Took the ageing Honda in for an MOT last week, And I broke my golden rule - never take a car to a main dealer for MOT. The reason I did was that I needed a new ABS sensor and my excellent local independent could not reset the computer if he did it - so would have worked out more for him to do it then the MD. Now after they had done the sensor they did the mot, it failed - they quoted nearly £800 for the repairs - as I laughed at the guy on the desk he went through the failures - broken front spring (quite possible), 2 lots of welding work (did'nt believe that) and new disks and pads all round (complete overkill). Drove it away and booked into my LI for a re-MOT, they did it today - sure enough the spring was broken - but that was all - no welding and the disks and pads are fine (as I knew they were) - only other remark was front tyres were getting low - but the milage it does they will last another year with ease. Cost of spring is £125 to get it through the MOT - bit of a difference compared to the MD price!!! Why do MD's do this? Needless to say I will be informing the GM of the MD and copy Honda UK in on the letter about how I find this type of "hunting" for work diabolical.
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A sorry take about yet another Honda dealer. How the halo is slipping.
I hope you have a great deal more luck than I did with Honda UK. In fact, if you do write go straight to the top rather than getting fobbed off endlessly by some bored phone operative who is mysteriously "on their lunch" every time you call.
Has anyone seen a new Civic on the road yet? A corporate catastrophe I tell ye!
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Has anyone seen a new Civic on the road yet? A corporate catastrophe I tell ye!
Yes, two. They seem quite bulkly, almost as if they have to be in order for them to look small but still offer reasonable space.
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Has anyone seen a new Civic on the road yet? A corporate catastrophe I tell ye!
my sister in law has one. I've not been in it yet but she is very happy apart from the voice control not being all that good. I think it just needs training or perhaps she needs to talk in a pidgeon japanese accent to it :)
She is happy overall though.
JaB
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Re the Civic, try sitting in the back, it is horrible. You will probably hit your head as you get in then find you have no view out the side window as you are about a foot behind it! I could not travel in it without feeling very unwell. So its a 2 seater really and very nice from front bumper to b pillar. I predict massive business for repairing the rear end as reversing will be a nightmare.
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Not trying to defend the dealer, but this may well be a matter of policy in response to this ridiculously litigious age. If they missed something, and the owner has an accident and alleges that it was caused by the fault on the car, they will get sued.
So often the blame is with consumers: I'm sure you wouldn't be like that, TU, but they didn't know you. Some people, aided and abetted by their solicitors, will sue at the drop of a hat: sadly it's a habit we seem to have caught from the US.
When I had company cars I used the same Renault dealer for 21 years (1980 - 2001) and they would never have done that to me as they wanted to see me back for the next car. They also knew I wasn't the type to sue them unnecessarily.
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You're independant should have been able to reset the ABS light, it only needs removal of a fuse.
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Not trying to defend the dealer, but this may well be a matter of policy in response to this ridiculously litigious age. If they missed something, and the owner has an accident and alleges that it was caused by the fault on the car, they will get sued.
Agree with this. The main dealer has a lot to lose if there's the merest whiff of letting a car off MOT when there are faults present.
Bear in mind as well that the back-street garage will go the other way; it's not in his interests to flag up every semi-marginal MOT fault, as in some perfectly good older cars this could end up seeing them off the road, depriving them of a living. I strongly suspect that many back-streets are more willing to give the benefit of the doubt to cars than council testers or main dealers. Who is right, is open to debate.
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I prefer the French system, their MOT centres are not allowed to fix cars, just report on their condition.
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I agree with TU - my sons Corsa went in last year, did not expect any problems but Vauxhall dealer rang to say it needed 2 tyres as they were down to 2mm!
I told him to decline because I knew the worst had 4mm on it - do they think we are stupid?
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I have had the first two MOTs on my Mondeo done at Ford Rapidfit, attached to the main dealer, excellent service.
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It's not just the French that do'nt allow the MOT stations to repair vehicles. In Nothern Ireland the MOT testing has been carried out by a government agency for many years now.
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Agreed Xileno. I have been pleasantly surprised at every Honda dealer I have ever visited in France to see that there are always much older models both on the forecourt and in the workshop. A great comfort for me and mine! I guess the reasonable main dealer labour rates in France have something to do with it. A lesson for their counterparts in the UK perhaps - if you don't scare customers away they just keep on coming back.
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The Renault main dealer I have used in France had an immaculate Renault 4 on forecourt. Wouldn't see that in UK, they are usually about three years old or younger.
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I am only playing devil's advocate here as I am sure that you are right. However...
