First of all, i would replace the wipers yourself , i bought 3 genuine ford wiperblades for 18 pounds including VAT yesterday.
24 pounds + VAT on top of the cost of two tyres + VAT for fitting is ludicrous, and may be due to the dealership outsourceing the fitting to another company. Once again get these changed elsewhere, you may find that the cost is a lot cheaper than 92 pounds and include VAT and fitting. Check prices on black circle or mytyres websites. Cut the screenwash out as it is pointless, and DIY.
I am rather worried that you are being charged 10 pounds for grease.
See if the dealership allows you to buy your own oil. If so, try and get the correct spec stuff from Coscto, or Asda etc and pay 15-20 pounds including VAT for that.
A lot of MOT places charge 35 pounds for MOT, so try and go there for MOTs.
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Sorry i assumed that you had not had the service done.
My advice is a little late by the sounds of it.
Personally i think that a lot of the costs are fairly high, e.g. the tyres, the wiperblades, and grease.
The oil cost is par of the course, and the brake costs though mighty high, seem about normal.
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Fit tyres £24
How many tyres was that? Did it include new valves, balancing, and disposal of the old tyres? (Did you take your own new tyres?)
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L\'escargot.
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>> Fit tyres £24 How many tyres was that? Did it include new valves, balancing, and disposal of the old tyres? (Did you take your own new tyres?) -- L\'escargot.
Just spotted the tyres in the list. £136 inc VAT fitted and balanced sounds good to me.
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L\'escargot.
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Brake discs and pads are classed as a wear and tear item - thats why they are not covered under warranty. To be honest looking down the prices they are just pretty much run of the mill main dealer maintenance prices, nothing looks particularly OTT.
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On reflection, after adding parts, fitting costs and VAT for the various items to get the appropriate subtotals the only thing which stands out is the £10 for grease. Even this may be reasonable if it is supplied by Toyota in sealed packs (no risk of contamination by taking it from a bulk container) of the quantity required. I think there is a tendency to do this with greases, oils, antifreeze, screenwash etc these days. The main questions appear to be (a) did they tell you in advance what they proposed to do, (b) did you ask the estimated cost of the various items and ~ most importantly ~ (c) did you authorise the work? At least they gave you an unusually detailed invoice. I've never seen the cost of tyres split into parts and labour before.
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L\'escargot.
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I have never heard of a price for fitting tyres, that is, unless you buy your own tyres online and take them somewhere to get them fitted.
Then again, I don't buy my tyres from a main dealer!
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£ 521 to replace discs and pads is main dealer robbery .a good independant would have done it for less than half using quality parts from a motor factor,sorry the only advice is live and learn
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My Dad recently got a £850 bill for servicing his 52-plate Audi A4. £550 of it was for fitting new discs and pads all round. When told the price he said he'd have the discs done somewhere else, so they told him, "we can't release the car without doing them, if you have them done somewhere else you will invalidate the warranty." The warranty only had 2 months left anyway. The front and rear discs still had a bit of life in them (I checked with a micrometer), the front pads still had 9mm of material on them and had obviously not triggered the wear indicators.
I wondered if this was down to the "long life" servicing. they assume it will not be looked at again for 20k+ miles so they want to change things pre-emptively?
They also tried to fob him off saying he needed new front tyres, when they were not quite down to the wear indicators, so he said no thanks I'll leave them a bit longer. They then refused to test drive the car as they claimed the tyres were in a dangerous condition, which was nonsense (on a dry mild day)! They wanted something over £100 each for Dunlop SP Sport 9000's; he instead got them for £74 each, fitted, from a local cheap place.
If it was my car I'd have told them to stick it. Reinforces my own preference to try to stay well away from main dealers!
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If it was my car I'd have told them to stick it. Reinforces my own preference to try to stay well away from main dealers!
Fortunately not all main dealers are not tarred with the same brush. There are probably good and bad under every brand. I've never had any complaint against my local BMW dealership, always straightforward and open, so maybe I've just been lucky.
