Cars are so expensive

[neilmc]

Took car in for a service today and to see what the problem was with the car jerking all the time, turns out needs new spark plugs some tubes or something and other parts replacing costing me in total £302.00 wonderful when you have a wedding to pay for.

Wish I knew more about cars, as when they speak to me about it on the phone I have no idea what they are going on about. little bit gutted first spend on credit card and its gonna be expensive booooo

[EduTech]

Jesus! what car do you have....

[witch]

Find a local mechanic who comes to your house. If you go to somewhere like Checkatrade or get a recommendation you will be fine and it will be cheaper than a garage. TBH you could do some of it yourself - fitting spark plugs is pretty easy

[neilmc]

Jesus! what car do you have....

 

54 plate Ford Focus nothing spectacular

 

This garage came recommended, 3rd garage in Linoln that I have tried and I can never find any which seem to be as reasonable as the ones where my parents live, but thats 2 hours drive away so not very practical.

[broc]

Ask for the old parts they have replaced to be returned to you & make sure you get a fully itemised bill & check every line item. Garages usually charge a silly amount for oil, especially if synthetic.... you might find it cheaper to provide your own next time.

 

Service & repair costs quickly ramp up; Main Stealers will often stick you £40-£60+ just to plug the car into a diagnostic computer ; they will also try to charge you £7-£10+ for a litre of top-up engine oil(without asking you), not to mention £5 for disposal of old engine oil. If you can be bothered, ask for the old oil back & take it to your local council waste disposal site, who will dispose of it usually for free!

[Disaster]

crumbs, just took my car in for MOT:

New front pads, rear hoses, rear suspension spring, front ball joint and back half of exhaust and some other bits and bobs all bought fitted for £400 inc mot fee.

Not bad and all for a BMW!

Can't say it would be the same at any major chain

[JoeBloggs]

I would take it elsewhere and get a second opinion before paying out £300+

 

Spark plugs and cables would cost a lot less than £100 brand new and would take a mechanic 10 minutes to fit... you didn't put what else was wrong so that must be whats bumping the price up. How much do they charge for the service? Normally around the £80 mark

[neilmc]

I would take it elsewhere and get a second opinion before paying out £300+

 

Spark plugs and cables would cost a lot less than £100 brand new and would take a mechanic 10 minutes to fit... you didn't put what else was wrong so that must be whats bumping the price up. How much do they charge for the service? Normally around the £80 mark

 

The cost of the service was £112, which I kind of expected, its costing £84.86 for parts, £40.00 for checking on the diagnostics computer, and about £52.50 for labour.

 

Only reason I went to this garage is because they are recommended another garage I have been to is the other side of the city this one was practical for getting to work aswell as working 30 mins outside the city needed picking up so it was good for getting a lift to work aswell, and the garages near work are more expensive as they are in a little village. Kinda gutted at the price but have never been able to find somewhere which is reasonable.

[gshaw]

I'd make sure you get an itemised list of what's been replaced... plugs and leads (which is what I'm guessing are being referred to as the cables?) are low cost items and quick to replace. What else did they do on the service for £112... oil change, coolant etc or literally just the items you mentioned?

 

Replaced the plugs, leads and air filter on my ZR for £40 (and that was good quality NGK plugs as well) using a combination of eBay and local motor factors

Edited September 7, 2011 by gshaw

[neilmc]

Its just the interim service, so its mainly just the oil changed and full over all to check everything else is ok. and the other items are to do with the jerking of the car to try and fix that, as far as I understand not really that good with cars so they never make sense to me

[bodminman]

I've got a 2010 SUzuki Swift and had it in for it's first service a few months back and the only materials that were used were oil and a filter and the bill still came to £170!

 

I rang and complainted and they waffled on about all the visual checks that were done blah blah blah!

 

Won't be going back there again!

[difinity]

Seems quite pricey especially as a full service would include a plug change anyway and wouldn't cost much more.

As stated above get the old bits back, as an ex mechanic i know some of the dodges that went/go on. (not by me though)

[broc]

I've got a 2010 SUzuki Swift and had it in for it's first service a few months back and the only materials that were used were oil and a filter and the bill still came to £170!

 

I rang and complainted and they waffled on about all the visual checks that were done blah blah blah!

 

Won't be going back there again!

 

Main Stealer by any chance?

[bodminman]

Yep it sure was!

[laptopsandspares]

Took car in for a service today and to see what the problem was with the car jerking all the time, turns out needs new spark plugs some tubes or something and other parts replacing costing me in total £302.00 wonderful when you have a wedding to pay for.

Wish I knew more about cars, as when they speak to me about it on the phone I have no idea what they are going on about. little bit gutted first spend on credit card and its gonna be expensive booooo

 

I feel your pain. Cars are expensive but IMO, although a lot of money it's not terrible. I often buy my own bits for servicing as my golf PD engine needs a special oil to maintain the engine. cost's me £40 for oil and filter and my local charge me 1/2 hour labour so it's abotu £75 total for my oil change.

