Broken car #2

[Clark10]

Sorry for making yet another thread about this but I really need advice/help.
So I set off my driver's side side airbag after clipping a kerb, so need an airbag replaced and power steering turned back on. Took my car down to a local stealers, told them what I needed and asked them to get to back to me with a price, they rang me later that day and it's £1300 to get airbag and power steering sorted, an absolute rip off, I'm sure I've seen threads on here with people getting 2 airbags done for that. They've also charged me £60 for diagnostics, even though I told them exactly what needed done when I dropped it off, if I'd known they were gonna charge that I wouldn't have bothered leaving it with them, help!

 

[Poverty]

Get it down to a independant accident repair center and let them do the work. Dealers are too expensive, indies will do just as good a job.

 

[rashcupra]

shouldnt be costing that much if its just the airbag and turn power steering back on!

the power steering reset takes 2mins the whole back rest frame will need replacing, seat cover, airbag (of course) the airbag knock sensor and the airbag module and the system all reset if you have hit the curb it is HIGHLY likely to have knocked your wheel alignment out and maybe even worse ?this could be why they quoted you alot? get it sent down to some1 to inspect it

 

[Clark10]

I had the suspension inspected at a local garage, it's fine, just the wheel alignment will be done, they didn't have the software for resetting the power steering though.

 

[Mikey_H]

Mate, a friend of mine did the same thing he told them what was wrong asked them to look at it and give him a price they called him up said yea its fine pop down and we will go through it with you, luckily i went with him to give him a lift they turned around and said £40 for looking at it he got his wallet out and i said OHH HELL NO!! and sat and argued his corner for about 10mins and said exactly what have you done for this £40 they said told you what it needs and i said well hang on a min he told you what was wrong with it before he bought it in. In the end i asked to speak to the manager and he said he would make an exception and not charge him. you really need to be firm with these people sometimes just think that £60 could have gone towards fixing the car. If i was you mate i would go back there and say you know that £60 i payed you to tell me what i had already told you.... i expect that back in my bank account within 24hours!!!! upto you but 60quid when you have to shell out to fix it is quite a bit!!! good luck mate

 

[Clark10]

I haven't paid them yet, going down tomorrow to get the car, and tell them thanks but no thanks.

 

[rashcupra]

i see why they charge to look as you cant go on what a customer says is wrong as they are not always in the trade but the estomator/car technician has had to bring the car in put it on a ramp take the wheel off inspect all the damage asses what needs to be replaced got prices part numbers ect ect and worked out a labour rate this is why thety charge you otherwise the garage would have wasted 30mins of technicians time and we all no time=money

 

[Tom B]

Remember you'll need an airbag ECU at that price, they're not cheap.

Rashcupra took the words out of my mouth on charging, if they look at cars for free they don't make money and close down. A bodyshop estimator would be able to look at it for free, as its what they do.

 

[rashcupra]

airbag ecu is the module

 

[Clark10]

i see why they charge to look as you cant go on what a customer says is wrong as they are not always in the trade but the estomator/car technician has had to bring the car in put it on a ramp take the wheel off inspect all the damage asses what needs to be replaced got prices part numbers ect ect and worked out a labour rate this is why thety charge you otherwise the garage would have wasted 30mins of technicians time and we all no time=money

But I told them exactly what needed replaced, they just rang me back with a price list.

 

[Mikey_H]

i see why they charge to look as you cant go on what a customer says is wrong as they are not always in the trade but the estomator/car technician has had to bring the car in put it on a ramp take the wheel off inspect all the damage asses what needs to be replaced got prices part numbers ect ect and worked out a labour rate this is why thety charge you otherwise the garage would have wasted 30mins of technicians time and we all no time=money

I think they should do free estimates, When go out to value houses 5 times out of 10 they aren't even thinking of moving and we spend about an hour and a half on a valuation but we don't charge because there is a 50% chance that someone will put there house on the market thats when we make our money!!. its the same in alot of trades, also when i took my old clio into renault they spent an hour or so trying to find out what the noise was comign from the front wheels... they didnt charge me anything... just refuse to pay. at the end of the day £60 is £60

 

[Ant FR]

But I told them exactly what needed replaced, they just rang me back with a price list.

I'm sorry but if you are not a qualified mechanic with SEAT training, why would they take your word for it. And if you are that clever, then sort it out yourself.....

No dealer in the world is going take the customers word for it when seeing whats wrong. They would be out of business with-in a week.

Also what if they did'nt check it, took your word, then done the work that you had prescribed and gave the car back to you.

2 days later your driving down the road and the front wheel fulls off because you also broke the hub when you smashed it up the curb causing you to roll and get seriously injured. In that case would you then accept responsibility for it yourself or phone up the delaer and shout at them saying, "you never checked it" i reckon the latter would be correct.

Plus, (sorry to harp on about this but does wind me up people expecting something for nothing all the time, when it was their own fault in the first place) if you were a garage, would you like it if every day you filled books diagnosing problems but never did the work, nope, you be skint and out of business by the end of the month.


Appreciate above may sound harsh, but you need to realise thats how garages work, they are business at the end of the day and not a public service.

RANT over!

PS why not check with some breakers for the parts, or even ebay,

 

[Clark10]

I'm sorry but if you are not a qualified mechanic with SEAT training, why would they take your word for it. And if you are that clever, then sort it out yourself.....