Oz (as was)
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I think its all down to how you appear to the main dealer and how much they think they will get away with ,in many cases the same job has a variety of costs depending on who is paying and whether a hard and fast price is given before work is carried out .the same applies to buying parts you must get price from more than one source,yesterday was one example where I was quoted £480 for a machine part but it was ordered at £360 simply by shopping around but still coming from the same maker.
it is the dealer managers job to take as much money from you as they can but you dont have to offer them your wallet
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Thanks for the replies fellas, my main gripe was that throughout the service report they have said the discs are corroded, not wear and tear. They are rusty, but the car isnt three years old yet. As such in my opinion, should be replaced under warranty.
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Thanks for the replies fellas, my main gripe was that throughout the service report they have said the discs are corroded, not wear and tear. They are rusty, but the car isnt three years old yet. As such in my opinion, should be replaced under warranty.
Nope sorry. Wear and tear item, You pay. Disks go rusty on all cars. In the this case the wear and tear is rust.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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Jason
I don't know how much rust there is, but when I wash my car the discs go rusty. Apply the brakes and the rust goes. So just what do they mean when they say "the discs are rusty"?
John
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They do get pitted if they are not used enough, with the pits still visible after the surface rust has rubbed off, and then they fail them - it's happened to me even though I do 20,000 miles a year - I am a light braker and rarely get the rear discs too hot to touch.
I felt a little aggrieved as there was clearly no material effect on braking, discs not grooved and almost full thickness, and I have never heard of discs falling to bits from pitting - no doubt someone will be along in a minute to say they do.
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They do get pitted if they are not used enough, with the pits still visible after the surface rust has rubbed off, and then they fail them - it's happened to me even though I do 20,000 miles a year - I am a light braker and rarely get the rear discs too hot to touch.
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I had to change the disks on my wife's car through lack of use. What happens is that if the rust takes hold it tends to wear part of the pad away, such that pad then will never touch that part of the disk. The rust then creeps across the surface of the disk until eventualy the car is braking on a shiny band about half an inch wide.
It's fine if you can see the disk - a few heavy braking sessions would probably clean the disk. But if the disk isn't visible, then you don't know what's happening.
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I wondered if this was down to the "long life" servicing. they assume it will not be looked at again for 20k+ miles so they want to change things pre-emptively?
I guess they have to do this - they need to put the car into a state where it will last another 20K miles. We had fun at work with Peugeot 406 petrol Turbos a few yrs ago - the dealers where changing the pads and disks at *every* 20K service.
They also tried to fob him off saying he needed new front tyres, when they were not quite down to the wear indicators, so he said no thanks I'll leave them a bit longer.
Depends what you mean by 'not quite' but I wouldn't run a car too close to the tread wear indicators.
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Depends what you mean by 'not quite' but I wouldn't run a car too close to the tread wear indicators.
I had seen the tyres myself before the service and had mentioned to him, "you ought to be getting some new tyres". They may have been less than 1mm above the wear indicators; I know some manufacturers now recommend changing with about 2 or 3mm tread left. My point was that the dealer claimed that these still-legal tyres were so dangerous that they refused to take the car on a 10 minute test drive on dry roads.
Is that health and safety gone mad; or was it because he'd questioned them on the brake discs, so they thought "we're not wasting any more time on this car."
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My point was that the dealerclaimed that these still-legal tyres were so dangerous that they refused to take the car on a 10 minute test drive on dry roads. Is that health and safety gone mad; or was it because he'd questioned them on the brake discs, so they thought "we're not wasting any more time on this car."
The correct response was to tell the dealer he was wrong and insist on the car being tested. If he persisted in his ludicrous claim, take the car somewhere else and never have anything to do with that enterprise again. Consumers are so sheep-like on the whole that some of these people become stupidly arrogant. Turn your back on them immediately.
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My Dad recently got a £850 bill for servicing his 52-plate Audi A4.
Rich 9-3,
Has the Main dealer that your Father took the car to not heard of Block Exemption? Your Father was quite within his rights to take the car to another garage as long as the work was done to the manufacturers standards and using genuine parts!
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Rich 9-3, Has the Main dealer that your Father took the car to not heard of Block Exemption? Your Father was quite within his rights to take the car to another garage as long as the work was done to the manufacturers standards and using genuine parts!
Beetlefan, yes I'm sure the dealer were perfectly aware of Block Exemption, but my Dad was not. I will make sure he is aware of his rights for next time something like this happens.
