41 replies to this topic

[Carlsmini]

About right really. As said, only thing different would be to let you know. Not a bad price. Only thing I would question personally is the dizzy cover. Not everyone uses them anyway but that wouldn't add a lot to the bill anyway.

The dizzy is quite exposed so it is vulnerable to water and moisture. The cover just offers a bit of protection and since the dizzy was the reason the car broke down, the garage recommended getting the cover. And yh like you said it doesn't add much to the bill so I agreed to them putting that on.

Wow, wheel bearings have gone up! I thought nearer £20 a side, and if you are paying a garage to do the labour once it's apart you may as well stick a new one in. The bearings in theory shouldn't work loose. If they have, its worth replacing.

I would have gladly have paid £20 for the wheel bearings! Lol they said it was an hour job so that's why I was £50. Will change the other soon as they said there was quite a lot of movement in the bearing before they tightened it

[Carlsmini]

Just take it on the chin and you'll know better for next time...

To be fair for the amount of work that price ain't too sad, just next time get them to contact you before ANY new work is carried out, and remember your NOT abliged to pay for any work that has been done without your consent.

On the other side of the coin if the garage finds something dangerous on your car and you refuse to have it repaired then they are also within their right to refuse to do any work on the car as they'll be held responsible for its maintance...

Next time try cracking out the spanners yourself, its not much to spend an hour looking over your car once a month to make sure its looked after, it can also save a lot on recovery bills lol

Oh ok. At least they charged me fairly for the jobs they did but next time will make sure they keep me more informed if I go with them again. I do try and look after the car as much as I can myself but its difficult with my lack of experience, tools and space to work on it. If I do find anything else wrong with the car in the future, I will make sure I get it sorted sooner rather than later as I don't want this to happen again! Lol

[Carlsmini]

Just wondering, how easy is it to change the cv joints ? Also, do they need to get changed urgently if on full lock, they make a slight noise like a clicking sound?

[Dan]

They do yes, it's not a hard thing to do at all. Just need the right tools and time.

[lsto]

Buy yourself a haynes manual, things look a lot scarier then they actually are. If you get stuck people on the forum are always happy to offer some advice.

[gazza01]

They're just trying to stitch you up. Most of those jobs are easy enough. Buy yourself a mig and have a little practice, its not that difficult.

[Carlsmini]

Hopefully getting the cv joints fixed this Saturday by a friend who's teaching me how to look after my car and do more jobs on my own. :) Already got a Haynes and have read through quite a bit in the past. I've done quite a bit of arc welding but never tried mig. I will get one at somepoint and have a bit of practice. I've worked as a mechanical engineer trainee part time for a couple of years and now being trained as a technician apprentice so am greatly interested in engineering. Just learning as I go with the mini and how to look after it as best as I can.

[gazza01]

Good man! Mig is way easier to do than arc.

[PaddyShepherd]

Similar thing happened to me, Ended up at £1350. Although his work actually wasn't good and we are disputing it and may be going to trading standards.

[jaydee]

I dont get if they've done the extra work befero asking you or not
For that stuff I would have quoted about £300 plus the cost of welding and panel work
The point is when you quote 200 and find out theres more work and parts needed, you must contact the owner before carring the extra job.

[Carlsmini]

I dont get if they've done the extra work befero asking you or not
For that stuff I would have quoted about £300 plus the cost of welding and panel work
The point is when you quote 200 and find out theres more work and parts needed, you must contact the owner before carring the extra job.

They said during that they have found quite a few other mot failures so we might be looking at a little bit more than £200. I said ok but how much are we looking at price wise then? Their reply was always I don't know, I have to work it out and by then they had done the work. They weren't exactly clear about what work they were doing. I did give them the green light to go ahead and fix the mot failures and other work they felt needed to be done. I kept asking the price but they wouldn't tell me. That's why I was annoyed with them as they didn't keep me informed about the cost at all or how much it was rising from their original estimate.

[Carlsmini]

an update.

My mini failed its MOT this morning ! I was so confident about it passing since the amount of money I have spent on it and especially to this garage!

Things it failed on:
-near side head lamp not working on dipped beam
-offside rear fog lamp tell tale not working (fog lamp works fine but it failed because there was no indication on my dash that said it was on or not...)
-offside front lower axle swivel joint has excessive movement between a swivel joint and its housing
-near side front floor subframe mounting prescribed area is excessively corroded
-parking brake efficiency below requirements


I can forgive the garage for certain failures like indicator on dash of fog light on or off as I had no idea I needed that to pass. However, I have no idea how they missed the passenger floor pan underneath and they worked on the swivel joints!. It looks like someone has jacked it up from the wrong place and bent the floor pan up and now it's corroded. Definitely wasn't me.
I noticed it the other day when i was putting waxoil on the car and clearly noticed it. the garage clearly should have noticed it and said something. Especially since I paid them £750 to make sure my car would pass!

I've dropped my mini down to the same garage to tell them how disappointed I was. They say I should get it back tomorrow but I won't be happy if they quote me a lot!

Luckily I can still go L2B even if I can't get my mot retest this week as still got a bit of time on existing mot. Hopefully I can get all this fixed and mot'd this week as I've spent too much money on the car recently trying to get it ready for L2B!

Sorry for the rant lol

Edited by Carlsmini, 28 May 2013 - 01:05 PM.