Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[albitz]

I went into the Braintree stealers on Friday.Asked for 6 plugs for my v6,checked that they still take trade club card,answer was yes.
That will be £17 odd please.Nope Trade club price is £1.51 plus vat each,that aint £17 odd. I have the price onscreen in front of me sir blah blah blah............calls manager.Manager confirms trade club price is £17 odd.
I didnt even bother trying to have a conversation with the cretin.Just walked out and left him mumbling and holding 6 plugs.
rather timewasting tossers.

[aaronjb]

Maths, clearly not their strong point..

I wondered if perhaps they were trying to sell you 3.2 plugs (4-way ones), but they work out at £19 inc VAT, so it can't be that either..

£10 for the plugs and £7 for their pocket?

[hotel21]

Accept the fact that most dealers are every bit as bad as the worse backstreet garage...

It matters not whether the dealer sells Ladas or Lambourginis.  If the engineer/mechanic/technician/fitter/YTS trainee gets the chance to gain some time on their jobcard so they can buy more marbars, be assured, they will.

And the dealer will still claim the full hours in cash from the customer as per the book, not those hours actually 'worked'.

Thats where 'profit' lives........

[aaronjb]

And what their mechanics are bonused on, according to a Toyota dealer who offered a friend of mine a job (said friend told him "You probably couldn't pay what my [IT] job does..", the dealer countered with "Well our top mechanic took home £75k this year..").

Oh and for '4-way' in my post above, read '4 electrode' .. I couldn't remember the word "electrode" for love nor money 

[Entwood]

£17.12 

He's charging you "trade" price £1.78 + VAT = £2.14 then he's making you buy 2 packs of 4 = 8 plugs

8 X 2.14 =17.12 

Git

[feeutfo]

Took my pf cdx to the dealers to diagnose a servo tronic issue. They said they "had one guy there still trained on the omega, so I was in luck!".  Oh yeah, I thought.

Told him the problem, sat in reception. Returned after half an hour to tell me the wishbone bushes where shot, and there was an oil leak. Oh really? Would that cause the steering to go stiff? Possibly. He said. Rubbish I said.
 Have you plugged it into tech 2 to diagnose the servotronic relay? As asked! No....! Long story short, he showed me the bushes, car on the ramp. Ok, I'll fix that, what about the relay/tech2 etc... He didn't know where the diagnostic port was, didn't know where to find srvotronic on the pc based (?) menus, but eventually confirmed relay failed. When asked where it was he said in the fuse box. No i said, it's behind the glove box, but which one? It's in the fuse box. So what are the relays behind the glove box? Shook head, "....car security...?"
no St relay!
"no"... parts will tell you".
Parts gave me a print out, it's behind the glove box(on pre face lift).

Ok, new relay, £95. No return on electricals! "but he's just diagnosed it via tech2!" I protested.
Sorry.
This was almost 8 years ago. Last omega trained mech was useless and long in the tooth even then. He must have retired by now.

So I'd be surprised if the latest hoodies they now employ even know what an omega is, much less how to change the plugs. Hence they want you to bin your omega and buy a car they now sell and think they know how to fix. Which they don't! Every story I hear re dealers is a nightmare.

So, AVOID THE DEALERS. unless you enjoy gang rape and are prepared to pay heavily for it.

[The Red Baron]

when i worked for a citroen dealer, the book time for replacing all the hydraulic pipes front to rear on a BX, including dropping out the rear subframe was 16hrs. i regulary did this in 8hrs, customer charged 16hrs, the bloomin pipes only cost 90 odd quid to buy in. yeh thats where the profit is.

[albitz]

Maths, clearly not their strong point..

I wondered if perhaps they were trying to sell you 3.2 plugs (4-way ones), but they work out at £19 inc VAT, so it can't be that either..

£10 for the plugs and £7 for their pocket?

Nope - I even got him to take one out of the box to check they were twins - then walked out.

[albitz]

£17.12 

He's charging you "trade" price £1.78 + VAT = £2.14 then he's making you buy 2 packs of 4 = 8 plugs

8 X 2.14 =17.12 

Git

Nope,not that either Nige.He had 6 plugs in a neat little pile on the counter.

[aaronjb]

Doesn't mean he wasn't trying to charge you for 8, though.. then they get to keep the spare two "for free"

[albitz]

I must say,I find the parts dept. at Underwoods Colchester reasonable to deal with.Not brilliant,but better than most.

[albitz]

Doesn't mean he wasn't trying to charge you for 8, though.. then they get to keep the spare two "for free"

Possible I suppose.He was disappointed if that was his plan.

[Lazydocker]

I must say,I find the parts dept. at Underwoods Colchester reasonable to deal with.Not brilliant,but better than most.

I've had reasonable experiences there, once the manager explains to the spotty yoof on the counter that the Johnnycboy's ABS TC is acceptable

TBH, I tend to use Andyc at Drive for all my parts requirements now... It's a 100 mile round trip but I generally try to tie it in with another reason for travelling that way or just buy plenty of oil to justify it

[albitz]

Never had a problem getting TC accepted at Colchester. They are just sooooo slow.Its best to take a deckchair or similar with you when you go.

[azza_126]

im a mechanic and i work if u like a (back street garage) non main dealer and because we dont get a bonus sceem like main dealers its not in my interest to cut corners to make up time its just it takes aslong as it takes but we only charge book times so if it takes a bit longer than that its our companys loss not mine but then again i dont get payed 75k a year so i dont think my boss loses out by much. we class our selfs as a decent garage that treats customers fairly etc etc and we are cheaper than main dealers. The company i work for is top marques in hitchin.