Overcharged by garage
Discussion
Hi All,
I was recently overcharged for some repair work by a garage. Can anyone offer advice on what my next steps might be?
Short version: Booked car repair based on estimate, billed 3x estimate on collection, no warning; no justification, disputed, paid on credit card to get car back, what can I do now?
Back story:
Had a small (2-3 employees) garage fit a clutch for me 4 years ago for £350. Clutch recently failed (turns out a manufacturing fault) so messaged them for an estimate to replace again with me supplying parts – provided estimate of £500. Seemed reasonable. I should point out I have the full conversation history with them going back that far in Email.
Other local garages provided similar estimates but as I’d used them before & they have a lot of experience in this model of car so decided to go with them, even though they were 50 miles away.
Dropped car off.
Few days pass, I chase progress – they message me on Monday to say they’ve started work.
Call me Monday afternoon to say that they think they’ve found the reason it might have failed – a metal surface needs smoothing out/filing but should be straight forward & only take an hour. I say go ahead, expecting to pay for an extra ~2hrs labour.
Car ready to pick up Tuesday Lunchtime.
Upon pickup, presented with a bill of £1500 (3x original estimate) – note that this is purely labour.
Pickup jaw from floor; ask them to confirm it is definitely correct & they showed me the mechanic hand written job cards etc. They had ‘booked’ 24hrs labour to the job; no real justification other than that’s how long it took.
There was no itemisation listed on the invoice & they wouldn’t provide one – just 24 hrs listed against one line.
After some discussion they end up agreeing to remove 3hrs Labour as a favour & print me a new invoice (I actually now have 2 paper copies of invoices with different labour amounts…)
Garage Started getting argumentative although situation did remain calm "We would never have changed it for £500; we’re closing now, pay or you’re not taking the car, if I reduce this bill you’re effectively stealing his wages *points at mechanic*" etc etc.
I’d been there for maybe 1hr & discussion was clearly going nowhere, so paid full bill on credit card under protest & left.
I’m fairly sure they just loaded this job up to get a bit more cash out of me.
Hindsight is a wonderful think, but after googling them I see from another online review from 1 year ago this isn’t the first time they’ve done this (huge invoices with no warning)
From reading about on Moneysavingexpert/Which etc I think next steps are as follows:
- Suck it up, leave them a bad review, try to get fixed quotes in future & not estimates, move on
- Small claims, citing consume rights ‘entitled to reasonable cost for services in lieu of agreed price’ - equivalent estimates as supporting evidence
- Credit card chargeback, although not sure it’s applicable in this circumstance?
Thanks,
I was recently overcharged for some repair work by a garage. Can anyone offer advice on what my next steps might be?
Short version: Booked car repair based on estimate, billed 3x estimate on collection, no warning; no justification, disputed, paid on credit card to get car back, what can I do now?
Back story:
Had a small (2-3 employees) garage fit a clutch for me 4 years ago for £350. Clutch recently failed (turns out a manufacturing fault) so messaged them for an estimate to replace again with me supplying parts – provided estimate of £500. Seemed reasonable. I should point out I have the full conversation history with them going back that far in Email.
Other local garages provided similar estimates but as I’d used them before & they have a lot of experience in this model of car so decided to go with them, even though they were 50 miles away.
Dropped car off.
Few days pass, I chase progress – they message me on Monday to say they’ve started work.
Call me Monday afternoon to say that they think they’ve found the reason it might have failed – a metal surface needs smoothing out/filing but should be straight forward & only take an hour. I say go ahead, expecting to pay for an extra ~2hrs labour.
Car ready to pick up Tuesday Lunchtime.
Upon pickup, presented with a bill of £1500 (3x original estimate) – note that this is purely labour.
Pickup jaw from floor; ask them to confirm it is definitely correct & they showed me the mechanic hand written job cards etc. They had ‘booked’ 24hrs labour to the job; no real justification other than that’s how long it took.
There was no itemisation listed on the invoice & they wouldn’t provide one – just 24 hrs listed against one line.
After some discussion they end up agreeing to remove 3hrs Labour as a favour & print me a new invoice (I actually now have 2 paper copies of invoices with different labour amounts…)
Garage Started getting argumentative although situation did remain calm "We would never have changed it for £500; we’re closing now, pay or you’re not taking the car, if I reduce this bill you’re effectively stealing his wages *points at mechanic*" etc etc.
I’d been there for maybe 1hr & discussion was clearly going nowhere, so paid full bill on credit card under protest & left.
I’m fairly sure they just loaded this job up to get a bit more cash out of me.
Hindsight is a wonderful think, but after googling them I see from another online review from 1 year ago this isn’t the first time they’ve done this (huge invoices with no warning)
From reading about on Moneysavingexpert/Which etc I think next steps are as follows:
- Suck it up, leave them a bad review, try to get fixed quotes in future & not estimates, move on
- Small claims, citing consume rights ‘entitled to reasonable cost for services in lieu of agreed price’ - equivalent estimates as supporting evidence
- Credit card chargeback, although not sure it’s applicable in this circumstance?
