Rip off garages alive and well.

[Charlie1986]

Flibble said:

Out of interest, how much for an R1234yf recharge? Prices seem all over the place. I was stung for ~£300 a couple of years back, but prices seem to have reduced a fair bit now (local dealer down to £99).

With the R1234yf gas the prices can be dependant on supply and demand of the gas, This year there was a big shortage in both gas and the old core bottles.

Most garages can make a good money doing it as most cars will only take 500-600grams of gas out of a 12.5kg bottle if there is no leak. The gas costs about £700-900 and thats nearly cost for it. The older R134yf will cost about £120 per bottle with a good machine your looking about 5k.

[Charlie1986]

xjay1337 said:

I have to be honest here, I have a lot of friends who own their own garages
So I do fully understand the pain.

I couldn't imagine having to do it on such a huge scale.

BUT most garages have an account with Euro car parts, TPS or whatever brand of parts you need.

You know what cars are coming in with a few days notice at least in most cases and for what jobs. Most of them are normal jobs. Oil and filter, brake pad change, cambelt etc.

So you can order said parts that are delivered to you and you are invoiced XX days later. If there are multiple options of the part then all options are sent and returned unused if need be.

Most of which can be sorted in a phone call or two and 10 minutes tops.

Many parts are also available same day delivered if something just "pops in".

Most things I will source myself except specialist parts.


A classic example of this over changing is oil.

Dealers will charge you £75 for 4.5L oil which you can buy 5L off the shelf for £35 without even getting into the "nitty gritty" that is discount codes.
Not forgetting the dealer generally buy a 200L+ drum(s) at a marked down price anyway.

Off the net as a regular punter I can buy 208L of quality Mobil 1 meeting VAG 507.00 for £1313. This is £6.31 / L .
1L is £9.95 , 5L is £34.99

I'm sure if I was going through 200L per week it could be discounted. Quantum oil is even cheaper.

Same goes for springs, brake pads, etc etc.
Larger indys and main dealer garagesusually whacks a hefty surcharge over the EXACT same part available on Ebay or from Euros (OE not cheap aftermarket tat)

So why are people being charged effectively double in some cases more for oil (for example) when in for servicing,when in reality it's a contract where a new drum gets delivered every month or whatever and the old stuff taken away? It's hardly a labour or cost intensive job.




Regarding the supply of parts

I can honestly say that I have never personally supplied a wrong part to any of my friends doing work on my car.
I have supplied a poor quality part that my mate refused to fit once. So I bought a genuine part (happened to be a CV boot).

Other times I have been able to find parts cheaper myself (via Euro car parts with discount code for example) but have chosen to spend £15 extra to buy them through my friends business who fits said parts purely for a warranty purpose.

£15 is fine, £60 for example is not.

Many garages even smaller independents often have a receptionist or an apprentice doing the meet + greet of customers / reception and also ordering parts. For the £15k a year they get paid it's not a big outgoing to hire someone for this job at a worst case?

Please do tell me if I am massively wide of the mark as I have little first hand experience and only what I have seen / heard myself via second hand and hanging around garages etc.

Currently a 208l mobile is retail around £1000 to a discounted customer cost for supplier is not far off £900, We have a specialist outside supplier who we can call on get parts from them if needed same day and on the customer on the same day.

[Maz_uk]

199L Petronas Fully Synthetic C3 oil 5w30 which covers a huge amount of cars inc premium diesels £339+vat on my account, we charge £99+vat for R1234YF upto 500g then a supplement for every 25g more.

[Charlie1986]

Maz_uk said:

199L Petronas Fully Synthetic C3 oil 5w30 which covers a huge amount of cars inc premium diesels £339+vat on my account, we charge £99+vat for R1234YF upto 500g then a supplement for every 25g more.

some suppliers have now combined C2 and C3 together which is meant to be good.

Euros account?

[Mr2Mike]

Shuvi McTupya said:

It takes you longer to order a part than to fit it?? I have to say that doesn't sound very likely to me, but I am not a mechanic.

