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Mechanic`s getting bad name again

Posted by Stuart Wilkinson on August 27, 2008, 8:23 am

http://www.gm.tv/index.cfm?articleid=30515

Re: Mechanic`s getting bad name again

Posted by Mark Mcrath on August 27, 2008, 11:44 am, in reply to "Mechanic`s getting bad name again"
Mark McGrath

its our turn this week then.glad this is in the public forum.why dont we all close for a month.then the public can go and get a workshop,vehicle lift,thousands of pounds of tools,diagnostic equipment,years of experience and let them get on with it.

Re: Mechanic`s getting bad name again

Posted by Peter Warman on August 27, 2008, 7:40 pm, in reply to "Mechanic`s getting bad name again"

It seems that the Independents and Dealers are always in the firing line for over charging

A big part of this myth is due to an ill informed motoring public who know very little about modern motor vehicles and what goes on under the bonnet

All Independents and Dealers are doing is trying to put right, service and repair very complicated electronic control systems, over engineered mechanics, complicated timing belts, poor wiring and sometimes poor quality parts that now make up our mass produced modern vehicle. Customers still think that they can take their vehicle in for its annual service and MOT and come away with a bill for under £200:00

Some of the items that can fail or require replacing on your average 3-5 year old mid range vehicle (Mondeo, Golf, BMW 3 series, Honda Accord etc)

ECU (Electronic Control Unit) £200 to £1000
Injection Pumps £300 to £2000
Throttle bodies £200 to £1000
Lambda sensors £45 to £300
Timing belt kits with water pump £100 to £450
Longlife Synthetic Oil £30 to £50
Catalytic convertor £50 to £1000
Clutch units £100 to £500+
Ridiculously long service intervals - customer does not check anything in between then wonders why the oil light has comes on and engine shot

How about the Government, Consumer Watchdogs and TV Channels try looking at the source of the problem (Manufacturers), rather than kicking to poor Independent who has to try and fix them

Peter

Re: Mechanic`s getting bad name again

Posted by Mark Banks on August 27, 2008, 11:27 pm, in reply to "Re: Mechanic`s getting bad name again"

How strange that this survey was conducted by an insurance company.....

I'm sure that insurance companies have never over charged anybody and must have 100% customer satisfaction...... NOT!

Don't these things wind you up!

Mark

ps. I'm just off to Kwik Fit to get my children hypnotised... AAARRRGGHHHHHHHHH!!

Re: Mechanic`s getting bad name again

Posted by stuart whiting on August 28, 2008, 7:13 am, in reply to "Re: Mechanic`s getting bad name again"

Check out gmtv website

- email & give them your own points of view, the numbers covered in this so called survey could hardly give an acurate country wide result.

(gmtv) like these doom & gloom surveys to make people who are trying there best & doing a good job as well in certain industries feel bad when eating there breakfast

.

What ever happened to the feel good factor, can`t they do surveys that give the general public there chance to give certain people in different walks of life a pat on the back instead.

OR STOP THE STUPID SURVEYS AND GIVE US REAL NEWS & EVENTS

Re: Mechanic`s getting bad name again

Posted by Steve Nicholas on August 28, 2008, 8:40 am, in reply to "Re: Mechanic`s getting bad name again"
Stephen Nicholas

Hi Peter (and all).

What do you mean, a bill for less than £200?

When we still have local outfits advertising servicing from £69-99 and guaranteeing that it will not invalidate your warranty what hope is there of educating the consumer?

(If you calculate their labour rate it must be about 50p an hour)

The latest Kwik-Fit ad campaign just reinforces this message - they are all devaluing our (and their) trade.

You cannot do a proper job unless you charge a realistic rate. For dealers that is the rate they charge, and it's more than most of ours.

Would anyone employ a cheap barrister?

Regards,

Steve

Re: Mechanic`s getting bad name again

Posted by Keith Simpson on August 28, 2008, 8:57 am, in reply to "Re: Mechanic`s getting bad name again"

Yesterdays news is now history.

Re: Mechanic`s getting bad name again

Posted by John CW kennard on August 28, 2008, 6:06 pm, in reply to "Re: Mechanic`s getting bad name again"
John Kennard

Like some have said get on & post on the GMTV site and put over your views I just posted the following which only happened today.

I run a local independent garage and today I had a classic example of a regular customer trying to save money. (Professional repairs are not cheap; the trade today requires expensive equipment & training) He returned to us today to fix an on-going starting problem that he explained he had done the rounds with small one man repairers trying to fix a bad starting problem all to no avail and asked if we could look at the problem.
Other repairers had changed parts on the ignition system and because they fitted cheap non genuine parts the last repairer had actually introduced a bad starting problem to the vehicle. It transpired these ignition coils had been charged out at the genuine manufacturers price and were the problem. Well we had to carry out an oscilloscope test on the ignition system to prove the problem and the customer stood and watched our diagnosis. He quickly realized that the coils were quickly & easily replaced, but I had to explain that the real value in the Motor Trade is not just guessing the problem but hooking up thousands of pounds worth of equipment and years of training and expertise to spot the correct problem. The bill he had from the last repairer was for several hundred pounds and all the parts & work had to be re-done with proper genuine parts, costing a similar amount of money including our further diagnosis work to prove the other repairers mistake.
The nub of what I am saying is you only get what you pay for these days and the guy could have saved hundreds of pounds and weeks of frustration even though he knew of a reliable garage, but he perceived us as being expensive and chose the competition whose ability or qualifications to correctly repair his vehicle he knew nothing of and paid dearly for his experience. What is needed is a quality control system introduced by the government like plumbers & electricians so if you go else where you only have yourself to blame. Going cheap doesn’t mean you get value for money.

