I once had a customers Maserati mexico back in 1987 so go to collect some headlamps, nice...

It happens in the trade..

We parked at gatwick a few years back in the short term north terminal for an official pay and display, and found the drivers (eastern european name( debit card down the side of the seat afterwards. Bristol airport parking offsite, left keys, so could be parked in compund, noted mileage.. more than 50 extra on return.. words were had and parking refunded.

You now have to specifically be clear, no test drives, no errands... I now have my rear facing camera in the car and can see if it's been driven. The front one has the nextbase magnetic mount.. so more of a faff to remove for them

My partners daughter took her 207SW, which was handed down so in amazing condition to our local clutch and repair centre for an MOT.

A phone call from the garage gave the bad news that during a road test to identify a noise, the car was involved in an accident with a delivery van..

If the car was only having an MoT, why were they 'road-testing for a noise' ? Maybe something else was going on ...

Indeed. I've heard stories that some less reputable garages use cars in for service as courtesy cars for their staff to shuttle back and forth from the town centre or nearest greasy spoon/McD's down the road for lunch, or for those must-do odd jobs at home, etc that somehow get fitted into their 'really busy' works schedule.

For that reason, apart from when I had the clutch replaced (too long a job), I've always stayed at the dealership whilst the work (service or repair) is being undertaken.

Back in the eighties I had a Peugeot 104ZS. An early warm hatch with1124cc and approx 60bhp.

My PE teacher at school had a Talbot Samba, which was the same thing save the badge. If memory serves, most of the underpinnings were carried on to 205

Much more recently. My first Berlingo had an engine derived from the XUD unit where the valve clearances are set at the factory with shims. After 120,000 miles or so the valves/seats have worn to the point that the exhaust valves sit high in the closed position and rough running on start up becomes an issue. Cure, as documented in Tech advice here, is to remove the camshaft and install additional shims. A known issue going back to the first XUD units from the eighties.

Local PSA specialist Indy, usually good, decided on a compression test that the head was probably cracked and diagnosed an exchange engine.

Only after I got fairly assertive about obliging a long standing customer would he look into the valve clearances. Should be a few fractions of a mm cold. Actual reading cold was nil!!

Once done it ran like a dream for rest of my ownership.

I had the same with my Berlingo. in Cheltenham didn't believe it was tight valves at first. Then later on I trusted them to do a cambelt change. Picked the car up and noticed a rev dependent whirring noise. Took it back and they found the cambelt was too tight. About 6 months later coming down the M5 from work the camshaft snapped. I believe the two are connected but it was impossible to prove.

Edited, no naming and shaming.

ORB

Edited by _ORB_ on 20/03/2022 at 16:24

"After 120,000 miles or so the valves/seats have worn to the point that the exhaust valves sit high in the closed position and rough running on start up becomes an issue. Cure, as documented in Tech advice here, is to remove the camshaft and install additional shims. A known issue going back to the first XUD units from the eighties"

More shims close up the clearance - taking shims out increase the clearance

I won't say where, but it was a multi franchise dealer in those days, I went to the "Oil change bay" and there was a collection of a LOT of brand new oil filters on shelves..

Often work not done and invoiced... Had several rows over it..

I'm afraid I can't match these tales of woe... in all the garages I've used whether indies or main dealers I've been satisfied. Maybe on occasion the bill was a bit higher than I expected but other times lower. When I switched from Renault to Ford main dealer the bill seemed to be about half. Years ago I had a Golf and used an independent VW Audi specialist only a couple of miles away from me now. I kept it serviced there and needed a new clutch. A few years later it made an intermittent noise when the pedal was down, a sort of feint whistling sound. I asked them to look at it on the next service and when I went to pick it up they said they had put a new clutch in FOC. It must have been well outside any kind of warranty period.