Added: I just re-read what you wrote and now realise it is ONE of your biggest expenditures of time, not the biggest.
But surely everything you do is ONE of the biggest expenditures of your time, even making a cuppa!

Most parts are fairly standard, so far I have not ordered the wrong thing but I have been sent the wrong thing. When I buy a replacement clutch or something like that I would pop down to the garage with it a few days before my appointment so they can check it is going to work.

How could a garage possibly guarantee a part will fit until they have removed the old part? They can't, and they would be pretty stupid to do so.

[Shuvi McTupya]

Mr2Mike said:

How could a garage possibly guarantee a part will fit until they have removed the old part? They can't, and they would be pretty stupid to do so.

Not sure I am understanding your point.

If I am supplying a clutch for a 2003 1.6 mini, I would have thought it would be safe bet that it would fit a 2003 1.6 Mini provided I ordered and received the right clutch?

So, I would take it to the garage for them to have a look at as they theoretically would know better than me.

That way, if it was the wrong part I could send it back and not waste the garages time as they could book someone else into my slot.

[Maz_uk]

Mr2Mike said:

How could a garage possibly guarantee a part will fit until they have removed the old part? They can't, and they would be pretty stupid to do so.

We for example, have access to a full parts catalogue for pretty much 90% of the brands we deal with, we put the vin number in, locate the part and use the original part number to either order an aftermarket part or a genuine / oe quality part.

Using this method we are as reliable and successful as the main dealer with our parts ordering, before we had this system we were at the mercy of whoever was at the other end of the phone, these days we provide them with part numbers before we remove anything unless it was necessary to do so for inspection / diagnosis.

[jamoor]

Maz_uk said:

We for example, have access to a full parts catalogue for pretty much 90% of the brands we deal with, we put the vin number in, locate the part and use the original part number to either order an aftermarket part or a genuine / oe quality part.

Using this method we are as reliable and successful as the main dealer with our parts ordering, before we had this system we were at the mercy of whoever was at the other end of the phone, these days we provide them with part numbers before we remove anything unless it was necessary to do so for inspection / diagnosis.

Indeed, just get the parts diagram for the car and give your parts vendor your OEM reference number. I've never had a problem this way, ever.

[AJB]

Maz_uk said:

Mr2Mike said:

How could a garage possibly guarantee a part will fit until they have removed the old part? They can't, and they would be pretty stupid to do so.

We for example, have access to a full parts catalogue for pretty much 90% of the brands we deal with, we put the vin number in, locate the part and use the original part number to either order an aftermarket part or a genuine / oe quality part.

Using this method we are as reliable and successful as the main dealer with our parts ordering, before we had this system we were at the mercy of whoever was at the other end of the phone, these days we provide them with part numbers before we remove anything unless it was necessary to do so for inspection / diagnosis.

I think Mr2Mike's point was in response to a customer turning up a couple of days ahead of a booking with a pattern part they've sourced and expecting the garage to be able to glance at it and confirm it's definitely the right part and is going to fit.

If they do let the customer supply their own non OE parts, it's only when they have the old and new ones side by side that they can tell if it looks right.

[Shuvi McTupya]

AJB said:

I think Mr2Mike's point was in response to a customer turning up a couple of days ahead of a booking with a pattern part they've sourced and expecting the garage to be able to glance at it and confirm it's definitely the right part and is going to fit.

If they do let the customer supply their own non OE parts, it's only when they have the old and new ones side by side that they can tell if it looks right.

If that was his point, I suppose there is a chance things might not work out, but Generally they either know what the part is supposed to look like or can check the part number of the part the customer is supplying.

Let's not forget this is only happening with mechanics who are happy to do it, and the customer can't expect the mechanic to offer any guarantees if the mechanic isn't sourcing the part.
Just this week my mechanic sourced the wrong part so nobody is perfect.

