Jimboxr4x4

The wife's car failed MOT on front brakes. Garage quoted £450 to replace front pads, discs and one front caliper! I was fuming when she told me and got straight onto the garage and told them not to do the work.

I've ordered the parts from my local motor factors at £87+vat so about £110 in total. I'll do the work myself this weekend.

Am I out of touch or is £340 for labour about the going rate now for something as straightforward as this?

Stu @ M Developments

iTrader: (12)

Very excessive. We would charge about 1.5hrs for that.

rubinsbin

-robbery-pure and simple
would they have quoted that to a guy???????????

Jimboxr4x4

I think they've tried to have her over being a woman. It's only on an old civic and probably more than the cars worth!

xr2wishy

iTrader: (2)

to be honest no surprises to me.
i got quoted £100 to change discs and pads on a 206, i even supplied the parts.
as for replacing a caliper then they're taking the piss.
garages think that because cars have become more technical the owners believe every job is out of their ability zone.
in most cases this isn't true, possibly why lots of smaller garages are growing into bigger ones overnight.

rubinsbin

a few garages up this end get paid twice!!
tell the customers the discs are fucked-
so thats new discs and pads- then they sell the scrap discs--------
thing is! the discs are ok!!! but customers pay up when told they are in a dangerouse condition ---------------scap metals gone through the roof.
must say not all garages all at it.
you notice as your delivering parts whats selling better!!
also springs ,we sell more than ever just recently and over the last 6 months,
-

Rsmat

iTrader: (2)

They've seen her coming mate.... And tbh I don't blame you for being mad .

Chip

iTrader: (3)

Depends if they were using a NEW genuine caliper or a recon.

They will also be making up the pads and disks etc to full retail not to what they cost them, so its not a case of even on a recon caliper they are actually charging you 340 labour.

Would imagine it was a recon and they are trying to rip her off, but if it was a new caliper then its a relatively fair price.



Labour should be 150 quid tops on that job I would think. (1.5 hours times 100 inc vat per hour at a main dealer)

Sp3no

iTrader: (1)

That sounds very expensive.
Last MOT i had at ford resulted in a phone call to me to tell me the car had failed on rear brake disks, they wanted £250 to change these, i said dont bother will do it myself and bring it back for a free re-test, the guy on the phone then said actually they were only an advisory so it has passed!!
Now thats outrageous lol

Chip

iTrader: (3)

Wow, what a monumental cunt!

StephenC

Been honest theres not a garage near me that I trust! I havent paid anyone to work on my cars in the last 7 years. Im no mechanic but most MOT items can be done at kerbside motors. It might take me an hour longer but saves been robbed.

rog

iTrader: (2)

As chip has said, depends what parts they were using, genuine or not? I'd find out what they charge per hour and take it from there.
I be lucky to get standard discs and pads for my car for £450.

furry

kwik fit just quoted a mate of mine £327 inc vat for rear pads and discs on his ST3 lol

got the bits for £69 from factors and banged them on for him!!

Paul_RS

iTrader: (4)

I'm the opposite, mechanic is used is pure gold, really easy to pay and he'd never try to rip me off! Not surprising he's always flat out working, good reputation goes a long way!

Psycho Warren

iTrader: (5)

problem with car servicing industry is there are too many dumbfucks and lazy people about that keep the morons in business.

fiend

iTrader: (1)

Exactly! People seem to forget a car is only nuts and bolts.

All a mechanic does is take a part off and put it back on, anyone can do that. Just might take you a little longer.

oriurbo

complete rip hence i do all work myself

Chip

iTrader: (3)

While you dont exactly need to be bright to be a mechanic (which is a good job as lets face it MOST of them arent) it is still something where a certain amount of practice is useful, so I wouldnt say that "anyone" can do it really.

My mum genuinely wouldnt have a clue how to change a clutch for example.


But I do think its stupid paying 100 pound an hour at the dealership for 10 pound an hour skills!

Fil

MOTs and women dont mix,

over half droped her car off before work ( normally i take it ) . Now a few days before I gave it the once over, lights , suspension bushes , pads etc all seemed ok, only issue was a front tyre worn on the inside a bit.


Anyway it failed needing £600+ of stuff doing! no mention of the tyre,

was desperate to get it sorted, but didn't belive 90% of what they failed needed doing.

So i took it to a local garage for a complete new test,


failed , needed a front tyre! 45mins later new tyre fitted and passed

Chip

iTrader: (3)

You should have taken it to the ministry, they would have utterly fucked that garage for that, they take it VERY seriously when garages illegally use MOT's to tout for business by pretending a car has failed when it hasnt.

Fil

that is that, but chasing up £50 lost , just aint worth the time and effort, just wont be using nationwide autocentres again, now halfords autocentre

Oranoco

This is why I only trust a couple of places near my cars and generally do most of the work on my cars myself.

Too many rip off cunts out there. It's awesome to watch their faces drop when they cotton on that you actually know how a car works and they've being caught out being thieving fuck nuts.

Prodigy4B

Sounds dear but some people happily pay £100's to have a plumber stop a leaking tap or pay a locksmith £1000's to open their front door.
Neither of the above will have a premises/overheads to pay for to the extent of a garage.

Its up to the consumer at the end of it.

kev 3dr

iTrader: (1)

remember most garages is parts+vat+20% or retail cost which ever is greater and most charge by the complete hour and some Audi bmw stealers are over £150 per hour

Dlatch!

further proof that a honest mechanic is worth his weight it gold and rarer than hens teeth

i do most my own but luckily have a few good places local when i get a job needing doing that i don't have the tools to do.

anyone want to change bearings on my citroen zx torsion beam? getting silly quotes on that job, if i had a slide hammer and press would do them myself

Less.

