Bit of a "get it off my chest" moment!
Had a few vehicles in lately, all of which had been around the block, visiting different garages, being charged different prices and getting nowhere!
First of which, is a vehicle i posted a topic on recently, a VW polo.
We did not get any further with this vehicle as the customer politely told me on the phone that he was not prepared to pay me as he had spent so much on this problem already, (not with me, i might add) i quoted £55 to spend an hour on this vehicle + a genuine brake light switch, The customer had a little moan but agreed, Then the day after, called and said he didnt want to pay what we quoted, as he felt he was still at square one, so he would come and collect the car, but was not going to pay! I politely said that he had already agreed to pay for an hour of our time, of which we spent on the vehicle.
he paid, but left saying that the motor trade are rip-offs and he was going to leave the car like it!
Second car was a mondeo, the car came to us with a running fault and air bag light on the dash. same again quoted for an hour initially to plug into vehicle and check for codes / short road test to get a feel for the running fault, customer was happy to go ahead.
we diagnosed the air bag fault and running fault within the first hour and called the customer to discuss our findings and to quote for repair, Customer agreed the car was not worth repairing and to not proceed, so he comes down to collect car and brings with him an invoice from another garage from the day before.
This invoice read :
Diagnostic charge for plugging into vehicle - No fault found as our equipment would not connect to vehicle - £60.
i asked the customer if he paid it, he said he did! as they had spent time looking for the diagnostic socket and putting their computer on it! i was gobsmacked!
How would someone have the cheek to charge for something they are not capable of doing?!
The 3rd was a renault with an immobiliser fault
from a local garage.
ME "Whats wrong with the car?"
CUST "its immobilised"
ME "no problem sir, its certaintly something we can look at"
CUST "ive told you what the problem is, im not paying you to look at it, im paying you to fix it"
ME "i understand sir, but before we can fix it, we need to identify where the fault lies"
CUST "ive told you its the immobiliser, ive plugged my laptop into it and its an immobiliser fault thats coming up"
need i go on...
we did also have a guy who popped in today also with a mk4 golf with a bit of paper with 3 fault codes on
1, o2 sensor voltage high
2, Map sensor implausable signal
3, EGR valve excessive flow detected
and asked how much to fix his car and get it running right..
i must get some more batteries for my crystal ball!
Moan over... Sorry for the long post!
