Gearbox ripoff

Hi

My girlfriend brought my car to the garage yesterday, as I had problems changing gears and suspected it was the gearbox. It is the garage of my Dublin girlfriend and her parents and they recommended it as a reliable cheap garage. I have recently moved to Dublin, so do not have a garage here. My girlfriend informed them clearly not to do anything until they rang me. The car is worth €600 fixed, I think, so if repair costs are greater than €450 I would prefer to scrap the car. A Toyoto mechanic home in Waterford told me he thought I could get it fixed in a back street garage for around €350/€400.

They rang me yesterday, but I was not able to return the call until this morning. They informed me it would cost €500 to repair and sounded like bits of chancers. I said I would collect the car to get a quote elsewhere, however they informed this would not be possible as they had already stripped out the gearbox so the car is no immobile. They also want to charge me for stripping out the gearbox.

Any advice?

Sometimes you have to strip things down to find the problem.

Just ask them to put it back together and not fix it if you find it too expensive. You will probably have to pay the labour costs. Im not entirely sure its fair at this stage to say its a rip off. Your original mechanic said a back street garage might do it for 350-400. You seem to say an acceptable amount to fix it is 450. The quote is of 500 is only 50 euro more.

from my experience gearboxes are generally expensive to replace/repair.

Hi rustbucket,

The labour costs are likely to be most of the fee. If I pay that i'll be down €200/€300, which I don't have. Because they began the job even though they were explicitly told not to, I now do not have the chance to shop around which I wanted to do if there quote was expensive.

did you think they'd strip down and check the gear box for free?

I did not want them to strip down the car. I wanted them to make a quote (or at least a ballpark figure) without stripping down the car.

Contact www.consumerconnect.ie for advice on your rights in this situation.

If you just wanted a quote, why did you leave the car with them? What did you expect them to do with it? Spend time assessing and diagnosing the problem for nothing? You really should have agreed costs before you left the garage.

In order to diagnose the problem acurately, they are going to have to do a certain amount of dismantlement. How are they to know the extent of the damage, and consequently the amount of work required to repair and number of parts required if they don't do that?

If you went to a doctor to diagnose you for something, would you not expect to pay them for their time? Then afterwards you can decide with them your treatment and pay for accordingly?

Its the same with the car, gearboxes need to be stripped down to see whats wrong with them - this takes an amount of time so I dont see what the garage has done wrong.

Why do you say they sound like chancers? They've quoted you a fee to fix it broadly similar to what you thought it would be.

if you can get your car back to waterford iknow a good machanic who could certainly resolve your problem within the e300-350 budget.