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Sept 9, 2006 17:45:41 GMT
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If the garage is good then they can get away with ripping people off. For example if i'm joe public and i take my car to a garage with a funny noise and the garage say 'yeah, we know what that is, it'll cost £400 to fix'. Now provided that when i get the car back the funny noise is gone i'm never gonna be none the wiser that they spent five minuteshitting a heatshield with a hammer. If the noise is still there when i get it back then i'm gonna take it to another garage and they will expse the previous garages bodge job (and no doubt take great delight in telling me what a bunch of useless tossers that other garage up the road is)
So there you go. All garages rip people off, its just the good ones don't get caught.
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Sept 9, 2006 20:14:43 GMT
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So there you go. All garages rip people off, its just the good ones don't get caught. ![>:(](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/angry.png) Erm actually you're wrong. I'm an MOT tester/mechanic and while I don't own the business I do play a big part in running it, ie I book my own jobs in,order the parts,do the actual job,explain what needs doing to the customer, price up and invoice the job. I can earn fairly good money at times but damn it I earn it! I make a fairly healthy profit on my jobs most of the time,and lose out on others. Of course I have to charge the customer more than the job costs the garage...it's called making a living. I do NOT rip my customers off and resent being accused of such. If a customer brought their car to me and I was unable to fix it as in S.S's case there is no way I would be charging him for it. I realise that loads of people do rip customers off, but please don't tar me and others like me with the same horrible brush. And BTW..no I'm not a saint,and am not perfect or pretending I am ,but I refuse to be called a crook when I'm not.
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Sept 9, 2006 20:44:57 GMT
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Ok, maybe i was a bit harsh. But what i'm saying is if you spent two days trying to find an intermitant fault on a car and at the end of the second day your still banging your head against the wall do you give the car back to the customer and not charge them? Of course you cant. Then when said customer takes the car somewhere else and they find the fault in 10 minutes cos they got a knocked off russian version of the main dealers diagnostic software don't think for one minute they aint gonna tell him how honest dave must be taking the curse word charging him a days labour and not getting anywhere. I see it happen all the time, people with bills running into thousands because the computer says possible pump fault or possible ecu fault when all it is is a broken wire in the loom somewhere. Its not ripping people off, i was wrong to say that, but thats what the customer see's it as, just like skodastop is thinking know. I'm also a mechanic and have done my fare share of private work and i know thats impossible to survive in this trade without an element of unfairness. When i was mobile i used to charge £25 an hour and at that rate i had to knock my curse word out to make a living because i refused to mug people, i used to charge for the time i worked on the car and never put any mark up on parts. As a result i had loads of work but never any money to show for it. Now i work in a garage that puts 50% on all parts, charges book times for every job and is one of the fastest growing buisnesses in this area. I know its called making a living and i'm probably not a very good buisnessman but charging someone £150 to do a service which i can knock out in an hour will always be a rip off in my eyes.
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Sept 9, 2006 21:03:11 GMT
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![:)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/smiley.png) I hear what you're saying mate,and I apologise for getting a bit heated there! We charge £35 per hour +VAT, which round here is pretty competetive. We also charge retail for parts which is obviously more than we pay for them,but not usually 50% more,though the mark up on some filters is quite high percentage wise. You're right about the unfairness in some ways, some jobs you win on and others you lose on,but I certainly don't charge for work not carried out or for parts not fitted. If I'd spent a lot of unsuccesful time on a car[for instance an electrical fault that I couldn't trace] I think I'd have called in a specialist before it had got to 2 days though!
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Last Edit: Sept 9, 2006 21:04:12 GMT by daverapid
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Sept 9, 2006 21:44:55 GMT
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I think there is a big difference between what your talking about and what happened to (edit) suprisingskoda. They started with what sounds like perfectly good parts, then told him they wouldent work incluing a carb that fitted before it went in. They do sound like crooks! But every mechanic that is in the trade is usually skilled, this reaps rewards with retun customers and more work. 30% on parts is normal, as it £40 - £50 an hour, its your right as a skilled worker. If it was easy then everyone would be doing it and the hourly rate would drop! I just get ticked off with garages that find a problem in 10 mins and to make some money on the job start fabricating problems and creating need for parts. I'm lucky in that i can tell when something is wrong or not, and if they are lieing to me. In fact i find it really good fun as they start to squirm when they realise they don't have push over on their hands! ![:D](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/grin.png) J
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Last Edit: Sept 10, 2006 0:17:46 GMT by Blown_Imp
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Sept 9, 2006 23:20:02 GMT
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*point to make to the good reverend and blown-mini-with-a-boot here, I'm NOT skodastop lol!
*ps further further footnote, valve clearances weren't done, 2 of the plugs weren't firing and the engine at this moment will only run at about 2k revs and cuts out at less. amused i aint. neither will trading standards be.
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Sept 9, 2006 23:58:15 GMT
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i don't think i would be able to contain my anger if i was you.
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Sept 10, 2006 0:16:27 GMT
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youll have to excuse my ignorance suprising skoda, my sympathy is with you all the way on this one believe me! J p.s. its more, so much more, than a mini with a boot ![;)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/wink.png)
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Sept 10, 2006 0:22:19 GMT
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perhaps i compare you too much with those riley elfs and that awful wolseley (sp?) thing lol
i suppose, in a ll fairness, its a mini with proper-wheel-drive
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Panda Matt
Part of things
![*](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/stars/star.png)
Datsun Owners Club Wannabe
Posts: 734
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Sept 10, 2006 8:40:00 GMT
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If you do go to trading standards, make sure you keep friendly with them, get as many written documents about the problem as you can, and keep pestering T.S. to do some work. I had something similar... but much more expensive... the TS guy who was looking at my dispute needed calling every day to get him to do anything (and frequently just didn't answer his phone). In the end, I negotiated my final bill down, but wish I had gone further - the fighting and hassle involved really got me down, but I think I could've got more money back if I wanted... <edit> so now, I tell everyone I can to avoid the garage for any serious work
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Last Edit: Sept 10, 2006 8:42:33 GMT by Panda Matt
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