Could it be that the main dealer simply wanted to give you a full picture of what is wrong with your car, including those things that are probably not immediately in need of action, but at some point may need to be done to keep the car on the road? Presumably, the guys at the nearest MOT station just do the MOT and don't do an overall inspection of the car's general health -they just do what they have to do for the MOT.
As I said, your scepticism is probably well placed and I would think along the same lines of you. However, the dealer may (and it is a may) just be trying to point out what problems could arise based upon an inspection.
:-)
--
Top Turkey - the fastest hands in Brum
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Ther is a big difference in keeping your safe and reliable and getting a car through an MOT.
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The scope of the MOT test is fixed in stone, i.e., there are items which must be inspected, and there are limits beyond which the tester cannot inspect. If a tester inspects something he shouldn't, perhaps failing the car, you have grounds to appeal to VOSA.
However, some test aspects rely on the judgement of the tester. So, the outcome of the test partially relies upon the skill, experience, motivation, attitude, and mood! of the tester, and, the policies in place in the tester's workplace.
I think it is giving good service to look over a customer's car, and warn him/her of other faults, but I don't think it is good practice to present these other faults as MOT failures, thus forcing the hand of the customer, unless the faults truly are MOT failure points - which in TU's case was, at least, debatable.
Number_Cruncher
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I agree with your points.
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Yep, Fully agree NC, I have no problem with them failing the car for the front spring - that is broken, and is an MOT failure, but the other points were not failure items and were not even flagged by the independent as in need of attention. The discs was a complete con on their part, they said there is brake judder, and very occasionally there is, but only when braking from 70mph down to 50, and you have to be braking HARD, and even then it is not severe - I have felt far worse on new cars. Just how they found this out on the rolling road that does no more then 10mph is beyond me!!!! I suspect they gave it a hammering on the test drive after having fitted the ABS sensor, which was not part of the MOT!!!
As for the points about litigation - is an indpendent less likely to end up in court if they do shoddy work then? Are there laws tht do not apply to them only main dealers? I think this is a pretty lame excuse, they are just out to rip people off - and I do mean rip people off,I have chosen that phrase with great care and I do not think it is too harsh. The car in question is a '93 prelude with over 180k on the clock and a FSH, when things need doing to it they get done, it does not get a hard life, only having covered 3.5k since the last MOT.
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>>is an indpendent less likely to end up in court if they do shoddy work then?
Absolutely. Who is going to sue Joe Bloggs Ltd. for money that he doesn't have ? Aside from money, where's the glory and press attention ? Nobody will bother.
But the glory, publicity, money and general glamour of suing [say] Honda would be much more attractive. Everybody wants their 15 minutes, and who better to get it from than the Sun.
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p.s.
>>they are just out to rip people off
But actually I agree with this point.
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On the other side of the coin years ago my wife's micra went in to a local independent for MOT. He said he needed to replace the wipers for it to pass and we were billed 20 or so pounds for the wipers.
I was not aware of them leaving streaks before it went in but put it down to experience. . . . and have never been back!
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I was discussing this earlier with someone and realised that that the main dealer could do the work "Straight Away" where as the independent can't do it till next Tuesday as he is booked solid. This speaks volumes to me - a main dealer hunting for work to fill up his workshop that is empty and the independet that has plenty of work on. The person I was speaking to said that in his area it is the same, the independents have a few days wait where as the dealers can take cars in straight away - maybe more dealers need to read the threads in the BR to see where and why all their customers are going!!
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If you want to be as independent as you can, come MoT time, use your local council....
forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=119
Then you, at least know, the pass or fail SHOULD be due to the vehicles REAL condition!!
VB
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Does anybody know how VOSA monitor the pass / fail rate at individual MoT centres?
A main dealer will generally see newer cars (hence possibly maintained to a 'higher standard' ie more money spent on them) with probably a lower failure rate per car. Particularly if the car is MD fully maintained and serviced at the same time. Hence the appearance of an older car from a non regular customer can be the ideal opportunity to increase the failure rate.
I am not saying that this does happen, just throwing an idea in the air! Anybody able to comment.
With computerised MoT testing the list of fail points is presumably available to VOSA online and if the vehicle is passed elsewhere within a short period of time, are questions going to be raised about the second testers judgement? Particularly if there are obvious patterns in types of failure.
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pmh (was peter)
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The Honda dealer in York has always been great but i would expect them to err on the side of caution with service advice(eg the discs will not last until the next annual service) and that their prices would be double that of the independent for oil and parts. Someone has to pay for the showroom palaces, drop-off drivers, free coffee and newspapers and so on. But they often do not have the experience working on older models as the public take them elswhere after warranty. If you find a good place stick to it.
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