off underneath the dash and could clearly see what had happened.
Thing is, I bet taking the whole pedal box off would have been a real PITA to do, so I'm sort of glad I took it to the garage to do, but there's no way in the world I would have taken it to a main dealer unless there was a vague chance of me getting compensated for it. Still, at least it's all done now.
It would appear that one can't trust some of them even with an elementary task like jacking up a motor to change a tyre.
Last Friday it took my (relatively sound) H reg Astra diesel estate into the local Rapid-Fit to have the tyres replaced, and as usual the trolley jack went straight under the sills, despite the fact that there are sturdy jacking points quite close by.
On examining the underside of my motor today I found that the nearside still has been quite badly dented.
As they only had two 165 tyres of the required type in stock at the time I will have to go back to get the rear ones fitted, so let's hope that this time he goes for the nice sturdy back axle, instead of a 14 year-old pressed steel sill.
Is there some kind of training school for these people which teaches them how to inflict the maximum amount of damage to one's car whilst carrying out the simplest of tasks?
Not everyone wants to see a woman at a reception desk. If I walk into a delaership and see some "tart" who has probably been with most of the local community - it does put me off.
I object to dealers breaking things or causing faults when a car goes in, so it is guaranteed to go back for yet another repair. I also object to unskilled mechanics who do nothing more than hope a computer will tell them what's wrong. Most can only change parts - NOT diagnose faults.
Then there is PRESSURE. SALES PRESSURE, they look at your car as pound signs, each corner is worth so much so they are forced by the management to get as much as they can out of each customer. If sales figures are down people go through disciplinary action. So how many women are told their children will be in danger unless the shocks or brakes are changed when there is NO NEED! I sat in a garage and watched this happen.
Then there is the insurance scam. Why insure a tyre? It should be good enough already. Why have a Vauxhall MOT insurance that appears not to be worth the paper it is printed on? Wear and tear for items not covered on an MOT is pointless.
There are so many scams and rip-off merchants, I know all about it as I have been involved myself. I was making sure that people were not ripped off by taking cars to garages and pretending not to know a thing. Only one garage spotted paint marks on nuts and asked who previously owned it!
It is unfortunate I can not name and shame the garages concerned for ripping people off and what their favourite items are. Some go for rear shock absorbers, others will say "we will do the tracking for free" when it's not even out.
The problem is management - they EXPECT sales from managers and want a minimum income each month - that's the ONLY reason we all get ripped off. It never used to be main dealers - now it is because they realised they could cash-in.
Three actually including the spare, they're a budget tyre (Armstrong) apparently manufactured by Pirelli, and I would rather have five tyres of the same type fitted.
However next time I will certainly make sure that the motor is jacked up on the rear axle.
Plus the fact that I have experienced similar horror stories at other places, so there's no absolute guarantee that they're going to do the job any differently, perhaps I should have had sufficient balls to start shouting in the first place!
When is this new garage vetting thing starting. I think each garage is given a star rating after customers are questioned about the repairs on their cars.
Just think what the blue rinse ladies would think: "Oh yes, they are a very good garage, they spotted the shock absorbers were broken on my 20000 mile micra and changed them .... but i do think i must buy a new car soon in case something else goes wrong, i mean, my micra is 2 years old now"
Personally, I couldn't care less what the person on reception looks like or what they do in their spare time. But it would be nice to have someone who knows their job.
I get the impression that most of these main dealers are geared up to business clients who don't give a toss about the car or the cost, so expect suits and totty.
the one we used to take our vans to (herds in isleworth) had some young blonde bint on reception who did absolutly f*ck all apart from talk to her mate on the phone for 15 minutes while i stood there waitnig for her in an otherwise totaly empty showroom there wasn't even any other staff about several bouts of coughing dind't do the trick so i walked off i didn't care, i was getting paid to sit there and read the paper what i did mind though was that she was getting my companies money (which is why our bonus is worth absolutly the square root of f*ck all) is being pissed up the wall paying for her phone call and even when she did hang up, it wasn't a "sorry to keep you waiting" it was a "yeah? wot?"
MotorsForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.