Your car needs discs and pads sir...

[BenS94]

Have any of those who have experienced a metric tonne of bullst from Main Stealers actually reported this to the manufacturers?

I have. Grovelling letter of apology, next service and MOT free... too late as we'd already sold the car.

[Mars]

Over the years I've had great service at various garages including branches of KwikFit and Halfords but the quality of service seems to come down to the staff at that time. Inevitably, people move-on and the quality declines. I used to be very keen on my local Mercedes dealership because on balance, I felt their prices were fair considering they fitted genuine parts and provided a solid no-quibble warranty but as the only other Merc dealership in the area closed down, my local Merc dealership became too busy and they stopped caring, mistakes were made, and they stopped trying to fix problems with my car and only wanted to fit new parts at considerable expense considering it wouldn't have solved the particular problem I had anyway.

I moved house and found a local indy who has all the Merc diag equipment. Not only do they do a proper job, their prices are extremely reasonable. My car (GL) is complex and throws-up all sorts of issues from time to time but Avonside Motors in Evesham have not shied away from any task and I have been 100% satisfied. They're a nice bunch in there too. They listen to the issues and when you get your invoice, you can read that they have faithfully documented what you have told them which I think is quite rare.

As I said, the GL is complex and I'd like to keep it until some point in the future when I feel it has become uneconomical to do so (which is another subject altogether) but that timeframe is directly linked to my having access to people like the guys at Avonside Motors (no connection - I'm just a happy customer).

[Mammasaid]

Pleasant dealings from Bristol Street Motors this week. In for a fix as a seal had blown on the intake system. As part of the fix they did a visual health check, all good apart from rear pads and discs at 90% worn, quoted £450 but immediately offered to negotiate. A bit of to-ing and fro-ing knocked that down to £250 which was fine for all parties.

[RazerSauber]

I find that talking to the garage and showing a bit of nous about cars usually stops the BS upselling. Some will still try it on but a confident "they're not worn, I checked them recently" is enough to stop the invariable sales patter.

[trickywoo]

Mammasaid said:

Pleasant dealings from Bristol Street Motors this week. In for a fix as a seal had blown on the intake system. As part of the fix they did a visual health check, all good apart from rear pads and discs at 90% worn, quoted £450 but immediately offered to negotiate. A bit of to-ing and fro-ing knocked that down to £250 which was fine for all parties.

Isn’t this the very definition of the thread title?

I can’t be alone in thinking they have bent you over.

[Mammasaid]

trickywoo said:

Mammasaid said:

Pleasant dealings from Bristol Street Motors this week. In for a fix as a seal had blown on the intake system. As part of the fix they did a visual health check, all good apart from rear pads and discs at 90% worn, quoted £450 but immediately offered to negotiate. A bit of to-ing and fro-ing knocked that down to £250 which was fine for all parties.

Isn’t this the very definition of the thread title?

I can’t be alone in thinking they have bent you over.

Nope, they probably have a set price, but they were very easy to negotiate with. Never felt as if there was any hard sell, or a guilt trip.

Where's the bending over, we agreed on a price that satisfied both parties, considering the cost of the pads and discs and labour fitting them (EPB rear brakes)?

[BenS94]

Mammasaid said:

trickywoo said:

Mammasaid said:

Pleasant dealings from Bristol Street Motors this week. In for a fix as a seal had blown on the intake system. As part of the fix they did a visual health check, all good apart from rear pads and discs at 90% worn, quoted £450 but immediately offered to negotiate. A bit of to-ing and fro-ing knocked that down to £250 which was fine for all parties.

Isn’t this the very definition of the thread title?

I can’t be alone in thinking they have bent you over.

Nope, they probably have a set price, but they were very easy to negotiate with. Never felt as if there was any hard sell, or a guilt trip.

Where's the bending over, we agreed on a price that satisfied both parties, considering the cost of the pads and discs and labour fitting them (EPB rear brakes)?

When dealers negotiate like that, it often means the suggested work isn't required....

[West17]

Many many years ago as an apprentice mechanic in an Austin Rover dealership I was told by the service manager to change the wiper blades during a service.

Customer arrived later to collect the car and queried the replacement of the blades as apparently he had changed them himself two weeks ago!

This resulted in the service manager raking about in the bins for the blades and grabbing my side cutters to cut chunks out of the rubber. Then showed them to the customer complete with copper grease off my cutters from the job was on.

Needless to say customer was not happy and the whole scam was simply not worth the effort.

[ARHarh]

Mammasaid said:

trickywoo said:

Mammasaid said:

Pleasant dealings from Bristol Street Motors this week. In for a fix as a seal had blown on the intake system. As part of the fix they did a visual health check, all good apart from rear pads and discs at 90% worn, quoted £450 but immediately offered to negotiate. A bit of to-ing and fro-ing knocked that down to £250 which was fine for all parties.

Isn’t this the very definition of the thread title?

I can’t be alone in thinking they have bent you over.

Nope, they probably have a set price, but they were very easy to negotiate with. Never felt as if there was any hard sell, or a guilt trip.

