Really good garages are rare enough to be worth sticking with. Six months ago, I unwisely decided to try another local dealer (both Honda franchises) for the last major service. They completely missed an existing problem which should have been fixed under warranty, but instead was not properly diagnosed until the next service (back at my usual dealer), which just happened to fall three weeks outside the warranty period.
Only Honda's admirable attitude to customer service has stopped me being liable for a four figure bill thanks to their negligence, and I'm still effectively forking out for the cost of another major service. Not happy.
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MB, sorry to say, but I can only agree with the general anti-main dealer feeling. Extended service intervals, with little to do but change the oil and run a few checks, but a large bill.
Just look at the management structures at most dealerships and if you know what some of them are being paid, you'll see why they have to charge so much.
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My mum took her Audi TT to the main agent in Sheffield for it's first service last week.
The charge was a whopping £206, of which £175 was shown as labour.
The car was ready for collection within two hours of being dropped off, that's a labour rate of £87.50 an hour if my maths are correct.
GC
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a guy on the smart club has just been charged £168 for its first service witch is basically an oil change+filter. i dont know how they can get away with it. signed beesmart
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The posts by Groovy and Beesmart confirm all our suspicions of RipOfBritain's daylight ROBbery.
As Beesmart says " i dont know how they can get away with it. signed beesmart ". After all, these mechanics hardly ever get paid more than £7 per hour, if they are so lucky. Just 10% extra on that should surely be enough profit! There should be a law against dealers charging more than £10 per hour for labour. Let us start a petition.
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I am certainly not flying any flags for main dealers, having experienced myself - and noted it here if I recollect - their modest efforts for my substantial bill. However to argue that wage cost plus 10% "profit" is sufficient return simply doesnt add up. As an employer myself I know that there are substantial employment costs over and above salaries. Add in other things such as rent, business rates, consumables, utilities, training etc then it all adds up. My brother and I recently looked at premises with the thought of buying rather than renting a site. This was a unoccupied, substantial and well located if somewhat elderly former main dealer site with showroom and service bays. The business rates alone were £1000 per week! (yes, per week!) Bear in mind too that when buying premises this has to be paid, after six months, even if the site is vacant and not earning. Taking into the purchase price and what that would cost us just to pay the interest alone it did not take long to make our decision. The so called "labour charge" is of course an hourly rate calculated to cover the cost of running the entire business including all the fixed and variable costs and not just employing the mechanics for the time they work on the car. I dont object to paying a fair price in an open and competitive market for the services I receive, nor do I think it unreasonable that the service provider makes a profit.
What I do want is that ever elusive feeling that I have received value for money and the confidence that a good job has been done on my car. I fear the value equation is constantly being adjusted by manufacturers who seek to make "market adjustments" through such techniques as "market management" and by constraining choice through the block exemption agreement (due to end soon), dealer and distribution control and such tricks as extended warranties etc.
MGs
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i work in the technical sevices department of a large uk airline and aircraft maintenance provider, our current labour rates charged to 3rd party customers are about £39/hour for all engineering work carried out when you consider the very high standard of work required, the cost of employing highly paid licensed aircraft engineers who are required by law to certify all work carried out on an aircraft, the endless amount of training we are legally obliged to provide to keep engineers "current" on the many types of aicraft we maintain, and the very tight legal framework we have to operate in ,main dealers charging upwards of £60/hr for servicing appear to be well and truly ripping of the british motoring public
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Presuming that M.B. and MB are not the same person, then I would like one to change their username please. If one of you would oblige, I\'d be grateful.
I\'ll wait and see if one of you volunteers; if neither, then I\'ll e-mail whoever was the later to join and request the change.
Thank you.
p.s. And this applies to anybody, if you change your username you will find it retrospectively changes the username on all the notes you have written here.
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Presuming that M.B. and MB are not the same person, then I would like one to change their username please. If one of you would oblige, I\'d be grateful.>>
Mark - Done; "eM.Bee." was "M.B." - is that OK or would you prefer M.B.A.?
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"After all, these mechanics hardly ever get paid more than £7 per hour..."
Incorrect....it's at least £7.75-£8/hr and in London it's far far more.
The TT Service costing £206 is plain ridiculous!
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I took my S3 to an Audi dealer for a first oil change (the factory supplies cars with 20,000 mile/2 year variable service intervals, but I wanted new oil). Cost £110 for oil and filter with the can of oil accounting for more than half the bill.
