Cost of car service?

[soy]

tell this cowboy to get lost and dont pay him. when he said "other things popped up" and it wasnt ready, what if u cudnt get to work without the car?? a mechanic cannot charge 50 an hour, its one of the poorer paid trades and this is a rip off. their rate is in the region of 25 an hour

There are not too many mechanics in the 'official' economy doing services for 25/hr.

Back to the OP - You left yourself open by asking for the car to 'pass the NCT'. That gave him licence to do the other work over and above the basic service (oil,filters,plugs).

Form the sounds of the work that was done, I do not think the cost is way out of line. You should pay up and put it down to a lesson learned. Next time, agree a price for the basic service and demaind that they contact you in advance of doing any work, over and above what was initially agreed.

If you still feel that you overpaid, ring a nissan dealer and ask them how much it would cost to do same work. It will almost certainly cost more than 485.

 

[kkman]

tell this cowboy to get lost and dont pay him. when he said "other things popped up" and it wasnt ready, what if u cudnt get to work without the car?? a mechanic cannot charge 50 an hour, its one of the poorer paid trades and this is a rip off. their rate is in the region of 25 an hour

25 euro per hour? you must be joking. the mechanic has to charge for his own labour, his premesis, lighting and heating, specialist tools and so on. and you expect a mechanic to charge 25 euro an hour, thats way off the mark. maybe a mechanic who is employed by another mechanic who does not have to pay for overheads might get 25 euro an hour.
Vino, speaking as an ex mechanic 50 euro an hour is very reasonable. some garages charge 150 an hour. if you post a more detailed list of the work done i could break it down for you.
also, when working on cars extra work can pop up very frequently due to the nature of the work ie once you star working on the car, other faults can become more visible.
if you were my customer, i would be very very angry. whoevertold you that you were ripped off are misinformed. any half decent mechanic charges 50 euro per hour.......

 

[Peeete]

also, when working on cars extra work can pop up very frequently due to the nature of the work ie once you star working on the car, other faults can become more visible.

I don't condone what Vino did, but if other things pop up, the customer should be contacted prior to carrying out the work. A garage can't take for granted that the customer wants that work done (unless already instructed to do so by customer). Take for example: if the engine was shagged does the garage, just remove the engine and replace it with a new one. No, of course they don't - the question is at what point is customer contacted?

 

[kkman]

I don't condone what Vino did, but if other things pop up, the customer should be contacted prior to carrying out the work. A garage can't take for granted that the customer wants that work done (unless already instructed to do so by customer). Take for example: if the engine was shagged does the garage, just remove the engine and replace it with a new one. No, of course they don't - the question is at what point is customer contacted?

the op stated that she informed the mechanic to prepare the car for nct which is exactly what the mechanic did. a decent mechanic would therefore replace any worn parts which he may come accross when working on the car, but replacing an engine would involve a massive hike in cost for the mechanic to purchase and for the customer to pay for, so the customer would be contacted.
the best way to get a car through an nct cheaply imho is to let it through the nct test with no work done on the car. the nct tester will fail the car on whatever faults he may find. you can then go to a mechanic with the fail list to get these faults rectified. by doing it this way you can ensure that you are getting wok done on your car that is actually needed, not what a mechanic deems neccesssary thus not paying over the odds.

 

[vino]

Vino

For documented potential problems with your car try checking:

www.honestjohn.co.uk (car by car breakdown section)

www.usedcarexpert.co.uk

...you have to register for the second site, but it's free. Between the two, things like the seatbelt problem you mention should be there if it is a common enough problem.

Thanks for those links Caveat. I'll have a look at those sites.


Thanks for all your replies. I paid him yesterday as I previously said I didn't intend not to pay at all I just wanted to pay when the job had been completed. I feel I paid a lot and then I got my car back being told it wouldn't pass the NCT because of things just noticed when it was returned. I was concerned that other things had gone unnoticed.

I had so many people telling me I was charged far too much and was interested to hear what people thought. I run my own business and would never expect to be paid for a job I had not completed. From reading all the replies it seems that prices vary a lot. I never said at any point i'd expect someone to work for €20 an hour.

I would have considered sending the car in for it's NCT before having it serviced but I knew it wouldn't pass as the handbrake needed to be fixed so it would have been pointless. I'm putting it behind me now and will certainly approach it all differently the next time. I still have a car that won't pass the NCT though.

 

[Peeete]

but replacing an engine would involve a massive hike in cost for the mechanic to purchase and for the customer to pay for, so the customer would be contacted.

The changing of the engine was said tongue-in-cheek. Sorry if that wasn't obvious! But still if any substantial work is to be carried out with significant cost then the customer should be informed first - up on €500 is a significant cost to some. Maybe car is not worth it

 

[Iceman732]

The customer should be contact regardless of the price involve. The customer went in to have a pre-NCT test, this test should tell the client what parts on his/her vechile would fail the NCT. At that point the mechanic can purpose an invitation to treat, i.e. a tender detailing his/her costs for replacing the parts. Price of parts varies greatly, for example if an individual was to purchase the parts himself and only have them fitted he/she would save money as the mechanic applies a margin to goods that he buys. Ok I know you're not going to satisify the 2/3rds for VAT purposes so you're going to end up paying 21% as opposed to 13.5% on the goods but it'll still be much cheaper.

The mechanic you went to was a cowboy, I'd reccommend you don't pay the bill.

 

[kkman]

i dont know of any mechanics who profits from a margin applied to supplied parts. the op aked the mechanic to get the car ready for a nct. this is what he did, so how is he a cowboy? people get a kick out of labelling mechanics cowboys when the reality is that they are hard, honest workers and the people that label them do so, even though they have not got the slightest clue about mechanics....