Am I being screwed??
Discussion
Took car in (Audi A4 B5) for a new wheel bearing as there was a loud droning sound. Also asked them to clean the ABS sensors as they were kicking in too early.
Roll on 5 days and the first I hear from them is that they've completed the work at a cost of £444 inc vat!
Now I know the wheel bearing including labour should be 160 + vat or thereabouts and maybe max 1hr labour for cleaning abs sensors but they then told me that they had to replace the flange inside the hub at £100 + labour. I didn't ask for this and nobody told me they were doing it.
Where do I stand??
(And this was meant to be bangernomics!!)
Roll on 5 days and the first I hear from them is that they've completed the work at a cost of £444 inc vat!
Now I know the wheel bearing including labour should be 160 + vat or thereabouts and maybe max 1hr labour for cleaning abs sensors but they then told me that they had to replace the flange inside the hub at £100 + labour. I didn't ask for this and nobody told me they were doing it.
Where do I stand??
(And this was meant to be bangernomics!!)
I always thought that the garage should contact you before carrying out any work that wasn't agreed.
It would have been better if you had that conversation with the garage before the work was carried out, but I'm not sure how you can proceed now.
The garage probably won't release your car until the work's paid for. If it's a garage that you usually use and are happy with, then maybe best to put it down to experience.
Tim
It would have been better if you had that conversation with the garage before the work was carried out, but I'm not sure how you can proceed now.
The garage probably won't release your car until the work's paid for. If it's a garage that you usually use and are happy with, then maybe best to put it down to experience.
Tim
Didn't they call you first? I've never had a garage not call me.
When I last took my shed in to my local place I had the bosses, golf for a day. They called me to say what the work would cost, I demurred, took the golf back, they had washed my car and said "no charge". I did put a tenner's worth of fuel.
When I last took my shed in to my local place I had the bosses, golf for a day. They called me to say what the work would cost, I demurred, took the golf back, they had washed my car and said "no charge". I did put a tenner's worth of fuel.
freenote said:
lbc said:
Always agree the price before any work is done.
The op instructed the garage to do some work on the ABS without asking how much.
The ops fault.
No, I asked them to clean the sensors and change a wheel bearing. That is all.The op instructed the garage to do some work on the ABS without asking how much.
The ops fault.
Still my fault?
spikeyhead said:
If they couldn't complete the changing of the wheel bearing without replacing the flange then they could argue that it was part of the wheel bearing change. Having said that, I'm surprised that a flange needs replacing unless it was damaged as they took the car apart. What was wrong with it?
They haven't explained that as yet. Unfortunately my knowledge is not as in-depth as I would like and I don't know what the flange does, what it should look like etc etc.I had this a couple of yrs ago.
BMW went in for a service, think it was about £180.
When I went to collect the bill was nearly £500 as it was due an inspection in about 2000miles so they just did it and something else I forget what but none of this was approved by me.
I had to pay the bill to get the car released.
Didnt use Sytner after that for anything.
BMW went in for a service, think it was about £180.
When I went to collect the bill was nearly £500 as it was due an inspection in about 2000miles so they just did it and something else I forget what but none of this was approved by me.
I had to pay the bill to get the car released.
Didnt use Sytner after that for anything.
There is a Mazda franchise where I live that regularly used to play the trick of adding things to bills that had not been agreed. I chose never to use them again.
They tried it on with me on three separate occasions, the worst being going in for a service and being told that my seatbelt pre-tensioner on the passenger side was broken so they had put a new seatbelt unit in for me. Yeah, right.
They tried it on with me on three separate occasions, the worst being going in for a service and being told that my seatbelt pre-tensioner on the passenger side was broken so they had put a new seatbelt unit in for me. Yeah, right.
freenote said:
Certainly wasn't main dealer. Anyway I negotiated and got the car back. Good thing is it's running great now.
Should probably start a readers ride thread to demonstrate pitfalls of bangernomics with german cars.
Bangernomics Plus, not Bangernomics Should probably start a readers ride thread to demonstrate pitfalls of bangernomics with german cars.
. Nothing wrong with the former at all; better the devil one knows and all that - avoiding depreciation by whatever means FTW
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