Hi All

Some good points coming out here

Our workshop is now Motor Codes approved but for a small garage this works for us as most of our work comes via recommendation. Many car owners are beginning to recognoise the Motor Codes logo so it gives our customers a little bit more confidence that they are going to be treated fairly. We vary rarely get any complaints perhaps a few niggles down the years which have always been settled amicably in house, so we will probably never use the arbitration service anyway

The problem I see with Motor Codes is that it is a "one boot fits all" code and this is where the problems begin

We had out compliance check this week which went OK, lasted about 20 minutes the RAC was pretty impressed with our set up. We did have a chat with him though

Down the road from us is a very large BMW dealership that is also Motor Codes approved, the RAC guy visited recently and was talking to a few of the techs in the workshop and they were not aware that their dealership was part of Motor Codes probably through no fault of their own as it is a big place with many staff doing all sorts of jobs, they were signed up a few years ago but it probably never filtered down the chain of command

So in actual fact I have paid £175.00 for complete compliance check that ticked all the boxes, but how can this same guy do a complete compliance check on such a large dealer (2 in all, one in Redhill and one in Crawley). They should be charged a much larger fee for compliance and make sure both sites (all staff) know all there is to know about Motor Codes the same as me

If the dealership had a grievance against them they would probably laugh off the £450.00 arbitration fee as peanuts and move on (couple of hours labour to them, make them pay a couple of grand, they will probably take more notice to get their house in order) for me that would be a big blow. So should the Independents and Dealerships be separated and a code for each?

We all know large dealerships have to make big profits and will swop out parts at big expense rather than repair as Tony rightly points out, so should all garages be tared with the same brush as we are all under the Motor Codes umbrella, seems a little unfair

Peter