Ford servicing in Portsmouth - Bit of advice please!

[SofaBear]

My Focus ST170 is up for its MOT and service, as this is my first car this whole process is new to me. The brakes on my car aren't good and it looks like I need new discs and pads, plus a service and a MOT to boot. Phoned around a few places and my largest quote from a local (and highly recommend) Ford specialist was £1,200. The Ford dealer in Farnborough (who previously serviced the car before I owned it) offered the whole thing for £575, waiting on Hendy's Portsmouth to give me a quote and going to call round a few more independents on my day off. So basically my question is:

How much roughly should I be looking to spend on this? What's reasonable? What's so cheap they're probably replacing my brakes will milk bottle tops?

Can anyone recommend a good place near Portsmouth that I can take my car to where I won't get ripped off and they won't do a crap job?

Cheers

Greg

[SpikeBmth]

i guess your local specialist is Tremona in Southampton? very good, but a little pricey, thats mainly cos he always uses genuine Ford parts

[normalbloke]

I'd second Tremona. They have done a few jobs for me and their attention to detail is fantastic.

[SofaBear]

normalbloke said:

I'd second Tremona. They have done a few jobs for me and their attention to detail is fantastic.

SpikeBmth said:

i guess your local specialist is Tremona in Southampton? very good, but a little pricey, thats mainly cos he always uses genuine Ford parts

It was Tremona, I didn't really want to name them as it may be seen as negative, very helpful on the phone and gave me a really detailed quote. But I can't afford to sink that much money into an ST170. Something like an RS that would make sense as you're investing in the car that is going up in price. But my shabby little 170 definitely isn't going up in value.

[T66ORA]

Try giving Rich at Southways a call 01329 220755 , they will only do sporty stuff, they look after my Audi TT, XR4i and Tamora.
You might loose your car for a couple of days but you will get a good job.

[SofaBear]

T66ORA said:

Try giving Rich at Southways a call 01329 220755 , they will only do sporty stuff, they look after my Audi TT, XR4i and Tamora.
You might loose your car for a couple of days but you will get a good job.

Thanks for the tip, we've got another car so if they want to do the job in slow time that's no drama for me.

[KTF]

Sparshatts in Botley (Skoda/Nissan main agent) are also an official Ford Service agent:

http://www.sparshattsgroup.co.uk/ford/location/Spa...

Not used them before but may be worth a call to see how much they would charge for comparison.

[SofaBear]

Got it booked in with Southways - Thanks for all the advice!

[SpikeBmth]

Don't forget to give us feedback

[SofaBear]

Got the car back from Southways yesterday, happy with the job they did. Garage is certainly an interesting place to visit, an awful lot of cars crammed in there not sure how/if they got my focus in the actual garage!

Car passed it's MOT and no longer tries to scare me when I brake, they gave helpful advice on any potential problems with the car and didn't try to con me. Will probably take the car there again.