gym-rst

Smashed any by doing them up to tight ?????

Ginge !

full rebuild for changing a clutch

think i know why your sierra cost you 20k to maintain

full rebuild means taking it apart and rebuilding it, not taking the case off and changing a baulk ring or 2

and again,,, full rebuild for changing a clutch

Sean_RS

From my own experience i didnt have any probs... infact service and advice was great. However I only had a gearbox supplied..

Jim Galbally

ginge, the clutch fitting is done by the sub-contractor.

the full gearbox rebuild is charged at a flat rate of circa 100quid. mine cost me about Ł105 inc. parts

the rebuild was not done becasue of the clutch, the box needed doing, and so i bought a clutch to fit at the same time as a "whilst it's out" job

the clutch cost me nothing in fitting, as it was already included in the "put the box back in the car" price

Big G

So he's got to spend the day diagnosing a fault on your box, in which you could have gone away and got the job done elsewhere cheaper??

Sorry if I aint seen wether it got repaired but if it got recovered to CTS, how did you get it back if he just diagnosed and not fixed??


I would imagine that a hell of alot of garages, specialist's etc get theyre fair share of people turning up
"Can you have a look and tell me whats wrong", spend a couple of hours fault finding probably at a reduced labour rate just so the customer can fuck off, buy the part and sort it themselves without the labour charge,
Could you have looked like 1 of them to CTS hence the delay.

Ginge !

erm big g,. cts TURNED HIM AWAY he wanted them to do the work,,,,, they was too busy or just not interested

Big G

Cant put it more English than that Ginge,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

MAD matt-sab

did my S1 box stage 1 no probs top man ec
local guy with escos took box for rebuild etc was already quaiffe
now jumps out of gear etc and had another prob too

Ginge !

why do people reply slagging a bloke off if you never read the first post

give a opinion yet dont know what the debate is

have you ever thought about joining the labour party

RichardPON

Sorry to state the obvious, but have you made any of this clear to Bernie?

He may be busy, but he's one of the few traders that I would trust on a personal level outside of car stuff.

Cossiep

Yes I did Rich, see below for my email I sent following phone contact.

CTS,

Can you please give me an indication as to when you you are palnning to diagnose the problem with my car which you have had since Monday morning. I appreciate you must be very busy, as we all are, however, upon booking it was never stated that you would be expecting to keep the car a day, let alone two or more. I am self employed and this is my only vehicle and live 80 miles from you !, as a result I am having to hire a car for this week at significant expense, will I need to book it again for next week???

I would simply like to know weather the gearbox is repairable or scrap so as I can plan around this, as said, I'm sure you are busy, but I fail so see the point of me booking the car in a week in advance for it to sit not looked at for two days. I could of done that weeks ago prior to it failing.

I don't intend to pester you with phone calls but I would appreciate a call or reply to this message.

Thanks

Paul Clarke

neilm

Hindsight is always a wonderful thing, and as I recently found out, often people who are shit hot a their job are often wank at customer service / sales.


What you would have hoped would have happened would have been someone would have looked at the fooked Merc on Monday morning, got in it, started it up, gone.. thats fooked mate, you need a new / recon box, we can get on it in three weeks for you, would you like to book it in for the work.

No, you need it doing sooner, sorry we cant help, try so and so.. they may be able to do it for you.


After all, it would only take 10 mins to establish its fooked if its already pissed its oil out.


This could have all been done and dusted by 10:30 on Monday morning, CossieP would have known where he was with it all and no one could have said fairer than that.

Why do some people make things hard for themselves



What I would say is a customer of mine in Zimbabwe uses Bernie for his gearboxes so his reputation is international

BillyCabrio

iTrader: (1)

Cossiep

I know its a bit late now but, theres a perfectly good gearbox builder in Brockley/Sydenham.

