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I've just had my 1996 1.4 (petrol) Mk3 VW Golf serviced and MOT'd, during which the rear exhaust box (silencer) had to be replaced. Could someone in the know inform me how long this procedure should take. Many thanks.
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Not long at all. Assuming garage tools (air tools) to hand, then really a matter of minutes if nothing 'goes wrong' (i.e. something incredibly siezed).
I put a new back box on Daewoo Matiz last weekend (not the same car, I know, but similar operation) and it took about 20 minutes start to finish - and that included replacing the three rubber hangers.
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Thanks for the reply Aprilia - that is pretty much what I was expecting. The VW main dealer, however, has charged me for an hour of labour (£85 plus vat), which I was told is a flat rate (ie. they don't charge for the actual time taken). It seems to me that they have therefore overcharged me for the work. Does anyone know whether I have the grounds to complain? I did after all agree on the phone to the work going ahead, without (I now realise in retrospect) asking what proportion of the cost was for parts and what was for labour. As this was for an MOT failure, I didn't feel at the time that I could refuse. Any advice gratefully received.
Cheers, Gavin.
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I fear that you haven't got a leg to stand on. There's probably small print on the job order form stating that the minimum unit of charge is an hour.
Just stay away from main dealers; find yourself a good independent specialist, on personal recommendation if you can -- I found mine by talking to the proprietor of a local VAG accessories shop. You will be charged half as much for work that is of better quality. Having suffered from the incompetence of Ford, Audi, VW and MB dealers, I get out of their hands as soon as the initial warranty has expired. If you're worried about the main-dealer stamp factor in resale value, find "main dealer" in my Forum posts and you'll see some arguments about that. You can point your prospective purchaser to this board too.
That said, I doubt that anyone will break time charges down to less than quarter-hour units.
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Thanks for your reply Roger. I'll have a look at the small print and see if I missed anything and have a look around for an independent. I just can't help thinking that in a case like this that the garage must be under some kind of obligation to charge only for the work that was done. (Naive or what.)
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I'm quite surpirsed you were having an 8 to 9 year old car serviced at a VW main dealer in the first place, especially at £85 per hour plus VAT. I'm afraid that a lot of places these days do have a minimum charge for labour. In this case it was 1 hour of labour and at £85+vat you notice this more that at an independant garage where there minimum labour charge of 1 hour may be only £30+vat (depending on where you live).
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Yes, local VW agent has a 'minimum charge' (I think about £70). Took a VW along for fault code to be read; took about 3mins and they made this charge. Thankfully it wasn't my car.
Some guy had a letter published in our local paper. He bought a battery from the local Rover agent. The battery was quite cheap (about £25 - must have been 'on offer') - he asked them to fit it and they charged him about £60 for the 10 min fitting - LOL!
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I was recently in local VW dealer (somewhere in Berks), and you have to understand that the palatial building with galleried 1st floor walkways, stanless-steel trimmings everywhere, and a service waiting room reminiscent of a top Harley St consultants office all have to paid for somehow !
Not to mention the seemingly endless supply of service advisors, sales executives and other 'blokes in white shirts' salaries !
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Our 'local' back-street VW dealer was 'fired' by VW a few years ago. We now have to go to one about 25 miles away. The new showroom is an absolutely enormous structure which must be about 5 or 6 storeys high. Most of this is empty space surrounded by glass. The heating bill must be staggering. In fact when I went down to get some fault codes read they'd brought in some portable space heaters to try to get the place warm (it was a frosty day). There seemed to be almost no customers about, but numerous staff strutting around with bits of paper. Come to think of it, isn't that a metaphor for the UK economy these days?
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The new showroom is an absolutely enormousstructure which must be about 5 or 6 storeys high. Most of this is empty space surrounded by glass. Come to think of it, isn't that a metaphor for the UK economy these days?
Yep thats about right - i work for a Toyota dealer and whilst our current showroom isn't the flashiest in the world there nowt really wrong with it. Toyota have decided we need to go over to "retail concept" and so any time soon we'll be having a new showroom.
We'll still do exactly the same stuff in the new one but it will look sparkly and new.
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As a postscript to my last posting, I have checked all the paperwork that I received and signed and there was no small print. So at no stage was I informed of a minimum charge for any work. Does that change anything?
PPS - in this case, going to a main dealer had one advantage: The timing belt fitted new last year by a different VW main dealer was disovered to be cracked and therefore replaced under warranty without any fuss.
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PPS - in this case, going to a main dealer had one advantage: The timing belt fitted new last year by a different VW main dealer was disovered to be cracked and therefore replaced under warranty without any fuss.
Very comforting....
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