Garage (horror?) stories

[skyhigh]

I used to use a very good family run garage for repairs for my car, although I moved out of the area. Since then I've had several issues with the couple of garages I've tried.

Firstly, the driver's door mechanism broke so that the door couldn't open. I took it to a garage that had decent reviews, who looked it over and told me I needed a replacement mechanism which they'd be able to fit the next day. Happy with the quote, I left it with them. The next day I got a phone call, informing me that my car had failed it's MOT... I said that I hadn't left it for an MOT and asked what it had failed on. The reply - "only one thing actually, the driver's door wouldn't... oh, oh dear". I'd also got them to change the coolant, and when I had the car back discovered they'd just used water. I wasn't very impressed.

Recently something else minor broke, so I tried a different garage. They phoned me a little while later to ask if I had a spare key, because they seemed to have lost mine. Again, not very impressed!

Has anyone else come across similar, or have I just been unlucky?

(As an aside, if anyone knows a good garage in Leeds, please let me know!!)

 

[pdeaves]

Years ago (25-ish) my parents bought a second hand car. The garage promised to check/tune/repair the engine as necessary and charged accordingly. Dad collected the car, brought it home and found the bonnet rusted shut. The garage would not accept that they hadn't done the contracted work and didn't refund that element of the work. We never used that place again.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

I've had a garage completely miss a split tyre during an MoT and service.

I've also had a garage once charge me corkage because they topped the coolant up using my own bottle...

 

[DerekC]

I put my Ford Fusion into the local dealer because it had a whine which was getting rapidly worse. They phoned me to say it was the alternator, which they duly changed. I paid, collected it and immediately noticed that the whine was still there. Drove straight back and they said "yes, you are right. Strange, isn't it?" The rest is too long to tell in detail but included an intermediate pulley bearing (the actual cause of the whine), a horrible smell which they initially denied existed - eventually traced to an oil leak onto the exhaust (they took the head off in the course of replacing the bearing) They fixed the oil leak at the third attempt. There was then an air conditioning system problem which I suspect was caused by them when faffing about trying to fix the oil leak. They offered me a credit for the alternator but expected me to pay for the rest!!

 

[Puffing Devil]

BMW dealer claiming my steering rack had dangerously failed. Took the car back from them, over to my trusted mechanic: no fault found. The failed rack is still working to date - over ten years and 100K miles later.

 

[skyhigh]

They offered me a credit for the alternator but expected me to pay for the rest!!

That's reminded me that the garage tried to get me to pay for the MOT they did by mistake...

 

[birchesgreen]

I did have the exhaust fall off my car once a week after the MOT and service. Otherwise i've been fairly lucky.

 

[Shimbleshanks]

I used to take my VW to a back-street place run by a young guy who really knew his stuff. But I noticed that he started to have a lot of elderly family members hanging around the place and things really started to go downhill. For example, ignoring my instructions to deal with a warning light that had come on and instead carrying out a six-month premature MOT test, at great cost. Failing to fix a bodyshell leak but taking the car to a valeting place, again at huge cost.

At that point I gave up and started taking the car to another local garage, who were really good.

I passed the old garage the other day and saw that it was closed and shuttered. No surprise, but I feel sorry for the young guy who'd had his business ruined by his idiot family...

 

[Dai Corner]

I once had a replacement exhaust fall off as I left the premises.

Another garage told me I needed a new wheel bearing to get through the MOT. Fair enough. Obviously their record keeping isn't great as the following year they claimed the same bearing needed replacement. I'd only done about 3000 miles.