Main Car Dealer rip-offs

[melloned]

Anyone been ripped off by a main car dealership ?
A Mate recently put his jaguar XK8 into a main dealer for a service and MOT.
They charged him ?550 for the service and ?45 for the MOT , but told him , unfortunately it had failed on the emission test , and needed 2 lamba sensors ( exhaust gas analysers ) replacing at a further cost of ?550 + VAT.
My Mate asked for the car returning untested and put it into a local garage who services my car and has 30yrs experience in performance cars .
He charged him a total of ?95 to remove and clean the sensors which he said were fine , but would only have cost only ?60 each for genuine jaguar replacements if they'd been needed.
he charged 3 hrs @ ?20 p/hr for his labour + ?35 for the MOT , he's now written to jaguar head office .
CON MEN

[cmax_2006]

my 307 went it for some work as i had the fap faults and they charged 66 +vat for the daig waited 2 hours just to
tell me that the guy that does the daig is away to lunch,
i asked where there not another to work the computer was told no so i waited another 45mins, after an hour
he comes and says it needs a new fap filter 800 pounds and new eloys fluid at 30 pound car had 38k on it and
he told me the filter service was long over due they need changed every 20k so i said ive checked online and they
are to last at least 70k, yes they are for the 1st gen of fap filters mine is a 2002 so its the 1st gen,

so i left the dealers and seen post about doing 70mph for 15 mins so i did and the filter cleaned it self and the lights went out for a 3 weeks so i done the 70mph again and no joy, so was told about a guy that does work from home and took it to him and he was an ex peugeot tech guy and he checked the car
on the daig and it was a MAF sensor that was my prob put a new one and so far no probs i have never been to the dealer since but will get parts from the service desk!

[v5uk]

I was down at VW the other day and they wanted to charge me half our labour to take a radio out to get the code, I said it will take me les than 2 mins to walk to the car park take it out and come back, the guy was a bit sh***y and said go on then. So off I trot to the car and back with the radio in my hand

They did give me the code for free though so not all bad

[Canker_Canison]

It's not just the main dealers.

A friend took her car to a tyre specialist, can't remember the name of the company. I associate them more with truck/wagon tyre fitting.

Anyway, it was the closest place for her to goto & the price was pretty good. They also carried out a free brake test...

Advised her she needed new front discs & pads, total cost for repair ?240. Sadly for them she isn't the typical woman when it comes to cars. That and the car went through an MOT only 2 months prior.

Being the good girl that she is queried how it could go through it's MOT if the brakes needed replacing. They didn't get the extra work.

[Furax]

Ive only ever been to a main dealer once. Was audi, free MOT and it passed, they even valeted it, washed it and paid for a taxi home for me!

[MBP]

I was down at VW the other day and they wanted to charge me half our labour to take a radio out to get the code, I said it will take me les than 2 mins to walk to the car park take it out and come back, the guy was a bit sh***y and said go on then. So off I trot to the car and back with the radio in my hand

They did give me the code for free though so not all bad

I don't see why you think that's unreasonable to be honest.

They've got to book the job in, allocate a technician who would then fit the necessary protection for the seats and carpets, take your car to the workshop and remove/refit the radio before looking up the code online and then bringing the car back to you.

All of the sudden 30 mins seems quite reasonable IMHO.

[jojo1212]

vw dealer is ripp off , they tryed to charge me 200$ for left control arm
while the whole set is about 500 which contains 12 pieces

[v5uk]

I don't see why you think that's unreasonable to be honest.

They've got to book the job in, allocate a technician who would then fit the necessary protection for the seats and carpets, take your car to the workshop and remove/refit the radio before looking up the code online and then bringing the car back to you.

All of the sudden 30 mins seems quite reasonable IMHO.

Not being funny mate and I agree your welcome to your opinion, but it don?t take half a hour, I was in there less than 5 mins after they had stopped f**kin about and got on with the job.

[nara]

Not being funny mate and I agree your welcome to your opinion, but it don?t take half a hour, I was in there less than 5 mins after they had stopped f**kin about and got on with the job.

He's probably in the trade.

[thewizardofodds]

only time i go to main STEALERS is to buy a clip or something thats only available from them. would never dream of putting my car in from.

[MBP]

He's probably in the trade.

Yeah maybe I could charge 30 mins labour to read a radio code

[MBP]

Not being funny mate and I agree your welcome to your opinion, but it don?t take half a hour, I was in there less than 5 mins after they had stopped f**kin about and got on with the job.

I agree with you mate it can feel a bit harsh when you want something simple but I was hopefully trying to paint a picture of the other side of the coin

[v5uk]

He's probably in the trade.

yeah your probably right,
I have loads of software for decoding, just non for VW, if he had said a tenner i would of paid there and then but to do nothing other than take it out and punch the serial into a pc and say it was a half hours work, I just thought this was hilarious - if anyone come to me and the stereo doesn’t need a eeprom read I charge a fiver .
oh well no point in arguing about it now its done.

edit I know the other side of the coin im in the trade myself, but I try not to take the p**s that way customers come back

[lollo54]

for repair or service our car i suggest you use a scantool (economic diagnostic) before bringing the car to the garage, so you know if there are any defects.
I always do well and spend less
best regard

[the_riddler]

Cheapest way to fixing your own vehicle...

http://www.digital-kaos.co.uk/forums/f149/

head straight for the software section,