Had the wife’s daily in for service today, (Kia) they called to say that the front wipers were smearing and rear wiper was split.
That’s interesting, as the fronts have been on an about 3 months (Bosch) and the rear less than a month., I don’t drive it so couldn’t comment, but needless to say, I declined the offer to replace them at £45.
However, I checked, and the fronts don’t smear and rear isn’t split.
They also quoted £125 for an aircon service… aircon works fine, and £30 for a cabin filter. (£7 on eBay delivered, and takes all on 30 seconds to fit)
then get this. In 2022 @ 13000 miles brakes worn 10%, last year @ 21,000 miles, brakes worn 20%, this year @ 29000 miles, brakes worn 65%.
Nothings changed as regards driving habits, it’s a shopping car, not a track car.
I’ve absolutely no trust in main dealers.
They now have me thinking, if they’ve lied about these things, did they actually change the oil/filter and spark plugs, so I had to check.
A not dissimilar experience with my 2018 530d at the local BMW main dealer. I always check they’ve changed the oil (contrary to popular belief it has a physical dipstick if you know where to look). I also check the air filter’s been done before I drive off the forecourt too - on one occasion it was obvious they hadn’t done the air filter, the spiders and dust, grass, etc rather gave it away, so they had to do it there and then. Unlike your brake pads, the rear ones on mine had 8 mm at 38000 miles and were 10 mm at 50000 miles. I expect at the next service they will be brand new again🤣.
At a Ford dealership on a Mondeo I owned several years ago, they told me there was a nail in the spare…except it didn’t have a spare, as I was using it on another car at the time.
Ah, the old classic I had at the Honda stealership a few years back was the rear foglight bulb. Given that I had never once switched it on in the entire time I owned the car, it’s a mystery why they had to change it every single year for five years running!
Both cars now go to my local independent garage.
Ford are just as bad. Charged me for an air filter when my car had a cold air intake and dented the car whilst in for a service. Made me wait all day even though I saw them park the car in a bay when they had finished and it didn’t move for 2 hours. This I believe is to give the impression that it’s time consuming and justify the cost which was basically 360 for what amounted to an oil change.
Also had a friend get his civic type r serviced and mot’d at a watling tyres at which they had advised it needed new discs and pads. We had replaced them 2 days prior and they were brand new, so they obviously hadn’t even looked. We checked the oil, it was black, the air filter was old and the oil filter was dirty on the outside. They had done nothing. He got his entire costs back with a threat to go to the local papers and trading standards.
I knew a guy who’d bought a new VW every year for years probably 15 years.
One year he’d forgotten to ask them to put a towbar on the new one hed bought a for months earlier so went back to ask them to put one on.
A few weeks after having the towbar fitted he was doing some work under the car and noticed the new one they’d charged him for was infact the one taken off his old car that he’d knocked in a specific place so knew it was his.
They’d charged him full price, he went back and challenged them and they admitted it was his old one. After refunding him, apologising profusely buying his wife flowers etc the damage was done.
He never bought a VW again!
I’m glad my daughter didn’t replace her Kia with another Kia. Ok the Kia dealer is handy for her but prices are astronomical, they give her all the same speil about work
that needs to be done, unnecessary work.
I’ve told her find an independent for the new to her Toyota, don’t go near the Kia garage.
My local garage has just MOTed my 10 year old SEAT, they do repairs/servicing etc. It passed no problems with the actual tester in the office when I collected it. I thought the front brakes were probably down enough to possibly get a mention, he said no such problem, don’t touch them they are fine. He also said he’s not seen a 10 year old car in such good condition in ages, he also added 4/5 year olds are sometimes really rough and need attention that comes in.
For a few years I used to put a tiny spot of Colorado Beige (Cavalier Orange) touch-up hidden on all the filters etc, anything that was on the service schedule for both my cars. It was only easily visible if the item was taken off, or with a mirror.
Once when collecting the Vextra I overheard one of the mechanics on the other side of the door mention to his apprentice it was a typical service-check car used by Vauxhall’s and MOT checks by the DVLA.
I guessed that was because they had seen my dots on an old car that always immaculate and only did about 5K a year so it was very tempting for the unscrupulous to skip items.
A Skoda dealer told my wife she needed a new tandem pump because it was leaking. She called me as instructed (I warned her they always try to rip off female customers) and I said it smelt like BS, so tell them we wanted the old part back.
On picking the car up, they told her it was ok, they’d been mistaken about the leak.
A tandem pump is only on PD engines. This wasn’t a PD engine. Never went there again, the robdogs.
