A garage coming good

[swakelin91]

Quite often people post horror stories on here, the moral of the story always seems to be that the garage has done a bad job.

My car has been in the garage for the last week, the head gasket needed to be skimmed as it was developing a slight leak, on top of that the exhaust manifold and catalytic converter also needed to be done. The garage sent the head gasket off to another company to be skimmed, and they ran into a few problems (not sure how or what exactly).

The job obviously took a lot longer than necessary, and I need my car on a daily basis to get to work as there are no trains or buses from my village to where I work. The owner of the garage took it upon himself to do a full service on my car, including a new cambelt and a full valet inside and out, all at no cost to me for taking too long to do the job- even though technically it was not his fault.

For me, someone that works in retail management I know how far good customer service can get you, and in my opinion the owner has gone above and beyond in that regards.

[MikeOxlong]

You don't skim the head gasket, just the head.

But always nice to hear good news instead of the normal doom and gloom

[jimmy156]

MikeOxlong said:

You don't skim the head gasket, just the head.

But always nice to hear good news instead of the normal doom and gloom

Maybe that is why it took longer then it should

Good to hear a garage going the extra mile! Certainly makes sure you use them again doesn't it!

[swakelin91]

Haha as you can see I don't have great mechanical knowledge (or any at all really). Was very impressed by the service though, will definitely be going back there if anything is needed in the future.

[Faxo]

Honest John of Telegraph fame runs a good garage list

May be worth adding

[TVR1]

Did he do the water pump?

[Jawaman]

Head being removed would have meant timing belt was off anyway, and I would argue its good practice to throw a new belt on for the sake of £20.

Either way it was still nice of the garage to shoulder the blame, I know plenty that would just shrug and say not our fault

[Ray Luxury-Yacht]

Nice to hear - and unusual, given 'the internetz' nature of only usually posting whining and moaning.

There are still some great garages out there - I've been lucky enough to have had similar goodwill treatment at some in the past, like you. There are still some truly good, honest garage business owners around.

When a garage has made an error on one of my cars, but subsequently bent over backwards to put things right - I've then taken in some bags of doughnuts or packets of biscuits for the lads next time I've visited too.

Helps with the overall 'reciprocal Karma' I find