Mechanic charged me £132 for oil

[diremoon]

Took my petrol 1.5 VW Golf in for a full service, on collecting the car and during payment the mechanic informed me the oil cost him £132. I looked surprised and he told me "Yeah, it's synthetic C5 oil so it's pricey"

Obviously this was added to my bill, on top of the £90ph+VAT labour charge.

Checked the prices online as my previous service put OEM Volkswagen oil in for just £52. Upon researching online I couldn't find any oil that wasn't available to me a consumer for anything more than £40-£55 for 5L, so why did he charge me £132?

Is marking up oil like this normal or was he just ripping me off? Do I have any rights here? Have to say this experience is putting me off returning to an independent when the chains offer transparent, upfront pricing.

The oil filter, fuel filter and pollen filters also seemed marked up by him to, but to a lesser extent (£15-25 for each)

[Mark V GTD]

What did the quotation say?

[bennno]

Another wind up, first time poster.

As you put did they get a quotation for the service?

[diremoon]

bennno said:

Another wind up, first time poster.

As you put did they get a quotation for the service?

I assume the implication here is, if you do not go out of your way to demand an upfront quotation from the mechanic when dropping the car off, you deserve to get ripped off.

I didn't ask how much my pint of lager would cost before ordering it last night, so the barman was right to charge me £30 for it.

[Mark V GTD]

We are not saying you ‘deserve’ it - just assumed that you had some kind of indication of the costs before committing to the work. If you didn’t then obviously you are laying yourself open to potential abuse once the bill is prepared.

I would ask specifically what kind of oil it was and respond with three quotes screenshotted and ask why he paid £132.

[Evanivitch]

diremoon said:

Is marking up oil like this normal or was he just ripping me off? Do I have any rights here?

Ask them.

If they've put the wrong oil in, tell them.

If they bought a 20 litre oil drum (which seems likely) ask them where the rest of the oil is.

If he can't give you the other 15l then ask for refund on it. Should have an invoice for you.

[Inbox]

If someone has quoted for a car service they would normally say if that includes parts or not, still £266 for a service doesn't seem unreasonable to me.

I would guess something got lost in translation and assumptions were made.

[hmg]

Most garages put at least 30% mark up on supplied parts..you can always source them far cheaper yourself and find yourself a friendly garage that will fit your parts. Never going to happen in most main dealer or Indy’s..but there are plenty of Indy’s that will do fix price servicing …….Due diligence.

[diremoon]

Inbox said:

If someone has quoted for a car service they would normally say if that includes parts or not, still £266 for a service doesn't seem unreasonable to me.

I would guess something got lost in translation and assumptions were made.

The service came to £370, parts and labour, doesn't seem unreasonable to me either but I cannot get the fact he told me he paid £132 for the oil out of my head. I work with £12m jet engines and the turbine oil costs less by volume than that.

Obviously I have learned my lesson here, either I supply my own oil next time (pissing off the mechanic) or ask him to give me a full breakdown while dropping the car off.

[diremoon]

Evanivitch said:

Ask them.

If they've put the wrong oil in, tell them.

If they bought a 20 litre oil drum (which seems likely) ask them where the rest of the oil is.

If he can't give you the other 15l then ask for refund on it. Should have an invoice for you.

You're right, a 20L drum of the oil my car takes would have cost him that...

[Sheepshanks]

0W20 VW508.00 oil that is spec'd for these engine was a bonkers price when it first came out, but a quick check shows, as the OP suggested, it's available for £40-50 (less at TPS.

I bet many garages just stick 5W30 in.

What sort of garage is it, and whereabouts in the country is it? £90+VAT per hour labour is hefty for general servicing garage unless it's in London.

[bennno]

diremoon said:

The service came to £370, parts and labour, doesn't seem unreasonable to me either but I cannot get the fact he told me he paid £132 for the oil out of my head. I work with £12m jet engines and the turbine oil costs less by volume than that.

Obviously I have learned my lesson here, either I supply my own oil next time (pissing off the mechanic) or ask him to give me a full breakdown while dropping the car off.

No, don't ask for a breakdown when dropping off, ask for the service price when booking.

Car takes almost 4.6L of long life oil probably costing them of £17 a litre if its the VW branded stuff.

[stevemcs]

Should be a 0w20, we did one last week and I think it was £160 for the actual service including the oil.

[Ruskie]

diremoon said:

Inbox said:

If someone has quoted for a car service they would normally say if that includes parts or not, still £266 for a service doesn't seem unreasonable to me.

I would guess something got lost in translation and assumptions were made.

The service came to £370, parts and labour, doesn't seem unreasonable to me either but I cannot get the fact he told me he paid £132 for the oil out of my head. I work with £12m jet engines and the turbine oil costs less by volume than that.

Obviously I have learned my lesson here, either I supply my own oil next time (pissing off the mechanic) or ask him to give me a full breakdown while dropping the car off.

Why would the mechanic be pissed off? He gets paid the same amount regardless of where the oil came from. I always buy service items and provide them, it works out cheaper.

[diremoon]

Sheepshanks said:

0W20 VW508.00 oil that is spec'd for these engine was a bonkers price when it first came out, but a quick check shows, as the OP suggested, it's available for £40-50 (less at TPS.

I bet many garages just stick 5W30 in.

What sort of garage is it, and whereabouts in the country is it? £90+VAT per hour labour is hefty for general servicing garage unless it's in London.

In London so £90+vat labour is standard. He even said he got the oil and parts from TPS, I could give TPS a ring and ask them how much my oil costs but they'll probably tell me to p**s off as they are B2B and it's in their interests to enable their clients to maintain a healthy bottom line.

I am almost certain he put 0W20 or 0W30 in

[stevemcs]

I think we sell it for £9 per litre (we buy from tps)

[anyoldcardave]

Ruskie said:

diremoon said:

Inbox said:

If someone has quoted for a car service they would normally say if that includes parts or not, still £266 for a service doesn't seem unreasonable to me.

I would guess something got lost in translation and assumptions were made.

The service came to £370, parts and labour, doesn't seem unreasonable to me either but I cannot get the fact he told me he paid £132 for the oil out of my head. I work with £12m jet engines and the turbine oil costs less by volume than that.

Obviously I have learned my lesson here, either I supply my own oil next time (pissing off the mechanic) or ask him to give me a full breakdown while dropping the car off.

Why would the mechanic be pissed off? He gets paid the same amount regardless of where the oil came from. I always buy service items and provide them, it works out cheaper.

This, most independents are happy for the car to turn up with the parts, they can get straight on with the job, not be on the phone ordering, waiting for delivery, or worse, chasing out for them. Your car will be done on time.

[ScoobyChris]

Ruskie said:

Why would the mechanic be pissed off? He gets paid the same amount regardless of where the oil came from. I always buy service items and provide them, it works out cheaper.

I think that’s the point of this thread - if the oil cost 50 quid and he’s charging £132 for it, he’ll be well out of pocket if you supply your own!

Chris

[catso]

Sounds familiar, my Wife's Audi Q2 went in to the local Audi dealer for a service last week.

They sent me an email with a link to an 'online check-in' the day before, this was basically an attempt to upsell 'extras' to the scheduled service, notable amongst which was 1L of oil (for top ups) for £24 and new wiper blades at £70.

I suppose someone falls for it...

[Sir Kevin Stormer]

If you work with jet engines why didn’t you do it yourself?