Sadly this is what happens when people are managed by targets. The objective of hitting the targets takes priority over doing the right thing, perhaps understandably if wages or even the job depend on it.
I owned a Honda CRV for 6 years. They told me the front pads needed replacing at 25,000 miles. I suspected this was rubbish as I know I am very light on brakes so I declined. Those pads were still good at 75,000.
I forgot to add, when they contacted her a month ago, they quoted £270, stating that 5 years was a biggie and needed spark plugs (3) and a new sump plug… I guess trying to fool her in to thinking these items were expensive… I don’t know… ??
Anyhow, Kia have a service quote thing on their web site, where you can obtain a price for service and compare against different dealerships.
On the Kia site, the same dealer was £209, so when she called back, she challenged them to price match (their own price).
Rip off b@£7@d§
Many years ago, I had similar experiences, with main dealers - I often felt that this was because I was a ‘little lady’!
Unfortunately for those dealers, I used to help dad when he was mending tractors/cars, so I knew a bit about what was what beneath the bonnet, what parts were called and how they functioned.
In those dim and distant days, before so many car engines were hidden under covers, and computerised, I could do simple maintenance - brake pads, fan belts + adjusting them and non structural body work etc. So I could call the dealers bluff, then would take the car to a good old fashioned auto engineer, who was straight with me and only did what I asked and what was absolutely necessary to keep my usually elderly vehicles running and up to MOT standard.
Nowadays I can still refer to salient bits of the engines/car and will challenge what I consider to be spurious work. The main dealers I use are aware of this and don’t try it on - I can’t maintain an engine or other systems that are computer managed, so have to trust them on this.
There are so many rip off merchants out there and it’s shocking that some main dealers still have such low standards and many folk don’t know enough to say no! Makes me very angry.
As a counter narrative, I had VWs and Skodas for 25years and the dealer service and customer care on both from main dealers was exemplary.
So it was a shock to experience the utterly appalling service from two Ford dealers when my wife and I both had Focuses . Both were well known , almost household names too - both were incompetent , lazy and rude and one was reported to Trading Standards for lying about (pre-owned) car’s history.
But nothing came close to the industrial scale awfulness of buying a new 30 +grand Caterham from the thankfully long defunct Caterham Midlands.
Desultory handover from bored staff. Asked for handbook , turned out it was for a K engined car and not a Duratec - 'not printed yet for new engine '. Tank empty . Stack speedo registered 524 mph next day on local High St, some trim fell off . 300mile round trip to get Stack fixed - thought was ok until I realised I was overtaking everyone on M1 - was under reading by 15-20% . Fuel readout suggested only 28 litres max with a 35 litre tank (later explained by relocation of fuel pump or some bollocks) . Another 300mile round trip and a blown fuse on my part and the speedo was fixed , finally…
It’s a low volume specialist sports car, you might say - to which I’d reply , yup and they’ve been making them for over 50 years and still can’t get the detail right on a 30 plus grand car . Same spec 420R would now be 50 ish .
Local Mazda garage wrote in the report on my mx5 - original footwell mats- nope cheap ones from Amazon. They also found stuff that actually never existed. Local Halfords no better, drove away after service and it was clunky, bad traffic so couldn’t head back, went straight to the little corner garage who showed me twisted brake pads- Halfords were no use in response.
My Volvo ‘64 went in for a recall a year ago ( so nine years old and something is still wrong?)
It comes back to me with a video showing £2000 of faults to be fixed. Five months later it sailed through its MOT with no advisories. I did wonder whether the recall was just a ruse and I’m not one for conspiracy stuff
My bmw 330cd is a 55 plate. I had a recall a couple of years back for airbags. Apparently they sometimes would trigger in hot humid climates. Not much tropical weather in Scotland, but I had them replaced anyway.
True story:
Bought a mint and boxed 1983 Opel Monza 3 ltr GSE in 1994. Noticed it had a call out for a faulty warranty steering wheel adjusting mechanism in 2002. Took it to dealers with a printout of the DVLA stuff. They had one wrapped up in greaseproof paper…afer an older guy found out how to boot up the old MicroFish and it was about hour to fix. Their faces in the showroom when they saw this GM “classic” ? in the workshop getting it fixed was priceless. " Those in the know" were all over it like a bad suit…and I ended up having to take the young Dealer Principal out in it…we ended up at a burger van 20m miles away,I let him drive… on his treat talking classic car rollocks. :Lovely guy. He is still there. A Director now I think.
