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MG MG Y Type - Garage rip-offs

I am sure I'm not the first person to be stung by supposedly reputable classic car repairers and would be interested to hear of other people's experiences. A month ago I booked my YA in to have new handbrake cables fitted, plus a heat shield. Knowing the cost of the parts and estimating a few hours work I was expecting a bill of no more than two to three hundred pounds, even allowing for the over-inflated prices that some of these firms seem able to charge. The invoice finally arrived this week and guess how much. £350? £500? £750? No, the grand sum of 997.87!! The majority of this is for 28 hours labour at £28 per hour plus VAT. They even sent me a detailed invoice which includes "Position vehicle in workshop" and "Remove both rear wheels". My particular favourite was "Feed both handbrake cable tails through into cockpit area". The actual list runs well over one side of A4 paper and I'm surprised they haven't listed removing each wheel nut seperately! Needless to say I shall be challenging their bill, but I'd be interested to hear of other people's experiences and how they have managed to resolve them.
Andrew Adamson

I think I no who it was But I think you need to warn people by naming them.
No wonder I'm not a Millionaire I've done Resprays for less than that.
John Arkley

I want to be fair, so I'll give them a chance to resolve the matter first. As far as I know the legal position is that they are obliged to charge only a reasonable amount for the work carried out, and shouldn't be charging for anything which I haven't authorised them to do. Plus, I would have thought they had some moral obligation to inform me if they had encountered any unexpected problems which were liable to be so expensive.
Andrew Adamson

I've gone into a garage before for a job which should have been $800-900 and come out with an over-$2,000 bill. There was no talking them down on it and there was plenty of "break-down" so I let it go and chalked it up to a lesson learned. Sounds like you got it far worse than I did. Personally I would be upset if in your situation.
Steve Simmons

Andrew

Send me a bullet list of the items you asked to be done. Somewhere I have a list of service times and prices for a YB - OK so the prices will be duff as they will be in £ S & D but times wont have changed much.

For your delight you too can have a copy of this excellent little gem - go to Book Review on www.mgytypes.org and look for YB Repair times and Schedules!

Be interesting to see how the time to remove and refit the carburettor is compared to how long they took to fit the heatsheild, and it will be interesting to hear their response when you go in armed with this book!

Plenty of references to my address on www.mgytypes.org!!

Paul

Paul Barrow

Thats why I do things myself. I just renewed my wifes '96 Rover Metro rear suspension pivot bearings and shafts. Its a sod of a job, but the kits are just £24.95 each. So with grease I did it for just over £50.

A garage would quote about £300 for the same work.

Neil.
Neil Cairns

Yes, I'm sure it must be very satisfying if you can do all your own car repairs, but I'm still getting to grips with the basics!
Andrew Adamson

This thread was discussed between 17/07/2004 and 22/07/2004

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