My local garage is good as gold and never rips me off and sometimes has done stuff for free

xr2john

im the same,wont pay anyone unless i really have too.been really flat out at work lately so paid a freind of a freind £120 to do front discs and pads,timing belt,tensioners and replace every brake pipe including hoses on my wires mk4 astra and that was me getting the bits but thats probably the best part of a grand just in your average garages labour.

me personally,i think they tried to rip your missus off as women dont habe a clue about cars and the majority of women will just tell them to do it

ezz168

I wont pay no one to do work on my car im not a mechanic but iv been fixing car since i was 14 im not 37 n iv lerned by trial n error n most garages will rip u off i buy part from genral trafic save loads of money

martysmartie

iTrader: (1)

That is very bad, thing is though it's so easy to say to someone especially a woman this that and the other needs replacing and especially with it being someone like braking where safety could be compromised you understandably would go along with it if you diden't know better, it's not just mechanics as you well know this goes on in other trades as well but I think some mechanics are the worst for it.

Martin

mk2 escort boy

iTrader: (1)

Well I used to work on my own cars but cant be bothered if I'm honest well I work on my mk2 escort but that's it . My bm gose back to maindealer as I got fixed rate services when I bought it so works out just as cheap as Joe bloggs down the road I also have a dodge ram and I send that to the dealer to my bills have never been to dear but dodge is dearer than BMW by a long

jameswrx

I do a lot of work for a large company and you wouldn't believe how main dealers rip them off regarding their fleet. One of the vans went in for an mot, and renault quoted them £1200 for a new speedo head as it was 'playing up' the driver wasn't even aware of this. The company, pulled the van out the dealer, didn't look at it again and put it straight in the local auction! Crazy.

I've also had a couple of run ins with main dealers, I serviced and inspected a 10 plate lwb sprinter (which I've loooked after since it was delivered) and I noted oil leak from sump, company put it into mercedes under warranty. I had a phone call from the hire company I did the work for saying mercedes had rung them saying they need to change rear pads as they were boned! I'd only just inspectd the van and I have free rein to replace what I see fit to make sure it lasts longer than the service intervals. The hire company were ofcoarse wondering why I had missed is, I was sure I wouldn't miss it. Told them to pull it from the dealer and it'd be done FOC if is was the case.. Went down to see it and the pads were exactly as I thought, circa 60% life left on their 3rd service I'd done from new so I knew for a fact they'd be more than fine for me to judge whether or not to change them next time.

The company who were hiring the van hate the local merc dealer, I actually did the other sump change. Merc also told em they needed to spend £2500 on one of their old sprinters and the rear diff had 'broken up'. The guy asked me for a 2nd opinion, the bung in the diff had probably never been out since day 1 ( was still sealed in mud) and the oil inside was free of any debris (let alone chunks of pinion) and i trawled it with a magnet. To say the guy was pi55ed was an understatement.

RichieST

iTrader: (2)

My wife's friend's husband took his S-type jag into the main stealers for a service and a set of discs and pads, was met with a £2k bill

carcollector

i was quoted labour charge of 280 chf per hour by porsche in switzerland.

by the current exchange rate that is 187 pounds per hour

u wanna think over what u call outrageous now ??

taz1787

iTrader: (8)

thats not too bad being a main dealer price especially a porsche

botters

iTrader: (2)

im actually offended by that statement being a time served mechanic there is a lot more to it than people give us credit for what you have described above is a part fitter, a completley different job do you think you understand every component on a car, how it works and why, what it does and why it failed, can you diagnose running faults on modern petrol or diesel vehicles? and dont say you just plug a computer in and it tels you whats wrong as you couldnt be further from the truth

foreigneRS

use a local government approved mot centre that only does mot so there is no 'incentive' for them to find 'faults'

bortaf

scrap may have fone through the roof but a pair of discs are still only worth about £2 in scrap hardly a reason to lie and change them when not needed

Newer cars use harder pads that do wear the discs more often than the older 80's shit we drive
Also newer cars user softer springs and thicker ARBs for ride comfort with half decent handling that's why at my garage we change springs, discs and ARB drop links on a daily basis, they do wear out more than they used to but
still a piss take of price, £150 labour max and that's if re bleeding is a pain in the arse which it can be on a lot of cars, spent over an hour yesterday trying to get the last air out of the rear of an astra, ended up with the arse in the air, an easybleed kit on it and me in the drivers seat pumping the pedal

Stu @ M Developments

iTrader: (12)

Me too. People need to realise that in a modern workshop we are talking about vehicle technitians, not mechanics. The replacement of parts is the minor part of the job.

Name me one common trade that deals daily with something as diverse and complex as a modern car...

martysmartie

iTrader: (1)

I actually think the true mechanics are dieing, nowadays with electronics alot of the time you lookup the code and this tells you whats wrong, where as mechanics would usually have to diagnose the problem, I mean if you break down at the roadside nowdays with a mechanical problem in the majority of cases if you call recovery they simply just recover you, go back to when cars wernt electronic and there wasen't really anything you could not fix by yourself at the roadside even using make shifts methods to get you going again.

I think there stats for x number of cars repaired at roadside are for changing tyres etc!

I work in IT and just like mechanics there are some excellent people in the field but there are also alot of monkeys out there just like some mechanics.

Martin

dingla rs

iTrader: (2)

lota garages are rip off, mine only ever gos for mot .the rest is done by my self or mate ,one tryed charge my gf 300quid for changing cv boots and front pads on her car neadles to say i did it in 15mins a side tossers ,and for 40quid ,im just glad i no my mot guy it always passes