I used them to rebuild the Rs Turbo box i had on my 2.0 16v Fiesta, they even came and collected it from my mates garage in Sidcup. That box got a pounding everywhere i went and it got a shit load more stick around brunters, bedford, brands etc and held its own superbly(sp)

Until the wheel fell off

I'll see if i can get the details of the garage and PM you later today

Ratty

iTrader: (1)

Personally I think you had unrealistic expectations

To turn it around in a day would require another box/parts being on the shelf and spare labour available to do it

You must have known on Sunday that you would require a hire car when your box expired. Did you confirm on Monday morning with Bernie that he had taken delivery of the car and would diagnose and fix the fault that same day

dojj

iTrader: (3)

nail on the head there mate, and bernie would be getting all sorts of plaudits on how good he was instead of a mix of reports on how quick the business turn around times are

Ratty has also raised an intresting point regarding the confermation he should have had for it to be looked at on the monday morning and clarification that the work would be done then as opposed to when he was at the head of the queue

can't see him getting his car looked at and fixed on a same day basis

Cossiep

More good replies guys

Ratty - To clarify your points;

As said earlier there was never any intention to fix anything on the Monday and yes I did obviously know that a hire car would be required for Monday. The real issue for me is that if I had known how Bernie operates then I could of bought the car to him PRIOR to it being terminal. What is the point of appointments if you then still operate a first come first served basis ?

Bit like booking a doctor's appointment and upon arrival being told another 10 people are in the way please come back tomorrow etc

Carlsworth

what people are missing here is...

it was booked in a week previous....


and as someone has said,..

to check something you know about doesnt take 2-3 days....



carl

Cossiep

Far be it for me to tell Bernie how to run his business

He should either operate one system or the other, if he feels comfortable with taking on jobs and forming a queue then fine, as long as people are told this in advance, there can be no issues taken with him in this type of case

gearboxman

Paul, you initially booked your car in for a preliminary diagnosis of gearbox faults "sluggish shifts & noise at idle".

This would have involved a road test, oil level/condition check, and maybe a scan for fault codes.
This would be done while you wait, with the road test and oil check done free of charge, and a scan (if necessary) at Ł25.00+vat.

Without warning, your car turned up on Monday, on a transporter, obviously with the gearbox in a much more serious condition.

Your car now needed to go on a ramp to investigate the oil leak.
Both ramps had dead cars on them, which was explained to you when you phoned on Tuesday.

On Wednesday morning your impatient sounding email and fax were waiting when I arrived at work.

I'll admit that the two jobs occupying the ramps were running on while waiting for parts, but your car was not originally booked for ramp time.

Whatever, the tone of your email before we'd even started, suggested we weren't going to enjoy a happy working relationship, 30 odd years in this trade has given me a gut instinct, and I decided to terminate that relationship with our email reply.


Incidentally, we have stored your vehicle in our secure and insured premises, for no return, since Monday. I trust you will be collecting it today?

Ratty

iTrader: (1)

The the scope of work has changed though when the car broke down. If my boiler is due service and breaks down the day before the service engineer is due to turn up I wouldn't expect him to replace the boiler the following day, the work would be re-scheduled due to the scope of work required changing

Did you speak to Bernie on Monday morning?

If he said it would be done Monday then I understand your gripe, but if you didn't then you just assumed he would look at it even though the nature of the job and thus the amount of work had changed

/edit just seen Bernies reply

dojj

iTrader: (3)

having read bernies reply, i would have to say that he has made things fairly clear

now, the problem is that some will say that he's made it clear that he won't have time to look at your car and to basicly sod off and others will look at it as he hasn't had time to look at your car and you'll have to shell out some money to have things looked into more throughly and then there will always be the others who will see it as a polite way of telling you fuck off and not waste his time

i see it as him seeing you as a potentialy arsey customer that has been told something and thinks it's soemthng else and, while he is prepared to do the work for you, repeat business may not be occouring

you on the other hand may see it as something totaly different, but i thik bringing it onto the bb has not done anyone any favours other than to highlight the time frames that the "performance" car tuners need as opposed to the"performance" cars woners expectations

Daviet

christianh3

Cossiep, what was the aim of posting on here? Your car wasn't looked at when you expected, not like you received shitty workmanship was it? And for that you're attempting to drag down someones name?

From the replies on here, seems like gearboxman has a good reputation. Nice one for reinforcing that! Cos thats all you've done

Ginge !

yeah mate as thats EXACTLY what i read

take the shit out of your eyes boy

hes reply shows the reason why he never looked at the car was cause hes got 2 dead ramps waiting for parts,,, never good practice to make all your ramps dead but thats HIS business

hes reputation about his work has NEVER been in doubt,,, hes ability to work to time frames and have all customers 100% happy has shown that the 3 people I know of aint the only ones who got the " its done when its done" service that bernie seems to be famed for

the fact hes got 2 dead ramps waiting for parts proves he spends more time working on cars hes got and waits for them to be done before he takes a thought for other work

wake up ffs,,, berine is a shit hot gearbox man but hes business seems shite at working to time scales for the normal joe public and chip belives thats how the performance tuning game actually works,,,, which is a load of bollox too

christianh3

what lol!!!????

