Hi all,
Need to get my girlfriend's 2001 Corsa serviced and MOT'd in the next month or so. It's not been serviced for about 12 months. In the past I've tended to do the servicing myself/with a mate, and then get an independant MOT garage to do the MOT.
Don't have time/inclination to do servicing myself this year, but am still on a tight budget.
I'm considering getting the full service from Halfords for £150 (or maybe the interim for £80), and then possibly the MOT which is just £20 extra) - but I'm worried I'll get fleeced on "necessary" repairs for the MOT.
Any thoughts?
Ta,
Duane
I'd track down a good local garage.
You don't want someone who is too relaxed and pass a death trap.
If you're anywhere near Cockermouth I can recommend a trust worthy garage.
The Halfords service centers are re-branded old Lex Autoservice centers I believe, some good, some bad but they're very sales drives IMHO, I used one once as I had a load of Clubcard points to spend and you could use them there.
If you don't want to do it yourself, ask friends / family to recommend a decent garage they trust and ask them to do it. It's only my opinion the days of MOT testers failing a car on false pretenses are over - they're too worried about losing their certificates.
I have a car of the same age and basically the MOT/basic service offer the main stealers normally do is cheaper/same as a good independent, BUT they list everything under the sun as being wrong and their rates/part prices are much higher.
I'm assuming halfrauds follow the same business model as main dealers, so I'd say based on my experience if you think it's going to need work done, best go to a good independent garage for the whole thing or be prepared for the hassle of driving it somewhere else for repair and back again for the retest.
In the end it all comes down to working with someone you can trust.
I've had an MOT/Service done at a local KwikFit, but I trust them, they even changed a bulb at no cost. Some other KwikFit's I wouldn't even go near.
What do you want to do about any faults that are found? Fix yourself or get them to fix it? Some places insist they do the work, some don't, some charge for a retest, some don't.
What are you really getting from your Halfords service? I would be surprised if your £150 gets you more than a oil change and air filter change.
is the garage on your street/next door to work ?
IME the time it takes to phone , book , deliver and collect the car .....I already changed the oil and filters 😀
AS for mots - ive always been weary of cheap mots - no one i know has passed an MOT first time on one.....ive even had one mate go - fail on emissions , drive 6 miles - to my house,we change the cat and the lambda, reset the fault codes , 6 miles back to the same test centre 2 days later (that doesnt do free retests btw) and it failed on a different set of unrelated faults - until we queried why they were not picked up first time round and suddenly they became ok.....
Just waiting to hear from my local MOT guy on my 12 year old berlingo today - it should be ok but maybe something left field i hadnt noticed.
There's the council MOT thing isn't there? Maybe just test it there before expiry and then check on the servicing / repairs later .. they don't do them so have no vested interest in recommentding anything that isn't a failure.
Some places insist they do the work, some don't, some charge for a retest, some don't.
There's rules covering that. Pretty much sums up as if you take the car away to fix it then they have to charge the partial re-test fee if you bring it back within 10 days, otherwise it's the full fee.
What are you really getting from your Halfords service? I would be surprised if your £150 gets you more than a oil change and air filter change.
You'd hope that £80 was oil + oil filter, and £150 was that plus air filter and spark plugs.
AS for mots - ive always been weary of cheap mots - no one i know has passed an MOT first time on one.
My history of £25-£30 MOT's is:
1) Halfords: Rear number plate light 'dim', changed bulb, still dim, passed. Brakes all worn.
2) Kwickfit: Nadda.
3) Halfords: Nadda, but a 2 page list of advisories. I ignored the lot.
4) Kwickfit: Rear seats not present, which I think is open to interpretation, previous years they always passed it with a note to say rear seat belts not tested.
5) Halfords: Nadda.
Not exactly big ticket moneys spinner items for kwickfit/halfords. Although 5 years and 50,000miles on those worn front disks are still going!
How many miles has it done in the last year? If less than 6k, you'll probably not need to get anything done.
Just put it in for the mot and see how it gets on?
Cheers all.
It has probably done around 10000 miles in the last year.
There was an oil leak earlier in the year, so it pretty much had a full oil change then (not a drain though).
I'm happy to change the oil and air filters, so I think I may ask a garage my parents use a lot to just give the car a once over, rather than replacing anything.