[coldel]

I totally understand mechanics being wary of parts supplied by customers. Often they claim they are definitely the part but all they have to rely on is that the description is correct on the ebay ad they bought it from. It only takes one bolt hole to be a couple of mm out and life becomes miserable fitting it and then increasing the chance that part will fail further down the line (which of course will be the mechanics fault).

There are hundreds of companies on ebay and the life knocking out home produced stuff from all over Europe, lots of bits are poor fitting. I can imagine for a mechanic to be able to look at a part and say 'that fits' sorry is just not fair on the mechanic, it can be just mm out and it wont work, how can you spot that without comparing it side by side with the part coming out the car.

My brother is a self employed mechanic and it happened so often he stopped fitting customer supplied parts it was costing HIM too much money to try and save them a few quid.

[Sidney Smut]

Try a certain Bavarian company’s dealership, the one with the blue and white badge!! Bare with this one!!

My MSport had a recurring fault, six times in the garage over 4 years. The first five times it happened was under warranty, fixed no questions. Champion. The last time it broke down was right outside the dealers on the roundabout. It was embarrassing having the garage mechanics push it onto the forecourt.

Anyway after around 4 hours I was told by servicing that the car was 4 months out of warranty, and the repair would be £1,700 as the full ignition system had failed.

I explained there was a history of the fault on the car but they were adamant.

I was not impressed, so I picked up the phone and in front of the service chap and numerous other customers and asked my missus to bring the spare keys and log book as I was going to dump it on them and walk away (a lot more expletives used). All of a sudden he decided it could be fixed under warranty.

A few months later I sold the car to a mates garage and he wanted details of the recurring fault so I phoned the main dealer. I was told it wasn’t an ignition system failure but a failed coil pack £100). I’m sure you can imagine how the conversation went after that!!

[Decky_Q]

Shuvi McTupya said:

If that was his point, I suppose there is a chance things might not work out, but Generally they either know what the part is supposed to look like or can check the part number of the part the customer is supplying.

Let's not forget this is only happening with mechanics who are happy to do it, and the customer can't expect the mechanic to offer any guarantees if the mechanic isn't sourcing the part.
Just this week my mechanic sourced the wrong part so nobody is perfect.

I order all the parts for the garage I work in and if a customer thinks I'm gonna spend even 10minutes cross referencing spurious part numbers to check on something he bought he is high as a fken kite! He buys it he checks it and if he fks it up he pays me to dick about at the last minute with gearbox off and find the right part.

A clutch is a good example. I may look in the box but its not because I know where the revised version mounting bolts were moved to halfway through that year, its because of professional curiosity, I want to see did you get everything needed for the job- a new release bearing etc with your Russian clutch or were you reamed because you saw the £80 cheaper headline price and everything else including quality and durability went out the window.

Very occasionally a customer will show me a new brand or supplier that I'll investigate. Most of the time I already know the brand and there is a reason I don't buy from them.

[coldel]

Decky_Q said:

I order all the parts for the garage I work in and if a customer thinks I'm gonna spend even 10minutes cross referencing spurious part numbers to check on something he bought he is high as a fken kite! He buys it he checks it and if he fks it up he pays me to dick about at the last minute with gearbox off and find the right part.

A clutch is a good example. I may look in the box but its not because I know where the revised version mounting bolts were moved to halfway through that year, its because of professional curiosity, I want to see did you get everything needed for the job- a new release bearing etc with your Russian clutch or were you reamed because you saw the £80 cheaper headline price and everything else including quality and durability went out the window.

Very occasionally a customer will show me a new brand or supplier that I'll investigate. Most of the time I already know the brand and there is a reason I don't buy from them.

And to be quite frank, the second you cross check something and give it the thumbs up you are then in a grey area that if the part fails you will be partly liable for sorting it out as you said it was ok. If a customer brings a part, the mechanic if agreeing to fit it should have no liability in my view and if that part is at fault then the customer should pay for all the extra time required to undo all the work done, pay for any storage costs for holding the vehicle on premise and pay for the extra work for sourcing and fitting a correct part. Get it all in writing and charge the customer as they should accept the liability and risk, not the company fitting the part.