Where's the bending over, we agreed on a price that satisfied both parties, considering the cost of the pads and discs and labour fitting them (EPB rear brakes)?

Because they told you they needed replacing and you just accepted their opinion.

[Mammasaid]

ARHarh said:

Mammasaid said:

trickywoo said:

Mammasaid said:

Pleasant dealings from Bristol Street Motors this week. In for a fix as a seal had blown on the intake system. As part of the fix they did a visual health check, all good apart from rear pads and discs at 90% worn, quoted £450 but immediately offered to negotiate. A bit of to-ing and fro-ing knocked that down to £250 which was fine for all parties.

Isn’t this the very definition of the thread title?

I can’t be alone in thinking they have bent you over.

Nope, they probably have a set price, but they were very easy to negotiate with. Never felt as if there was any hard sell, or a guilt trip.

Where's the bending over, we agreed on a price that satisfied both parties, considering the cost of the pads and discs and labour fitting them (EPB rear brakes)?

Because they told you they needed replacing and you just accepted their opinion.

Nope, because they showed me beforehand and I could see that the pads were down to a few mm deep and the discs had a lip on them. If I thought they were pulling a fast one, I'd have told them where to shove their brakes.

Cynics, the lot of you.

[QBee]

We are only cynics because we hate being lied to, and at our own expense.

[tim0409]

I wouldn’t trust or be doing any business with a company that quoted £450 then reduced it to £250.

[garypotter]

QBee said:

I bought a used E class Mercedes estate from a dealer near Norwich.
A few days later I saw an advert from a Mercedes main dealer, offfering a free health check on any Mercedes.
"Why not"? I thought.
They said it wouldn't take over 40 minutes, so I took my border collie with puppy with me becuase he liked meeting people.

We sat in reception for over 2 hours while he made friends with everyone in the showroom twice, and I quietly fumed.
The chief service oik came out and told me there was a lot needed doing - two pages worth, estimated cost £1,610.
This was back in 2010, when £1,610 was actually worth something.
I didn't have a spare £1,610, so said I would think about it and took it home.

Next morning I took it round to my local garage in the village, the kind of guys who only did work that was necessary.
They went over the car, faults list in hand, while I waited.
They came out 10 minutes later, laughing.

Conclusion? It needed rear brake pads at a total cost of £37 fitted.

I have never been to a main dealer since.

Several years ago my colleague took his 911 (new purchase but 2nd hand) to main dealer guidlford which was then AFN for a service dropped off and on his 20 mile drive tot he office had a call to say car done and ready to be picked up, turned around and when he got there they gave him 1 1/2 A4 pages of things that neede to be address or replaced!! - did none of them had the car for 2 years and never went back

[CrgT16]

Can’t fault my local Honda main dealer. I am mechanically minded and know a fair bit about cars having done some works on previous cars.

My Honda gets service at the mains dealer because the price is reasonable. I could do it cheaper but my time is costly and their prices I find reasonable. They have never told me the car needed work that needn’t doing. No upsell just right.

The BMW dealer tried a few times and the costs are not reasonable. Mercedes is worse around here bad at everything even to sell you a car… it just beggars belief.

[swisstoni]

I find main dealers are quite competitive for servicing and have conveniences like loan vehicles, etc.

I generally just bear in mind any ‘faults’ they find and sometimes these persist and sometimes they don’t.

Anything that needs a real thinking about goes to a specialist.
Main dealers are mostly geared towards getting scheduled services done. And, as we have seen, upselling anything that’s a job that won’t hold up the service conveyor belt.

[James6112]

My car is 10 years old, not been to a dealer for a service since it was 3 years old!
@9 years old, 80k miles, MOT advisory that pads were a bit low. Surprised that the sensors hadn’t told me.
DIY changes all round for about £70 (brembo).

[cayman-black]

Mammasaid said:

Pleasant dealings from Bristol Street Motors this week. In for a fix as a seal had blown on the intake system. As part of the fix they did a visual health check, all good apart from rear pads and discs at 90% worn, quoted £450 but immediately offered to negotiate. A bit of to-ing and fro-ing knocked that down to £250 which was fine for all parties.

Thats far more reasonable, well done.

[fatjon]

Audi dealer offered to replace my 3 week old continental tyres for 2.5x what I paid for them. 75% worn..
This is the same stealer who argued that scraping and rumbling brakes on a car with 900 miles on the clock were not warranty as brakes are consumables.

That was my last Audi.

[CLK-GTR]

My local dealer has been preparing me, I sent it in for some other work and during the complimentary health check they warned me discs will need changing soon. They don't know they were all done about 6 months ago.

At 4k a pop they must expect some pushback. Definitely worth investing in a pad gauge and a micrometer.

[Hugo Stiglitz]

BenS94 said:

Have any of those who have experienced a metric tonne of bullst from Main Stealers actually reported this to the manufacturers?

I have. Grovelling letter of apology, next service and MOT free... too late as we'd already sold the car.

Yes to Toyota based in a town whose football club have just been relegated.

They probably just blamed the salesman. What exactly will it do?

I wouldn't want a free service from them, I wouldn't have trusted then.