Thanks,
What car was it?
Sounds like they needed to skim the flywheel which doesn't cost much or take long as new ones (unless DMF) don't cost that much.
I would ask a quote from another garage for all the work done and see what figure they come back with, if the gearbox hasn't been opened then I don't see where 24 hours labour would come from.
Sounds like they needed to skim the flywheel which doesn't cost much or take long as new ones (unless DMF) don't cost that much.
I would ask a quote from another garage for all the work done and see what figure they come back with, if the gearbox hasn't been opened then I don't see where 24 hours labour would come from.
Have they charged you for the ramp time ? If you have supplied your own parts they may have decided to charger you for the amount of time that the car was stuck on the ramp while they weighted for the clutch to be skimmed if they don't have many ramps there is the potential that they could not work on anything else until yours was off the ramp.
Depending on the car I would usually budget £400 for labour £150 for a clutch kit and £500 if a flywheel (DMF) was needed. Add £30 if the subframe needs dropping and the alignment rechecking and adjusting. Sometime you do end up adding to jobs and it increases by a small amount but it should never be anything like tripple.
Depending on the car I would usually budget £400 for labour £150 for a clutch kit and £500 if a flywheel (DMF) was needed. Add £30 if the subframe needs dropping and the alignment rechecking and adjusting. Sometime you do end up adding to jobs and it increases by a small amount but it should never be anything like tripple.
Thanks for the responses all; just to answer some questions:
- Gearbox was not opened up
- flywheel was not skimmed/removed; it was still in good condition from last time.
- Car is a Celica GT four. It's a big job to change - gearbox/transfer case is removed as a lump - from memory last time I had it done think book time is around 8-10hrs or so? When the did it previously they had it finished in a (long) day.
- the manufacturing fault with the old clutch was on the friction disc - one of the damper springs was loose & able to spin in its mounting so had worn through the outer bit of metal that holds it in place. A known fault on this clutch apparently as the design has since been revised. The actual clutch (material/flywheel/pressure plate) was barely worn.
The separate issue was the release bearing catching on the surface it slides on that needed smoothing out. Possibly caused by a piece of grit stuck between the two they said.
- Gearbox was not opened up
- flywheel was not skimmed/removed; it was still in good condition from last time.
- Car is a Celica GT four. It's a big job to change - gearbox/transfer case is removed as a lump - from memory last time I had it done think book time is around 8-10hrs or so? When the did it previously they had it finished in a (long) day.
- the manufacturing fault with the old clutch was on the friction disc - one of the damper springs was loose & able to spin in its mounting so had worn through the outer bit of metal that holds it in place. A known fault on this clutch apparently as the design has since been revised. The actual clutch (material/flywheel/pressure plate) was barely worn.
The separate issue was the release bearing catching on the surface it slides on that needed smoothing out. Possibly caused by a piece of grit stuck between the two they said.
fouronthefloor said:
Bad news I'm afraid.
It was an estimate and not a quote.
You'll have to be nice to them and hope they reduce the price.
If the resulting bill is 3 times the estimate, it should have been brought to the OP's attention before they continued. This isn't an extra hours labour we're talking about. It was an estimate and not a quote.
You'll have to be nice to them and hope they reduce the price.
cbmotorsport said:
fouronthefloor said:
Bad news I'm afraid.
It was an estimate and not a quote.
You'll have to be nice to them and hope they reduce the price.
If the resulting bill is 3 times the estimate, it should have been brought to the OP's attention before they continued. This isn't an extra hours labour we're talking about. It was an estimate and not a quote.
You'll have to be nice to them and hope they reduce the price.
If the garage can itemise their bill and can prove that they're charging a reasonable rate, then the OP can kiss goodbye to his money.
Fight it in court and costs could escalate.
fouronthefloor said:
Bad news I'm afraid.
It was an estimate and not a quote.
You'll have to be nice to them and hope they reduce the price.
Tosh, if the final bill was going to vary by more than 15% then any reasonable outfit would inform the customer before proceeding. It may well have taken 24 man hours, but that would point to the repairer getting some decent mechanics that have half a clue, not charging the customer for their shortcomings. It was an estimate and not a quote.
You'll have to be nice to them and hope they reduce the price.
OP in the first instance l would email them that you are disputing the bill and only paid it at the time because you were effectively being blackmailed into doing so to get your car back. I would the speak to your cc provider and explain the situation and see if they can reclaim the money and hold it in dispute. You need to get some evidence from other repairers as to what the labour charge should be for the job and then decide whether you go down the legal route. Alternatively, leave the bill as paid and go down the small claims avenue.
24 hours or equivalent to 3 full 8 hour days to change a clutch seems a hell of a long time for a competent mechanic in a garage that specialises in the car who would have also had other mechanics he could have picked the brains of....
Saying you were stealing the mechanics wages would be tip things over the edge for me as the mechanics share of that £1500 Is £500 maximum, so clearly you’re being told bulls
t.