I agree with what defender says, in that they may charge what they think they can get away with with each customer. I think my Dad may be giving the wrong impression when he walks into the dealership. On the day of his service he was basically too busy at work to give it enough thought and needed his car roadworthy for the next day, he initially complained but ended up just saying, "go on then you better do it".
:o)
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£ 521 to replace discs and pads is main dealer robbery .a good independant would have done it for less than half using quality parts from a motor factor,sorry the only advice is live and learn
Too true - I got all the discs and pads changed on my Toledo at Kwik-Fit for £280.00
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>> £ 521 to replace discs and pads is main dealer robbery
Too true - I got all the discs and pads changed on my Toledo at Kwik-Fit for £280.00
But were the parts to the same dimensional accuracy and quality as genuine parts? I somehow doubt it.
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L\'escargot.
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All plus VAT, prices approximated in places, but close enough to £880
In reply to jason123,
To be fair, you've paid for the work and I assume its been done ok. You don't really have any just cause to complain, if you approved the work without querying the cost I'd put it down to experiance.
At least you have the "history" with the car to help sell it and its all been done with OEM parts. Still can't believe you've been charged for a coolant change and grease!
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Hi, Can I just say that Corrosion is not the same as rust
corrison is The chemical or electrochemical reaction between a material, usually a metal, and its environment that produces a deterioration of the material and its properties.
www.hghouston.com/c.html
Corrosion is deterioration of useful properties in a material due to reactions with its environment. Weakening of steel due to oxidation of the iron atoms is a well-known example of electrochemical corrosion. This type of damage usually affects metallic materials, and typically produces oxide(s) and/or salt(s) of the original metal. Corrosion also includes the dissolution of ceramic materials and can refer to discolouration and weakening of polymers by the sun's ultraviolet light
rust is a red or brown oxide coating on iron or steel caused by the action of oxygen and moisture.
Thus coroded disks could be weak enough to fracture under brakeing.
Only three things I can think of can kill a Disk one is Warping,one is corrosion and the final thing is the disk is below it's minimum thickness.
I would Like to see the MOT situation changed, I think all cars should have an MOT yearly but it should be paid for by the manufacture and be done at an independent garage general wear and tear is for the owner but instead of having a huge list of parts it could be broken over 3 years. This could stop a Nasty surprise Like Jason had.
unless the Car or Van fails the MOT and gets a red sticker it can be removed from site, be aware though insurance can be void and if the police catch you - since all MOTs are online now they have more access to your cars info and quicker.
Dealers don't like small jobs such as pads they will wait until you have scored your disks so they can relevel and replace the pads. I have seen this done to a friend, just he was wise he didn't trust the dealers judgement, removed the wheel to find the pads down to metal changed the pads and knocked the smile off his dealers face 6000 miles later when it was due it's service.
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I think a large part of this comes from extended serviocing intervals. When I bought the Omega, I had it serviced by a local independent. He told me that the brakes had "around 6,000 miles left on them". I told him I'd be back in 5,000 for an oil change, so he could check them then.
87,000 miles later, I had them replaced (most of my mileage is motorway - I once counted 14 brake applications in a 60 mile commute)
If I'd been planning on popping back every 12,000 miles, I'd have taken their advice and had them replaced four years too early. I think many dealer and garages expect people only to pop in once a year now, so they have to be cautious on this front.
The only advice I'd give is when a bill like this looms, it might be worth getting a second opinion next time. Leaving it with a dealer with the instruction that they must phone you if the bill goes above £x may help to concentrate their minds.
V
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Latest info, just received a cheque covering pads, discs and labour, over £520. Dealer falling over themselves to assist. Wife works at solicitors who drafted a letter which received immediate action. They had made a false trade description of the condition of the pads, which is a prosecutable offence.
I feel now, once bitten twice shy, will shop around in future.
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A lady friend of mine took here Punto to Fiat for a small job and a free safety check they said it needed new discs and pads, I had fitted new ones not more than 2 months earlier.When I rang them and mentioned this they reembursed her price of the the small job it was in for.I wonder how many get away.
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can yiou elaborate ? I would expect them to replace pads with disks anyway ?
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The small job was nothing to do with the brakes I had fitted new pads and discs.
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Andy,
Mark99's question was directed at jason123, not you.
Check the thread in threaded view:-
www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t=38514&...t
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