Last time I'm so silly. For years I've been using a local garage for MoT & servicing on the 360. Last year and the year before my annual MoT / service came to £130 which I think is reasonable. This year I had £60 welding carried out, so expected a bill of around £200. They hit me for £400... on a 360... How about £20 for oil? £20 an air filter, same for plugs. And £200 labour. Ouch! Last time ever they see a car of mine. I could have [and have done] bought a different one from the 'Bay for that. This is not a main dealer I go to, but essentially a back street garage that call me by name. Really now they should call me Sir.

And today the car broke down... Wonder why so many people chopped their cars in for new ones under scrappage.

Hi mate.
I do my own. Parts are not that expensive.
Roughly about £30 of parts and your there.
Cheers Mark.

I know! They normally charge £130 for a service and an MoT. MoT is £55, so the service isn't usually much more than you or I pay for parts, so a good deal. Hence why I gave the car to them again. Looking through the bill, they've hit me £20 for an air filter, £20 for oil, £4 per spark plug.... etc.... etc.... In other words this time they've invoiced me for everything, and done everything according to the book whether it needed doing or not. So back to the local motor factors and home servicing for me as well. Don't get me wrong; the garage are a nice bunch of people and they do a good job, but it is a shock to find out that even back street grease monkeys doing a service on a 22 year old car charge labour at £60 per hour plus VAT. How much are main dealer fees? You can see why people cut corners on car maintenance, or don't bother.

It didn't help that the car has now broken down three days after being serviced....

Ah well the sun is shining and I've beer in the fridge. Plus I've saved a 360 for another year. Mind, makes me wonder how much the rear wheel arches will cost to repair as they are on the way out. Guess this is the last year for the old dear.

Ouch that's crazy For basic servicing that is exatautionate. I reckon most people would be able to do a service on a 360 GLT within an hour - so I don't see why they've charged so much for labour.

Thats does seem fairly pricey, when i had my Golf about 2-3yrs ago the heater matrix went on it. For fun i thought i'd ring the official VW garage at the end of my road and ask them how big a job it was etc. I was told it's a fairly big job, the dash needs to come out, yadda yadda etc.
The guy then told me they charge £85 per hour labour I laughed and said i'll think about it!

One thing to note is that garages now charge you an "enviromental" fee for safe disposal of oil which was £25 at Toyota when my mum had her Rav4 serviced.

Steering rod end and lower balljoint(or whatever that is called) + alternator belt (which I already had) 78€ to french crap, it is bloody 3+1 bolts for lower balljoint and steering rod end had only that one + putting it into steering rod, most overprice was in parts however 15€ + 7€ would been correct pricing, but they charged 45€ from parts...

Reason I take my car there was because I thought that it will be reasonable price, but seem to be that they have become globally greedy.

So, now I don't have a car at all, as mot would set another 80€ back and this bit more than excepted costs was not in budget which has grown quite thin since Christmas, not even a dime have come in, expenses still running...

Just to compare, a back-street garage will charge about 60 Euros per hour over here. Volvo charge 100 Euros per hour Both are plus VAT. How much welding did they have to do?

Those parts prices - there are lots of oils available for 20 pounds plus, not that it's worthwhile putting any of them in a 20-year old engine. Plugs sound as if they've rounded up quite a bit, air filter doesn't sound too bad, an OEM part costs 30 Euros plus tax here.

Doing the rear wheel arches is possible, there are replacement panels which you can get for this. The inside edge of the rear wheel arches trap dirt and moisture unfortunately, and people often don't think about cleaning them. I've scraped loads of muck out of the rear wheel arches of all the V300s I've bought over the past few years.

Cheers

Tom

The welding was minimal; £60 and I was happy with that - a solid car is always a good bet in my humble opinion, and it wasn't unexpected. I'm just surprised at how far labour rates have shot up in the past year. £40ph to £70ph is a bit of a shocker when you don't expect it. Add in a garage that was being especially diligent in their servicing schedule this year, and hey presto you have a £200 labour bill for a boggo service. That's more than an official Honda garage charged us last year for our other car.

I've done the home servicing and repairs routine; just end up covered in grime and the car works but is never quite right. Over time my "never quite rights" add up to something being entirely knackered.

Anyway I'm in a bad mood as my car is currently parked in London awaiting a side street Brixton mechanic to go out to it. It'll probably not be 100% on Monday after 48 hours abandoned, so my near £400 service has been wasted! Furthermore as it'd been serviced two days ago I made an assumption that the starting problem was down to something serious. On reflection it's probably nothing more than a duff rotor arm or such, something I have plenty of in the glovebox, and something easy to diagnose and repair. Live and learn.

Body repairs just plain scare me! If I get a £200 labour bill to change a spark plug, what'll it be to change a wing and paint it up???

Changing wing and painting it up here would be anything above 300, but I guess there painting is not something they charge insane sums of money?

I'm surprised how much air filter costs there, it certainly is not that much here, Evergreen(or what ever that brand was, them are green in colour) freeflow panel filter might be around that?

jtbo wrote:Changing wing and painting it up here would be anything above 300, but I guess there painting is not something they charge insane sums of money?

I'm surprised how much air filter costs there, it certainly is not that much here, Evergreen(or what ever that brand was, them are green in colour) freeflow panel filter might be around that?

my Champion branded air filter was £1.99.
Seems ok quiality. Im certainly not goint to complain for £1.99

I have never employed a garage, ever... I get my tyres fitted and balanced but thats at a dedicated tyre fitters, and they charge £5 per tyre, removed, fitted and balanced, in about 3 minutes... "Polite Professional Services" should add to that Insanely Fast, I was shocked! It's supposed to be while u' wait, but I never realised I was waiting, they are like whirling dervishes.

