Morning All

My car was due its MOT at the weekend and failed on its emission test. The garage suggested this was due to a faulty clamp which I had corrected however when I took it for its retest it failed again, this time not registering anything on the Lambda test. I rebooked it in for today for them to “check out the exhaust sytem and see whats what,” and at 1230 they left a message to phone them back which I was not able reply to until 2pm as I was at work.

“I could have done with you phoning back earlier on, we’ve replaced your spark plugs, put a new air filter in, run engine cleaner through it in case it was running rich but it still wasnt quite right so we needed to replace the oxygen filter. I couldnt get hold of you so had to make a decision then or I wouldnt be able to get it until tomorrow so, well, its being fitted now and you can pick it up in the morning. All in it comes to £170”

😮 😮 😮

Now as my understanding goes all they were going to be doing was checking over the exhaust and then telling me what needed doing so. I know that the work needed to be done but all the parts I could have sourced for cheaper, an ex mechanic friend would have fitted them and then I would have taken the car back for its free retest. This is the first time I’ve taken a car to a garage so I maybe being naive here but dont you have to be consulted and agree to have work carried out before they go ahead and do it?

I’m going back there in the morning but cant help the feeling I’ve had my pants pulled down so where do I stand?

Cheers All 🙂

you are going to have to pay to get the car back

Next time be clear it is just for diagnostic reasons and to do nothing without contacting you.

You’re the Aston Villa player…

…although, it’s not as if you’ve been Molgripsed™

£170 doesn’t sound too bad if they’ve got it through the mot tbh.

Tricky situation, but…

“check out the exhaust sytem and see whats what,”

…sounds like you expected them to do some chargeable work. How much where you prepared to pay for this, or did you expect it FOC? If it was just a visual check you would have done it yourself.

IME you have to be very clear with garages that no work is to be done without permission. In their defence garages do have to deal with muppets who don’t even know how to open the bonnet!

Seems fair, they got it through the MoT for you, which I assume is the end result you wanted…

check out the exhaust system and see what’s what

You asked them to do this? Expecting them to diagnose the issues and suggest a repair (for free perhaps) so you could have it done elsewhere cheaper?
Yes…. you have been naive.

£170 isn’t to bad, just pay and move on. By the time you’d payed them for the diagnosis, messed around getting parts, hasseld your mate onto the job bought him beers, you’d wished you’d payed the £170.

I can’t stand the tension, did the villa player score or not?!

sounds like you expected them to do some chargeable work.

doesnt read like that to me but I’d probably have said “retest it please” to be clear

I can’t stand the tension, did the villa player score or not?!

Wearing pants like that?

To be fair, expecting them to diagnose without giving them the job is a wee bit off. Sounds like the garage did what you wanted, but your not too happy with the price.
however, it sounds like they’re fitting the sensor “now” but they still haven’t done the MOT? how can they be sure that was the problem?

Depends on what was agreed beforehand? But it sounds to me like they’re taking the wee a bit. Chances are, just one of those things would have sorted it. OK, sometimes you have to go through each one to find out, but in this case I reckon they’ve just thought sod it, we’ll give it a full service, we make some money, and you get your car through the MOT. Which is kinda their job, but not if it’s unnecessary.

Do you take your own cans of beer to the pub and ask the landlord to open them and pour them in to their glasses for your consumption. If you had been charged £50 just for the diagnosis and the list of what was needed would you have been happy with that?

Do you take your own cans of beer to the pub and ask the landlord to open them and pour them in to their glasses for your consumption.

You do find out the price of the drinks before you buy them though.

sometimes these sort of jobs are a process of elimination, swapping the less costly items first until the fault is cured. cannot expect him to remove the parts after he has found the problem. I think the garage guy has done a fair job at a fair price.
Pay up & give him a tip.

There’s 2 sides. First, legally, you are only required to pay for work you requested. In this case, from your description, you requested the diagnostic not the fix which is absolutely fine- diagnosis is a job in its own right, trade is used to people bringing them cars to find out what needs done then doing it themselves- that’s why they charge for diagnosis.

On the other hand- it’s not a bad price at all, legally you have a point that you can argue but personally I’d pay it. You’re going to be given a bill for a couple of hours labour at least, and they can make a reasonable case for consumables. Essentially you’ll be trading a relatively small amount of money for a quiet life and a fixed car. They may have overstepped but there’s no reason to assume they’re on the make.

Diagnostics has blurry edges… “Why doesn’t my bike shift properly?” “We fitted a new cable to see if it fixed it” “But I only wanted it diagnosed not fixed!” Sometimes the action of testing, also fixes. In this case, would you have expected them to chase down the issues without some of this?

I’d just pay up, it sounds like you’ve had two free retests when they only have to give you one so that’s saved a few quid too.

an ex mechanic friend would have fitted them and then I would have taken the car back for its free retest.

If you remove the car from the MOT garage to carry out work and then return it for a retest, the retest is not free. It’s only free if the MOT garage carries out the work itself – chances are you’d have saved very little doing the work yourself.
The garage were a bit naughty though.

Realistically how much would you have saved by buying the parts elsewhere? A few quid?? Then you’d have to have slipped your mate a few quid, I doubt he’d do it for free?

Sounds like you’d have saved a few pounds, but tripled the hassle to me.

I think you’d have a point if they’d done £500 of work, but £170? Pay up and move on.

They’re not legally obliged to, sharkbait, but when my car failed on tyres and exhaust I took it away to a tyres and exhaust place (less than half the cost the MOT place was quoting, mainly because they fixed the exhaust rather than replacing the whole thing, though the tyres were also close to half the cost) and then got a free retest. Was an interesting afternoon, as the bonnet catch also failed when they did the first MOT – not an MOT failure itself surprisingly, but I had to fix it myself before I could drive to the tyre place (the MOT garage is less than half a mile away – I drove that very slowly!)

Does the £170 incl’ the MOT fee?

Seems pretty standard to charge £50 for diagnostics, so I’d just suck it up and pay.

They’re not legally obliged to

No, but I’ve yet to come across one that didn’t charge the retest fee so you did pretty well.

Depending what the item Test Stations cannot charge a retest fee, it’s all laid down by VOSA what is and what isn’t chargeable along with the scale of times.

I can’t stand the tension, did the villa player score or not?!

Nope- skyed

bit off topic but

“run engine cleaner through it”

Doesn’t that stuff eat gaskets etc? I’ve always been told to steer clear of fuel, radiator and engine cleaners because it can do more harm than good.

edit” oh and it doesn’t seem too bad especially if it includes the MOT fee

Id be very pleased with that result, diagnostics which for some reason people reckon garages should spend there time fault finding for free, they will get the parts cheaper than you can in most cases, They took the initiative and it was sorted and retested there and then. I’d pay them and give them a few beers for not giving me the run around

Mots only cost the station 19 quid a pop.

Mots only cost the station 19 quid a pop

I don’t know where you got that information from but I can assure you, you are incorrect. The other interesting piece of information, is the mot station is only charged for a pass not a fail. Test slots as they are known are bought in batches of 100, and cost last time I saw £1.05 sounds cheap, but now figure in the cost of calibration of equipment, let alone the cost of purchasing the equipment, four post ramp, decleremoter, beam test, emissions tester, smoke tester, roller brake tester, it’s not a cheap exercise, and that’s without taking in the wage of the tester. When you think about average workshop labour rates, and that is what the maximum chargeable fee is based on, and the test taking on average 45mins- 1 hour. The maximum amount a test station can charge is set, the minimum is not. Whether a retest fee can be charged is also fixed, and how much the maximum fee is.