my car (12 year old mkIII fiesta) failed it's mot on wednesday. I've been given an estimate of £250 plus VAT to get it through the re-test. can anyone give me an idea if this is reasonable or I'm being ripped off?
offside front (sill to floor) and nearside rear (inner sill) subframe mounting prescribed area excessively corroded.
Offside (front and rear), brake pipe excessively corroded.
Centre exhaust split, needs welding. (passed emissions test)
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yer your being ripped big time.........garages eh all the same just want to take your money and do repair jobs.....what happened to charities eh?
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Sounds like this car is ready to be scrapped.
Spending money now and probably much more money in the near future is bad economics.
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It does seem daft to pay out, but I have no way of buying a replacement and have to have a car to get to work.
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can i beat them down? What's the best way to negotiate? I'm planning to ring a few other places for quotes.
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You go to work to get a living.
Sounds like the garage is just doing the same.
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totally appreciate that, but don't want to be taken for a mug. Worst thing about being a girl, you always get ripped off where cars are concerned.
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Ok get a second opinion that this work needs doing?
If it needs all this work then its probably a fair price. Patching up rusty cars is not a pleasant job for a mechanic.
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Liz, is everything else OK with the car? If it is running OK then £250 + vat may not be a bad price to give you another 6 months motoring or so.
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IanS
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Costs seem reasonable as I would think there was a lot of labour involved in the repairs - although as pointed out this may be the first of many large(r) repair bills.
You could always take the car to another garage and ask for a quote for the work too.
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If you translate oldman's usual irony, he's right in one sentence as usual. I don't think you're being ripped off - if you are, the ripper-offer isn't very good at it. I know somebody who would quote you £800 for that and offer to 'help you out' by selling you a worthless banger to replace it for £500, and tell you you were getting a bargain because he wasn't making any money on it. Keep it going for another year if you can't afford a decent replacement and plan to replace next year if the rot has really set in.
You don't get much for £250 - I've just been charged £165 by a Honda dealer for changing the oil and filter and ticking some boxes on a form - now that's a rip off.
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Personally, I can think of a lot more ways I'd sooner earn £250 than by doing the repairs that you list.
Catch the bus for a few weeks, save-up and buy something newer.
If there's any VED left on it ,send the disc back to Swansea before the end of the month! That'll be a few more quid to add to the £250 you've already "saved"
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It's annoying because other than the rust, it's a great car. Reliable, easy to drive and runs on fumes. I can't catch the bus, as there isn't one that runs at suitable times. I'm talking two buses a day that run mid-morning and mid-afternoon, no good when I work 8.30-5.00!
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Unless a car falls to pieces in a big way or gets written off in an accident, knowing when to put it to sleep is always a difficult decision. My son has a 1.1 '95 Fiesta Mk3 which always needs a bit of welding at MoT time - and then it keeps going for another year. Like you, we have a fair knowledge of the history of the car and we rely on our local friendly independent chap to tell us if he suspects that something important is about to blow. It's always a bit of a gamble but, if £250 keeps it on the road for another year, it's cheap motoring.
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Better the devil you know!
If the car is otherwise fine and runs OK, just get a quote from somewhere else and then get it fixed, I don't see why you should have to use public transport etc.
To answer your original question the work seems a reasonable cost to me, but I'm far from an expert, and just ignore the sarcastic replies hun. :-)
Blue
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"and just ignore the sarcastic replies hun. :-)"
I'm impressed, that's the closed I've ever seen to a text-based pat on the head! ;-)
Agree completely tho, sounds like better the devil you know.
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assuming they are charging around 40 quid an hour, break the bill down. It Does not seem exessive to me given the amount of labour required
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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Their estimate is £293.75 - inc the VAT - and that's getting very close to the money you'd need to buy a banger with a 12 month MoT. OK, no guarantee that it will be 100% for the next 12 months, but it's worth scouring your local free-ads, post office windows etc this w/e for something small and tidy. Maybe even the Auto Trader.
It wouldn't take much for matey to cut away the rot, and find it's worse, and you have another hour of work on top.
Send out an email to all your mates and contacts asking if they know of anything! I did and got a Fiat Uno for £150, witha 5 month MoT and three months tax. Lots of kids off to university this month who may have to sell up to afford all that beer!
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And all the guys are right. Once you start down the road of having it cut about and welded, its turns into an annual event, and you are probably looking at 200+ quid every year to get it through,
My advice, Have it done this time (you aint being ripped off) and use the next year to get your finances in place and get another car sorted. To be sure your car with no MOT has no value of any kind.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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I was kind of thinking down that line, tbh. Get it through, then possibly sell as a banger in 6 months.
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Thanks for everyone's advice.
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And all the guys are right. Once you start down the road of having it cut about and welded, its turns into an annual event, and you are probably looking at 200+ quid every year to get it through,
Don't scare her too much RF! We had an Escort that had a continual pass-fail-pass-fail relationship with the MoT man over many years until we sold it for £40. There are also have been things on the advisory slip on my car (rear inner sills mainly) that have popped up year after year.
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Mike Farrow
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Don't Advisorys now show up every year now for the computerised MOT.
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Don't Advisorys now show up every year now for the computerised MOT.
That may well be so, but the car had its first computerised MoT only this year.
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There's no right answer to this one.
£300 may buy you another year's trouble free motoring or it could be money down the drain. Personally, if the car is otherwise sound and you can't afford something better, I'd stump up. I think I'd ask around first to see if one of your mates or colleagues knows of someone, maybe a keen DIY'er, who will do the job (still to a good standard) for cash. That will save you nearly £50 VAT for starters.
Chris M
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Sounds a good price to me. Welding up old cars is a horrible job, especially inner sills - very hard to clean and weld the area near the floor. Sub-frame mountings usually involve the removal of said sub-frame and associated parts and rusty bolts. Is it a fixed price or an estimate? It could end up costing a lot more.
The worst welding job I've ever had was an old '72 Mini - "simple can you patch the sill for me job!" (I had been using their garage for a year or two so couldn't really refuse). It was like the Forth bridge. Most of the floor , every sill, rear sub-frame and mountings, valances and inners wings ended up being replaced. I.E. just about every bit of metal below the doors! Only the front sub-frame survived, that was only because the car was leaking so much oil!
Never again!
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Sounds like a fair price for all that work. However the car's not worth £250. I'd scrap it (they might give you a few quid for the car), and get another cheap runabout with less rust. If you were able to spend £500, you could get a decent runabout with a few years of life in it.
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I don't know much, but speaking as a former Fiesta Mk III owner (and a bloke), I'd say
1) price sounds fair enough to me.
2) If you are otherwise happy with the car, hold on to it. You know it. You don't know what "another cheap runabout with less rust" is going to be like.
3) Ask around until you find a mechanic or garage that you can trust. There are honest mechanics out there, and it is worth hunting one down just for the peace of mind of knowing that you are not being taken for a ride.
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