Hi Kelly. I See that you have Main Dealer members and Independent Members as subscribers. ?

How do you feel about things such as Main Dealers Quoting £2200.00 + for a repair that is really worth in the region of £300.00 using the excuse that they wont repair "Anything" but are prepared to Remove a whole dashboard and 2 wiring harnesses for the sake of repairing 1 bad connection in a plug that is easily accessible under the bonnet,. ?? I Wouldn't want my 3 year old car pulling apart for the sake of 1 bad connection. ( The reason the repair cost was £300 is that it required a new airbag ecu too otherwise it could have been £60.00 )

Or them Condemning a £1700 + vat Diesel pump and then condemning the brand new BOSCH one that the customer had fitted unnecessarily because it wasn't a genuine GM one even though GM Buy them from BOSCH OHH But it really needed the tank draining and some Diesel putting in it.


Then on the other hand I got a customer last week that sent me a Megane in that someone had put the Jump leads on the wrong way round, I said I will look at it and see what it needs but I won't be responsible for anything that goes wrong after the repair as anything electronic could be damaged.

The recovery driver said she had told him that she had seen smoke coming from under the dash, Anyway we checked it out, Checked Battery, Alternator, Battery drain etc and only the battery was faulty, We quoted for the Battery and fitted it, Then found a brake light out, fog light out and reverse light out and fitted new bulbs, The Airbag light was on due to broken wires under the seat so we removed the seat and repaired the wires, A front indicator light was out, So we twisted the bulb in the holder and it worked. ( we advised her that if it went again it needed the bumper off and headlight out to carry out a better repair but it would cost her ) We got the radio code and entered it and the radio worked.

We also advised her that 2 Electric windows didn't work but she knew about those and didn't want them fixing.

We advised her that if anything went wrong due to the Battery reversal it wasn't our fault.

She rang back the day after screeming that the indicator had failed again and the radio had packed up and we had had her Pants down.

I explained again that we weren't responsible, its likely to be due to the idiot that put the jump leads on the wrong way round, But we would look and see whats gone wrong. She wasn,t Happy as she said the radio worked before she brought it to us. Even though the battery was completely dead and didn't light the dash up.

Her Bill was £60.00 for the battery £75.00 for 1.5 hours labour + vat which got her wreck back on the road and She thinks that we have ripped her off.

These scenarios are worlds apart and show the range of people that we have to deal with.

Have you searched the archives for the previous posts that were done a couple of years ago to see what garages think about Motorcodes or other bodies. ? I Think being a mediator between customers and garages is very difficult due to the Customers attitudes as to what they think they should get and how much they think it should cost.