No dealer in the world is going take the customers word for it when seeing whats wrong. They would be out of business with-in a week.

Also what if they did'nt check it, took your word, then done the work that you had prescribed and gave the car back to you.

2 days later your driving down the road and the front wheel fulls off because you also broke the hub when you smashed it up the curb causing you to roll and get seriously injured. In that case would you then accept responsibility for it yourself or phone up the delaer and shout at them saying, "you never checked it" i reckon the latter would be correct.

Plus, (sorry to harp on about this but does wind me up people expecting something for nothing all the time, when it was their own fault in the first place) if you were a garage, would you like it if every day you filled books diagnosing problems but never did the work, nope, you be skint and out of business by the end of the month.


Appreciate above may sound harsh, but you need to realise thats how garages work, they are business at the end of the day and not a public service.

RANT over!

PS why not check with some breakers for the parts, or even ebay,

I told them I took it to another garage to get it checked for other damage and there was none, all I wanted them to do is ring me with a price for replacing the airbag, fixing the seatbelt and turning on the power steering, I didn't at anytime say check it for other damage. Basically I just wanted a quote, I rang them on Monady to get that and they told me to bring the car down and they would give me one, I was never told I'd be charged £60 for the privilege.

 

[andycupra]

I think its fair to charge a 'fair price' for a diagnostic. £60 may be a bit high..
However in my experience dealers need to be more open about this charge when booking a car in. All to often they say no problem, drop it in, we'll take a look and let you know what needs doing. At this point they should state that this will incure cost as they often give the impression it doesnt.

From the dealers point it, i think its fair to charge for this investigation as it does take up time, and you could say thankyou very much and drive off to another garage to get the work done. - This is where i think they could offest the diagnostic costs against work they then complete on your behalf. Eg 20% off labour up to the cost of the diagnostic? or free diagnostic if work is completed at that dealer.

 

[Ant FR]

Nope dealers can carry on. We are all over 18 and old enough to look after ourselves. So ASK before hand. Never assume anything.
Thats the trouble with this country and the bollocks nanny state we live in, everyone assumes too much and they also assume they can just play the " i was'nt told that" card. If you ask and get ic onfirmed beforehand then you won't get any nasty surprises, but if you do ask and they say £60 then tell you £90, then by all means kick up a fuss. But tif you don't ask and then they say £60 , what right have you to complain, your fault.

Can anyone tell that i am the complaints handling officer for my firm and believe in clients taking a certain level of responsibility for their own actions......

 

[Clark10]

I think its fair to charge a 'fair price' for a diagnostic. £60 may be a bit high..
However in my experience dealers need to be more open about this charge when booking a car in. All to often they say no problem, drop it in, we'll take a look and let you know what needs doing. At this point they should state that this will incure cost as they often give the impression it doesnt.

That's the thing that's really annoyed, they didn't tell about the £60 until after they'd given me the quote.

 

[andycupra]

Nope dealers can carry on. We are all over 18 and old enough to look after ourselves. So ASK before hand. Never assume anything.
Thats the trouble with this country and the bollocks nanny state we live in, everyone assumes too much and they also assume they can just play the " i was'nt told that" card. If you ask and get ic onfirmed beforehand then you won't get any nasty surprises, but if you do ask and they say £60 then tell you £90, then by all means kick up a fuss. But tif you don't ask and then they say £60 , what right have you to complain, your fault.

Can anyone tell that i am the complaints handling officer for my firm and believe in clients taking a certain level of responsibility for their own actions......

seeing you are involved in complaints, whats your opinion on this:
car has a brake issue. Dealer has car in for a week and then declares, sorry its taken so long, we have finally worked it out its the master brake cylinder... so that will be £500 or so all in.
Repair gets delayed and car is in garage for a few WEEKS. Reason given, wrong part delivered and awaiting correct part.
When you pick car up they say we changed the master brake cylinder but it didnt fix it so we did this, then that, then this.... its still not fixed and we are not sure what the problem is, you can have the car back and the current cost with labour is now £700.

So the cars no different to when it went in and the dealer is asking for £700. The car also now has fault lights on the dash that were not there when the car went in.
What should happen?

 

[Ant FR]

personally i would not pay the bill, they have misdiagnosed the problem, and admitted fully they have not carried out the required work. legally they would not have aleg to stand on if you took it to small claims court.

But my complaqints are uusally aong the lines of.

"I bought £25k worth of Northern Rock shares on an execution only trade back in February 2007, I was never told by the broker that they had all this bad debt, you iowe me my losses"

Even though it was execution only people will still try it on. Oh and just for info, under new rules (MIFID) the above example would now have gorunding for complaint even though there was no advice. Crazy. It ells ya, Nanny state.

 

[Mikey_H]

I understand all the above, but i still wouldn't pay!! If they aren't curtious enough to tell you that they are going to charge you then i wouldn't be curtious enough to pay the bill.

 

[FR-RUSH]

Ive never been charged for a quote, at the end of the day if their quote is reasonable then they have no reason to be worried you may take the information elsewhere to get it done cheaper?

They should definately tell you that there will be a charge before they carry out anything.

I produce quote and proposals all the time, and although in a different industry never charge for them in advance, if your quote is competative enough you will win the business.