I’d start by looking to the credit card company to reverse payment as by the sounds of it you paid under duress. If the cc company will do that, follow it up with a letter to the garage explaining you are not refusing to pay but you want justification of how and why it took so long.
Saying you were stealing the mechanics wages would be tip things over the edge for me as the mechanics share of that £1500 Is £500 maximum, so clearly you’re being told bulls
t.I’d start by looking to the credit card company to reverse payment as by the sounds of it you paid under duress. If the cc company will do that, follow it up with a letter to the garage explaining you are not refusing to pay but you want justification of how and why it took so long.
cbmotorsport said:
What car? There are official labour times that tell you how long a clutch should take for any make and model.
I think you're confusing how (some) main dealerships work, with how independent garages work.With BMW for example, the factory sets time limits for each job (noted as unit times, where 1 unit = 15minutes). The time is set by having one of their factory technicians carry out the repair on a car, time the technician, and then add a couple of units of time on, to allow for incidental delays. Dealerships are then told that the set time limit, is the maximum amount of labour that they can charge for - If the dealership's technician takes longer to carry out the job, it cannot be charged to the customer.
The problem for the dealerships is, the factory carry out the timed repair on a brand new car, fresh off the production line, that has never really been driven on the road. All of the bolts, nuts, screws, clamps, clips etc., etc., are brand new.
When the dealership's get the cars in to work on, they've been on the road for a number of years, collecting dirt, salt, corrosion etc., etc., and quite often, the bolts, nuts, screws, clamps, clips etc., have seized up, taking time to sort out. If the time taken to sort the issue out takes the dealership over the job time limit, that's the dealerships bad luck, they cannot charge for the extra time.
(I have always used my local BMW dealership for repairs on my cars, even though they've been 10 ~ 20 year old cars, and have had this situation happen several times - Seized screws with rounded out heads holding brake discs on, a rounded off bolt on a flywheel, and a wheel bearing that was friction welded to the hub bore, spring to mind straight away. In all cases, the jobs went over the factory set time limit, but I couldn't be charged for the extra time taken [ In most cases, the dealership ended up putting more than one technician on the job, to get my cars finished and out of the way because they were costing the dealership money with time lost ] )
Independent specialists, independent garages, clutch and brake garages, and back street garages etc., etc., are not limited to the factory times, in order to carry out jobs. If a job takes twice as long to carry out than the factory states, then they can charge for twice as much for the labour. Basically, they charge the customer for every hour worked on the car.
(In the cases of my brake disc replacements, clutch/flywheel replacement, and wheel bearing replacement, my bill would have been a lot higher at an independent garage, due to the extra labour charges that would have been added, than it was by having my local BMW dealership carry out the repairs, even with BMW's higher labour rates)
In the OP's case, I suspect there's more to the story than we're hearing here, as it doesn't really add up.
4rephill said:
cbmotorsport said:
What car? There are official labour times that tell you how long a clutch should take for any make and model.
I think you're confusing how (some) main dealerships work, with how independent garages work.With BMW for example, the factory sets time limits for each job (noted as unit times, where 1 unit = 15minutes). The time is set by having one of their factory technicians carry out the repair on a car, time the technician, and then add a couple of units of time on, to allow for incidental delays. Dealerships are then told that the set time limit, is the maximum amount of labour that they can charge for - If the dealership's technician takes longer to carry out the job, it cannot be charged to the customer.
The problem for the dealerships is, the factory carry out the timed repair on a brand new car, fresh off the production line, that has never really been driven on the road. All of the bolts, nuts, screws, clamps, clips etc., etc., are brand new.
When the dealership's get the cars in to work on, they've been on the road for a number of years, collecting dirt, salt, corrosion etc., etc., and quite often, the bolts, nuts, screws, clamps, clips etc., have seized up, taking time to sort out. If the time taken to sort the issue out takes the dealership over the job time limit, that's the dealerships bad luck, they cannot charge for the extra time.
(I have always used my local BMW dealership for repairs on my cars, even though they've been 10 ~ 20 year old cars, and have had this situation happen several times - Seized screws with rounded out heads holding brake discs on, a rounded off bolt on a flywheel, and a wheel bearing that was friction welded to the hub bore, spring to mind straight away. In all cases, the jobs went over the factory set time limit, but I couldn't be charged for the extra time taken [ In most cases, the dealership ended up putting more than one technician on the job, to get my cars finished and out of the way because they were costing the dealership money with time lost ] )
Independent specialists, independent garages, clutch and brake garages, and back street garages etc., etc., are not limited to the factory times, in order to carry out jobs. If a job takes twice as long to carry out than the factory states, then they can charge for twice as much for the labour. Basically, they charge the customer for every hour worked on the car.
(In the cases of my brake disc replacements, clutch/flywheel replacement, and wheel bearing replacement, my bill would have been a lot higher at an independent garage, due to the extra labour charges that would have been added, than it was by having my local BMW dealership carry out the repairs, even with BMW's higher labour rates)
In the OP's case, I suspect there's more to the story than we're hearing here, as it doesn't really add up.
Edited by cbmotorsport on Friday 11th October 14:51
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