 

Based on what you've said, I'd think you might have saved a bit by doing that but not much. I'd think plugs from camberly auto factors would be about £5 each (£20), oil filter between £7 and £15 so say £10 for example. 5 litres of oil costs me £35. If it had HT leads that's going to be about £30-£40 if bought yourself, hoses tend to be silly money if they are preformed as often it's main dealer only unless it's a generic piece of pipe (not often) You can assume they'll charge a bit on the parts too but you are over £100 already. I'd be gutted to have to spend the money but I wouldn't feel robbed. In my experience, a recommended garage is a good thing if you trust the referer.

 

My MOT on friday was £450!! It broke down as £48 for the MOT, £120 for a new CAT (pleasantly surprised, was expecting £300+), £30 worth of CV boots, £27.50 for the oil change and a couple of hours labour to change the boots and CAT. Can't really grumble at any of that for a car with 197,500 miles on the clock and another years motoring but certainly made my butt twitch when I handed over the reddies just insurance in Jan to look forward too now :(

 

Happy trucking

D

[elsiegee40]

Main Stealer service for Ford Focus here cost nearly double that for the same service for the Volvo V70 also Main Stealer. Ford now serviced at local man who does. Volvo still with Main Stealer mostly because it's next door to OH's office when he's in the UK...

[unixman]

I took my Kia Picanto in for it's first service a few months ago. The Kia dealer wanted £190 + parts and the local mechanic £60 without parts. I supplied the genuine Kia parts (cost £8.90) and saved myself £120. I didn't get the "free" wash & vac though, which the Kia dealer would have done; that's one expensive wash. I had to use genuine parts to preserve the 7 year warranty, although I doubt pattern parts would have been much cheaper.

 

Speaking of expensive cars, I found this on the BBC website BBC News - Gainsborough company claims smallest car title It costs a mere £3000 more than my Kia, although I did take advantage of the scrappage scheme when I got it.

[bodminman]

Speaking of expensive cars, I found this on the BBC website BBC News - Gainsborough company claims smallest car title It costs a mere £3000 more than my Kia, although I did take advantage of the scrappage scheme when I got it.

 

How can that thing cost £7.5k?

[MK-2]

BBC News - Gainsborough company claims smallest car title

 

is that the same sort that clarkson had a go around in on top gear? although that one didn't have reverse which i would assume legally you should?

[Gibbo]

I feel your pain. Cars are expensive but IMO, although a lot of money it's not terrible. I often buy my own bits for servicing D

 

Same here. The best thing I ever bought for my car was the Peugeot Planet diagnostic equipment. It cost £80 but I've made my money back a few times over lending my services out to fellow Peugeot owners because the equipment does a full diagnostic and not just a code read those cheap generic ones do. And as I'm not affiliated to any garage I just steer them to places like Euro Car Parts or the like.

 

I originally bought it because the car was very sluggish. It could have been one of a dozen things and I could have bought and replaced parts until I found it, or took it to Peugeot for a diagnostic (£75) and the spare part (£120 + fitting). The Planet tool identified it was the MAF sensor and I managed to get a replacement for just £35. Car ran like a dream after and MPG increased too!

 

If anyone in the Cheshire, Merseyside or North Wales area needs a diag, PM me!

[shenley]

is that the same sort that clarkson had a go around in on top gear? although that one didn't have reverse which i would assume legally you should?

 

Clarkson drove a Peel P50 which was built on the Isle Of Man. The Gainsborough is a re-engineered version.

[Ste_Harve]

Haha i can feel your pain, but the breakdown doesn't seem that bad. A focus will have either one coilpack above all 4 cylinders or individual coilpacks, and these can range from £20-90 depending on type.

 

My BMW I do all the work on myself, and the parts from eurocarparts are reasonable, at £48.60 each, only problem is theres 6 of them! £291.60 for all 6. Spark plugs are about £5 each. £30 on spark plugs seems expensive but theres 6. My local garage charge £350 to change all the coils including the coils, and there's about an hour and half work to get them all out and back in.

[Jose]

I always had french cars for the last 13 years and theres always stuff going wrong. I recently bought a BMW 330ci msport convertable, I will always pay the extra for main dealer servicing just so I can keep it under BMW warranty. If you buy a used approved or new car from a good car make and keep it warrantied then atleast you know it advance how much it cost per year to service and maintain. If your car has a very low milage on it for its year BMW will sometimes replace things for free as a good will gesture.

My old saxo vts used to cost about £300-500 everytime we took it in and it was hardly a bird puller, if you can stretch to it a german make such Volkswagan or BMW are much better bang per buck.

[thepineapplehead]

Don't know if this helps but we sent my wife's car in for a full service a little while ago. Hadn't been properly serviced in years, or well looked after. Needed basically the front suspension ripping out and replacing (it's a ten-year old Skoda Fabia), as well as new air filter, coolant/brake fluid/oil change, new tyres, (iincluding balancing etc), the steering wheel was realigned, new brake pads and discs, a bearing in the back wheel - basically everything but the cam belt, as it's a pushrod engine.

 

Cost us about £800 - which doesn't seem too bad, until you realise the car only cost us £750 to buy