Hi Peter

"It comes down to possibly a lazy tech, in to much of a rush for tea break or lunch or no service schedules being used at all"

OR a Tech who gets paid peanuts unless he attains a bonus, I have read on AM On-Line that some After Sales Managers are after 110% or even 115% from the workshop. I have even been told by a Merc Tech that he only got paid an hourly rate for the amount of hours billed to the customer, if they quote 4 hours then that is what he gets paid - irrespective of how long it takes to do the job "Correctly" Now, be honest - what sort of job is going to be done?

I find with some of the type of work I do, that to do a job correctly takes a lot of time but other garages are constantly trying to beat the clock and under quote to compete. Sometimes a service may take 4 hours but the book time is say 2, all you hear from the customer is that I am overly expensive and have been called a rip off merchant more than once.

"then following the manufacturers service schedule or an industry standard service sheet will cure all"
Only last week I priced a Full? Service on a Seat Ibiza, it did not matter if I used a manufacturers service schedule or an industry standard service sheet as the customer asked me to beat £98+vat that he had already been quoted.

I think you are correct when you say a Technician should sign off a service sheet, but why stop there? All work should be signed off.

Graham

PS It would be interesting to know the full facts as to what type of garage they were and what trade associations they were members off.