Care to translate the above (if that was a reply to me?)

Are you feeling ok lol?

Eyes? Shit? WHAT? Stay off da drugs maaaaaaaan LMAO

Ginge !

read EVERYONES replies then understand the general feelings of HIS ACTUAL CUSTOMERS and not people who have never used him

discount jim though as he had hes gearbox rebuilt when he needed a new clutch but there wasnt a problem with the box he said earlier


hes a good gearbox tech,,, thats never been the issue its his satisfaction that hes not that 100% fool proof of

Cossiep

I'm glad Bernie has replied, only right he quotes his side of the story

Ordinarily I wouldn't bother with any further replies as you can all make up your own minds having read all the above, however this particular incident has really rubbed me up the wrong way.

Bernie - you are quite right that the car ended up in your possession with a fault other than that I described to you upon booking, I take no issue with that whatsoever. You state NOW exactly what you would do to diagnose my initial problem and that you had not booked ''ramp time'' for my car.

Why did you assume from my layman's description of the fault over the phone, that no ''ramp time'' would be neccessary ? kind of limits any REAL diagnosis dosen't it ?

The fact that you assumed no ''ramp time'' was neccessary, I would say ''isn't my problem'', however, it very much turns out to be my problem in this case.

So for every customer who simply calls and says '' there's something up with my gearbox guv'' and you book them in, have you no intention of doing anything more than driving the car, doing a few routine checks and then holding onto their vehicle until a space becomes free ?

You state that you had me booked in for a preliminary diagnosis, road test etc............. so why when the car arrived did you not call me and say '' Paul, now the car has actually failed I can't at present do any more than you already know until space in the workshop becomes available''......... I could of then had the car collected Wednesday morning and out of your way and I would of gone away with a very good impression of your business.

Also, please explain to me how the car arrived on Monday morning ''without warning'' !!! It was booked in !!! Cant really give you any more warning than that, a week's warning in fact

Please also tell me in what way my email was ''impatient'' in its tone
Have you actually read it, TWICE I even give you an ''out'' so to speak by saying ''I appreciate you must be very busy'' and my closing line '' I do not intend to pester you with phone calls'' dosen't sound very impatient to me

You then decide to terminate our business relationship on this correspondance. I CANNOT BELIVE YOU TURN DOWN WORK SIMPLY BECAUSE A CUSTOMER ASKS WHEN THEY CAN EXPECT THEIR CAR TO BE SEEN TO At no point in our buisness relationship did I put any pressure on you to speed things up, I simply asked what the situation was, and your initial reply to this request was to take my business elsewhere.

It is simply a communication issue, you did not contact me within three days (who knows how long you would of kept me waiting before making contact) to let me know the situation, and I do not accept that whether the car was a runner or not had anything to do with you informing me of the situation.

You have simply abused your position of having the ''whip hand'' so to speak in this case, as I the customer needed a service from you and you couldn't care less about the custom.

I've dealt with many traders/ specialists off this board - PJMotorsport, North Yorks Spares, Cossy abuser aka Simon in the past and they will all confirm that I'm a straight up guy, I also have nothing but praise for the way they handle their business.

For all those who have asked why I have posted this subject, surely it's obvious ?, so that others you do not accept this ''specialists/ tuners all work this way'' nonsense, do not get stung like I have. Judging by others comments earlier on this thread, Bernie's record in these types of situations is hardly untarnished (and before anyone posts it, I accept it's not possible to please everyone)

Let's just hope that the garage it's at now do not mess me about or they'll be blood

Phil

iTrader: (1)

Guys,

Before everyone starts shouting at Bernie or Cossiep, I think this should be taken as a simple miss-understanding that has occured due to the use of email instead of picking up the phone.

Cossiep is obviously a busy man and was slightly miffed at not getting his car back/any information about his car when expected and probably a bit stressed about how much a new gearbox will cost him. It is easy to send a bit of a sharp email in this position, i'm sure we have all done it. It is not cossiep's fault that he does not know Bernie's business inside out - he probably doesn't even know how many people CTS employ or how much scope they have for dealing with jobs coming in this way.