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Jesus Wet! They certainly know how to charge don't they?
As soon as the motoring public realise what a rip-off some Main Dealers can be.........the better!
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As usual the monkey that does the work gets peanuts.
Years ago when I was a kid we lived just across the road from the owner of a Saab dealership. His house was enormous and undoubtedly worth an absolute fortune. I guess he might have worked his way 'up' from salesman or mechanic by hard work and intelligence, and by taking some personal risk, but it does explain why charges are so high.
Incidentally I don't understand why a garage should purposefully fail to find a problem until the warranty period has elapsed. As I understand it the garage simply sends an invoice to the manufacturer and they are refunded in full. (At least that is how Nissan UK deal with the free lifetime MOT given with Nissan approved second hand cars.) I expect what you have seen is incompetence and/or bad luck.
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Warranty repairs are not billed back to the manufacturer at the same rate Joe Public pays. Secondly, I expect HQ takes 90 days to pay all invoices whereas you and I have to cough up before we can get our car back. Finally, I reckon the manufacturer can't be fooled by any of the wheezes the main dealer can pull on their naive retail customers. "Yes, we had the excess nipples woppled to remove tamping".
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Don't know if it's still the same, but when I worked for a Volvo main dealer 20 years ago, Volvo paid 110% of the retail labour rate for warranty repairs - to factor in diagnosis time, plus to allow for the work to be done absolutely spot-on. Even used to pay for wash/vacuuming the car after work completed, so there was NO disincentive at all to doing warranty work - quite the reverse in fact - plus Volvo used to pay monthly by 'back debit' against the parts account in other words credit the work done against the amount we would pay them for our parts stock orders- so in effect we wrote our own cheques. Certainly a lot safer method of getting paid than some of the retail punter's company cheques, which we used to get 'kited' on us at frequent intervals!
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Incorrect....it's at least £7.75-£8/hr and in London it's far far more. The TT Service costing £206 is plain ridiculous!>>
D Lacey: OK then they get £8/hour. That is proof of ROB, Rip-off-Britain. How can these people justify being paid more than double the minimum wage. Fat cats, I think, that's what these British workers are. The French would do these jobs for much less. Even their wine is half the price in Britain.
What is needed is for the Govt to bring in new laws, or to nationalise the sale and servicing of cars. All new cars should be sold with a minimum 5 years "no-quibble" Marks & Spencer type quality guarantee. The price should include free full servicing for the 5 years (or give you vouchers so that you can have it serviced at any garage of your choice). I think some manufacturers are already doing this and some like BMW-MINI are allowing you to buy servicing for 3 years for as little as £100. Then no-one can complain that the warranty is void because the cars were not serviced by a main dealer. I think the Govt could fund such a system by having road tax set at 5% the value of your car, with a minimum of £50 (for cars valued at £1000 or less) and maximum of £5,000 (i.e for cars valued at £100,000 plus). They would then be able to afford a very strict enforcement of road-tax/MOT/insurance etc..
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Em.Bee.
Thank you, I appreciate that.
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MB, sorry to say, but I can only agree with the general anti-main dealer feeling. Extended service intervals, with little to do but change the oil and run a few checks, but a large bill. Just look at the management structures at most dealerships and if you know what some of them are being paid, you'll see why they have to charge so much.
Brand new Renault Master. At the first service they attempt to change brake pads saying the fronts are almost gone and the rears have less than 10k in them. I decline their 'offer' to change, but instead buy all pads there and then and go home. Ask my local independant chap to do work and book in for tomorrow. He whips front wheels off and changes pads. looks at rears and leaves them in place. When i go to collect he shows me original fronts which must have at least 7-10k left on them. )his words), rears virtually untouched he says, but he changed fronts as more than 50% worn. I call service manager at main dealer and state what I have said here. He poops himself and I dont joke. Cheque arrives NEXT morning for value of all pads plus £20.00. Admission of guilt or what. Poor old Mr. Average is being poked by these people and they should be poked back and pretty hard at that.
Regards.
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...... I call service manager at main dealer and state what I have said here. He poops himself and I dont joke. Cheque arrives NEXT morning for value of all pads plus £20.00. Admission of guilt or what. Poor old Mr. Average is being poked by these people and they should be poked back and pretty hard at that.>> Regards.>>
Martin Devon : I have been consistently urging that backroomers should do exactly what you did. The response has generally been that they are happier to come to the forum and whinge, rather than take positive action like you did which benefits others who follow you too. The belief is that if they walk away and whinge, the loser is the garage/dealership. I think not. I think both parties lose in that situation. If you are firm, polite, (assertive not aggressive), you WILL get the service you deserve.