All my work I do myself, If I need welding it's done out of hours by a mate... while growing up I saw hundreds of pounds change hands for naff all work, sometimes for sabotage, Yes REALLY!!!, I think it was grinding paste in the engine of a thomas45 moped, started eating piston rings...
Then onto cars and, well, throwing money away for no reason, constantly and repeatedly with no visible gains.

So, I made damn sure I can fix my own car. Cut fingers and hammered thumbs aside, I think it was worth it. I painted my front end for £37...
Brake pad replacement... £22
Those sorts of prices... I did backbox AND brake pads for £22.70 on a micra, but I'm a regular (or was) at the parts shop - I was expecting to pay about £50...
- I drank the change...


Reasons to do the job yourself...

1: the job costs £400 -> A course in auto repair costs £374 or therabouts... you probably have enough left for the part and a pint.
2: It will take a long time if I do it myself -> You get paid so much per hour -
times the hours by the wage and see if its worth doing the job yourself on a work day!!
3: I dont know what I'm doing -> Neither do any of the garages - you're in good company , plus that's what the manual's for
4: This list could go on for ever.

Reasons to get the garage to do the work:

1: You are naive
2: You are financially masochistic
3: You want to be pissed off
4: You'd rather trust someone else with your life, a professional mechanic... think ayrton senna.

And Yes, I am that serious, I have complained at bad mechanics who have done dangerous work for other people, I got someone a whole new top end after a cambelt they fitted broke in 3 miles, garage wanted the guy to pay £800, in the end he paid nothing ( )

PS Did the garage fit those shitty denso spark plugs that look like they were forged from pigshit? CHECK!!!, they tend to... do everything a cheapo nasty plug will do, crack, snap, fall apart, not work... can ruin your engine... might be why you broke down - seems to be the fave of the crappy garages right now for their cheapness, DENSE-O... only theyre not that dense, problem with the forging, too cold a furnace I suspect, keeps the prices down using less fuel...

Yeah, pretty passionate about shite garages... look, now I'm swearing.

Sorry to hear you got ripped off/swindled/parted of your hard-earned... now next time change your own plugs and get quotes first for all work, always see your old parts for inspection, it proves parts have actually been changed, gives you an idea of the condition of your car and it's your god given right.

(No offence intended, Apologies in advance for any that occurs - I dislike bad garages Grrrr!)

I dont see how its so hard to get it right first time, new washers for all sump plugs, use correct fluids, fit proper sparkplugs...

Some latex gloves and overalls will set you back £40... Burtons do work gear, white coats and all sorts, halfords and part shops usually sell the gloves, you need not get one drop of oil on you.

--
If you can get the car to me I'd paint it, £30 non metallic, but £50 for metallic... its harder.









It gives me something to do (the met-green wing hasn't been buffed of its orange peel/lacquer dust yet, it doesn't mirror-shine...

All makes sense man, and good advice too.
Its people with short knowledge/skills that get burned the deepest, but like you say, theres no excuse for not learning.

Something I really should do a lot more of.

To be fair not everyone has the aptitude or dexterity to carry-out their own repairs but I agree that some technical knowledge is fairly essential if you choose to run an older car. There is an assumption that anyone can fix cars and that all garages are rip-off outfits which isn't true. My brother in law is a qualified buildings surveyor but he doesn't know a driveshaft from a dipstick, my son is a wizard at building and repairing computers but a car engine is an alien concept. I reckon each to his own and I also think that 'a little knowledge is a dangerous thing'.

If you have to use a garage for servicing and repairs there are some simple guidelines to remember; use a garage that comes recommended by family or friends, obtain an estimate before they start work, give them clear instructions not to carry-out additional repairs without contacting you for authorisation, ask if they have any objection to you supplying your own oil and parts, how long they guarantee their work etc etc.

Main dealer rates tend to be in the region of £60 - £100 per hour although I know of Merc and BMW dealerships in large cities who charge rather more. However, there are still plenty of excellent independent garages working for around £45 per hour, you just need to do your homework.

+1 to all of that ...

I think you need to choose which jobs you want to do yourself as well and which jobs you want a garage to do, and a lot of that depends on how much you enjoy doing the work yourself, your ability and what you might rather do instead with your time;-) I'm happy with changing plugs, dizzy caps, leads, oil (without filter), air filters touching up small rusty bits, radio swaps, work on the interior etc-, but I usually shy away from doing anything that involves having to mop anything up, be it oil, water or brake fluid. That's basically because I've got nowhere to to the work - I swapped a rear window winder mechanism a week ago - a great job to do out in the street - and to have a quick chat with the neighbours over it, but draining oil and coolant into a pan outside my neighbours house?? I can just see the "Ordnungsamt" coming along to ask what the hell I'm doing. For oil & filter (it's a bugger to get to on a 360) / coolant / brake fluid changes I go to the local garage. Drop the car off on the way to work, give them the parts, pick it up on the way home and pay for half an hours' labour - that's more comfortable than having to do the job myself on a Saturday morning, out in the street.

It totally depends on finding a garage you trust and where you know what to expect. The place I normally go to, is pretty good on regular service jobs (oil change / cambelt / shocks / brakes / exhaust / tracking) and I never have the feeling I'm being conned. If possible, I always bring along my own parts. With other things, they're not so good, random fault finding, rust repairs ...

There's a place I take my Trabi to sometimes - the only garage in western Germany ever to have imported eastern European cars in the 70s and 80s - and they really tend to round up the price of their labour ("you took two hours for that tiny patch of welding??"). But then, their work is excellent, and they have a huge reserve of parts (saving me having to start another parts hoard) and a wealth of Trabi-specific knowledge, so it's OK for me if they charge a little more for some things.

Tom