Bernie is also busy and hasn't has chance to look at the car through no fault of his own, especially considering the work is different to what the car came in for.

Perhaps it would have been better if Cossiep called Bernie when the car was coming in for work that wasn't expected then Bernie could explain the situation with having no spare ramps etc. Perhaps Bernie should have called Cossiep to explain the situation if the customer didn't call him first.

Either way you should kiss and make up

Cossiep

Phil - Give us a kiss


I phoned Bernie @ 9:30am on the Monday to ensure he had the in his possession, his reply was '' Yes, got the car, not looked at it yet''.......... Ok I say, just checking it got to you ok................ end of conversation.

I did not want to ask when he'd be starting to look at it as it was only 9:30............ the rest of that day NOTHING !!!

Phone calls in some cases get you no where, the written word is the only way.................... what do they say about the pen being mightier than the sword

dan druff

hi, only comment i would make is from working in a merc garage is if cars are recovered in they are always diagnosed within 24hrs and we never leave dead cars blocking ramps , also if car has a 722.6 box in it , it can mostly be diagnosed from driving,oil condition ,adaptation data etc . only would need a ramp for oil leaks .

Jim Galbally

Ginge,

my gearbox was rebuilt because i said
"bernie, please rebuild my gearbox"

Ginge !

jim what was WRONG with the gearbox though, you said there was a clutch issue but the box had nothing wrong with it,,, why did he rebuild it or did you just wanna throw some money away thinking " this will save me money"

just wondering

bigal1978

read it all
but if you work 5 mins away from the gear box place why did it take you 3 days to say anythin and 5 days to post this you could push your car 5 mins surely ?
im not getting involved in anythin else just if it was that close i would have poped in to see him

Cossiep

Main base is 5 mins from Bernie's - on the road most of the day

Please read the rest of my posts, certainly did not take me 3 days to get in touch................. you must be getting me mixed up with Bernie

dojj

iTrader: (3)

it's a case of crossed wires here me thinks
bernie wasn't expecting it to be a ramp job so didn't feel the need to have a ramp free for it
on the other hyand, the owner feels that it should have gone on a ramp and thats whats caused the problem

hindsight etc but i think a simple talking between the 2 of them will sort the problem out or it won't

nothing else to do is there

Cossiep

Crossed wires certainly dojj

However, I didn't think it should go on a ramp................ I'm not the expert

I would of thought however, that by booking a slot these facilities would be available to be utilised on my car

JjCoDeX75

My only observation is that if I had received that fax, I may have likewise misinterpreted it as a little hostile.

The rest sounds like plain misunderstanding as stated.

JJ

Cossiep

Please explain...... what part of my email is hostile ? it's all purely after information that should have been forthcoming

When I cannot plan my week, mess clients/ collegues around, I don't think a little hostility is unreasonable

dojj

iTrader: (3)

thats fair enough, and what most peole would expect
because the garage works in a different way to what the majority of peole expect a grage to work like thats where the probelms have occoured

the problem now is that you are being accused of bringing bernies name into question and on the other hand, everyone is saying that bernie lines up work on a "first come first served" basis

to be honest, if it was me in the same situation i'd be a little pissed too, but i would have to accept the fact that bernie didn't have to tell me the in's and out's of what he was going to do with the car when it got there

the matter is further complicated by the fact that the car was not in a fit state to test out on the road when it turned up and, bearing this in mind, i'd cut him some slack

you are right in assuming that the car was booked in and should have been looked at, and i can sympyasis with you that bernie didn't get back to you, but he has made it clear in the email that he will not be able to fix it in the time frame you have stipulated

i can't see any sort of end to this as both parties are in the right, and, at the same time, both parties won't give a little to accept that they have both been a little lax in actually finding out what the other side wanted

as a customer i can see your side of the story
and, as a business man i can see bernies side too so i can't say either are right or wrong based on the facts put out in front of me

wisdom of solomon and all that needs to be sought out here to work it out, but niether side will win

fuzzy

it sounds like the service you get from every garage ive ever used.they tend to double or treble book as youd be amazed at the amount of people that dont show.that doesnt seem to unreasonable to me tbh as nothing definate was actually discussed.3 days is nothing though,a garage once had my car for 6 weeks to replace the clutch cable under warranty and another took 17 weeks to do my engine conversion after quoting 2 weeks