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eM.Bee.
I would love to do exactly what you have said but I hate working with mechanics and I would not want to work on the brakes on my car because they are full of silly electronics and sensors.
I'll just stick to whinging.
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>>>> I'll just stick to whinging.>>
Marcos, you are not being fully truthful and getting the credit you deserve for your perseverance. Because you DID actually succeed with the problem on your Merc when you took positive proactive steps. And so was the case with Honda, on behalf of your friend! So you do know how to complain succesfully and get the quality of service that you deserve.
eM.Bee.{P} - the {P} after my username indicates you can view my profile.
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Had mine services yesterday, supplied my own oil, and asked them not to fill the screen wash for £3 a go. AND managed to get a 10% discount on the service. Just asked if i could have one and they said yes!!! No joke!
No problems to report everything is as it should be!!!
However went home all pleased that it hadnt cost the earth like VW services usually do and as I got out of the car noticed this HUGE great big scratch deep into the alloy wheel! Id asked them to swap the wheels over fronts for backs and they had, didnt ask them to scratch them to pieces though, got straight on the phone to the service manager and then promptly drove down there to show him the damage, after a bit of arguing that the mechanic said he hadn't done it they agreed to replace the alloy and are ringing me this morning to arrange it being fitted!
Bad they damaged it in the first place but accidents do happen, but rather pleased at the managers attitude regarding the replacement!
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Searching on the net for something quite different, I came across this story (with which I have no contact whatsoever) and wondered about it. Unfortunately you only get one side of the story (obviously) and there's no follow up to say what happened in the end.
Got me wondering about the technical side though...
comments?
www.angrytowers.com/rant_view.asp?rantid=105
(ok so it's Friday afternoon and it's raining!)
"Appearances can be Deceptive"
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Careful what you say guys about slagging off the 'Technicians' who cant even do a simple oil change without overfilling the engine, you might get labelled a'moron' for having the audacity to question their expertise as I did on a seperate thread.
Regards,
Alf
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Agree with all posts here, and agree that there are two sides to every story and that not many people post about the good things, but I too am disillusioned by main dealer costs, luckily I have found an independent who specialises in BMW’s but also has good knowledge of other makes. Anyway my Rover 218 Turbo diesel needed its 6k oil change so I called a few garages, as always, prices ranged from £75 for Rover and £22 for the local quick change place. To cut a long story short I took it back to the local quick change place tha did the previous change only to be told that “We don’t have oil for Turbo Diesels”. To which I replied “Well what did you use last month when I had my oil changed here?” Silence. Anyway thanks to this forum, Thanks HJ, and the expert advice from many people, including Volvoman, sean, and countless others I took the plunge.
Special Oil Filter tool from Halfords -£12
Oil filter from Rover - £8
Magnatec oil from Macro £10
Total £30 and half an hour of my time. Yes I know it was more expensive than taking it to the fast fit outfits, but I KNOW what oil went in, I KNOW what filter was used and I KNOW the oil was changed.
And I have NEVER done this before, thanks to the BR’ers.
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Even using a good independent, it's not cheap: main service for '98 Passat, including brake fluid change, 2 front flexi hoses, and all auxillary belts changed (timing belt done last year) cost 450 pounds.
Same as the purchase price for my '88 Golf Gti...
Tim{P}
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2 Good Independent Garage recommendations in Bournemouth:
Merc/BMW: Motech at Pokesdown
VW/Audi: Advanced Auto Repairs at Christchurch.
Both charge around £35/40 p/h.
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Tim, thats true, it may not be cheaper, but I certainly have more faith in the quality of work done by an independent than a main dealer. I would pay a little more for a job well done so that I dont have to keep going back and ending up with an even bigger bill and not to mention time lost.
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In all the years I have been driving 10 year old sheds serviced and maintained by the 'Good old boy' under the rail arches I have hardly had to take the car back or complain. Probably a handful of times in 20 years.
Took the plunge and bought two brand new Citroens, one for me and one for my GLW. Everytime we had to take them back to the dealers for minor warranty work and scheduled servicing, it has always been a case of one step forward, two steps back. Extremely frustrating and time wasting. Completely unecessary if they could only be bothered to take pride in their work.
Draw your own conclusions.
Regards,
Alf
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