Re: Mechanic`s getting bad name again

Posted by Keith Simpson on August 28, 2008, 7:18 pm, in reply to "Re: Mechanic`s getting bad name again"

Today I had a new customer bring in his 1996 VW Golf GTI in for a misfire, he had just had it serviced and a new cam-belt fitted at a well known, what I would call a fast fit outfit, The total cost for these repairs were £169.95 inc vat.

As this misfire had only developed on his way home from collecting his car. He took it back and was fobbed off saying "Nothing to do with us" fitting a cam-belt would not cause your problem mate. Anyway to cut a long story short they had fitted a new cam-belt but the distributor drive pulley hadn't been timed up. The usual tip ex marks on crank and camshaft. None on the distributor pulley, so it looks as if he didn't know the cam-belt drove the distributor.

No wounder the trade has a bad name we are all tared with the same brush.

Re: Mechanic`s getting bad name again

Posted by Peter Warman on August 29, 2008, 12:56 pm, in reply to "Re: Mechanic`s getting bad name again"
Peter Warman - Administrator

Hi Steve

"When we still have local outfits advertising servicing from £69-99 and guaranteeing that it will not invalidate your warranty what hope is there of educating the consumer"

The lack of knowledge about their own vehicles is the problem, they are taken in by price rather than what is best for their vehicle, then when things go wrong its the garage that gets tared and feathered

Example:

Last year a friend of the family asked me for a price for 4th year service on her 206 Peugeot, i quoted £169:00 all in. The local Peugeot dealer quoted £199:00 all in or their own (non Peugeot schedule) annual FIXED PRICE service of £79:00 all in, so she opted for the FIXED PRICE to save money

A month later it started to misfire, so she returned it to the dealer, when she collected it she was given a bill for £125:00 for a code read and replacing the spark plugs. When she complained that she had just had it serviced by them, the Service Manager told her she had not had the manufacturers recommended service which would have included plugs, she opted for the much cheaper "Change oil, filter and kick tyres Service"

She did not have a leg to stand on and had to pay

A lesson learned for her.......you get what you pay for

Peter
PS: She was also told that the Air Filter needed to be changed, but can only be changed as part of a 4th Service......did she want to book it in!!

Re: Mechanic`s getting bad name again

Posted by Tom Williams on August 29, 2008, 1:35 pm, in reply to "Re: Mechanic`s getting bad name again"
Tom Williams

Hi

Sadly, there is not much in that article to diasagree with. I think it is fair comment, a large proportion of the motoring public don't trust garages. I'm not certain they have much more faith in plumbers ,lawyers or anyone else that supplies a service that they don't fully understand.
There is no doubt there are some pretty awful mechanics out there, quite a lot in fact, I think most of us acknowledge that.
The quality of the posts on the technical forums show that the vast majority of 'UK Auto talkers' are amongst the best mechanics in the country. However, any garage can only ever be as good as its worst mechanic.

PS No need for the apostrophe in 'mechanics'

Re: Mechanic`s getting bad name again

Posted by james dillon on August 30, 2008, 7:42 pm, in reply to "Re: Mechanic`s getting bad name again"

Dear All

How about you take this opportunity to have your voice heard?

Send in an appropriate, fact based response.

Don't let this be a one sided 'stone throwing' competition.

Why not talk about: extended service intervals, price of parts, complexity of the modern motor vehicle, investment required to be a technician/garage, vehicle manufacturers lack of information sharing etc...

Also, to put this into perspective (read the post in the link again), the survey is based on customer feelings and beliefs - there does not appear to be that many (or any at all?) hard facts presented by the survey.

By way of example: I believe that Sainos have too much power over Milk suppliers and have been involved in price fixing with other supermarkets (fact sustained by the competition commission leading to a combined fine of £112 million ) and they charge customers too much for Kopparberg Pear Cider (just a belief of mine); I believe that the quiz questions on GMTV are so simple that they are aimed at getting people to call in so that GMTV collect the £'ss from the premium rate phone number, and there may not actually be a real competiton running and GMTV actively set out to rip off their viewers (fact sustained by a £2 million fine levied by OfCom in September 2007).

Pot - Kettle etc, big grin!

Undoubtedly, joking aside, this survey shows that there is a perception issue with some of the motoring population (customers, insurance companies, TV companies etc.) when it comes to quality of service from garages and technicians. How about we all get behind the ATA scheme and become professionally accredited and empower the IMI to defend our joint reputations and that of our trade?

Kind regards

James.

Re: Mechanic`s getting bad name again

Posted by john white on August 30, 2008, 9:55 pm, in reply to "Re: Mechanic`s getting bad name again"
Tony White

been away afew days & read this post with interest.my sister,whos lives in burgess hill,took her vw polo in to her local main dealer for a full service.during the service they phoned her saying"your rear pads are 80% worn & inner surface of discs corroded & require changing" price £217.00 plus 220.00 for the service,she phoned me for advise.i said i could do it cheaper & using genuine parts.
any way she brought the car to me,70 mile round trip,,WE had to hammer the rear wheels(alloys).never been off in their lives,rear pads fine & discs ok.how the hell these main dealers can tell the brake wear when they don't take the wheels off.
we take the wheels off on every service,clean & lubricate hubs,as i expect all independants do!

Re: Mechanic`s getting bad name again

Posted by Colin on September 1, 2008, 12:39 am, in reply to "Re: Mechanic`s getting bad name again"
Colin Jupp

Having just read the last post I have lost count of the times I have come across main dealer serviced vehicles with exactly the same problems. I even came across one car serviced at the same main dealer twice and the pads actually decreased from 75% worn at the 1st service to only 50% at the second! Don't they look at their own records? Still I guess it must help the independents who carry out an honest job.
Regards Colin

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