Recession- Garages Struggling

[doog442]

Im not talking about your big dealerships here. I had some work done on the Lex today by a trusted family friend who runs a garage on his own. (non MOT's but does the prep etc)

This bloke is well connected in the trade and tells me that some MOT garages are struggling big time and are really beginning to start generating extra work by being particulary picky over the test, much more so than usual. (im not saying they all do it )

This sort of thing makes me bloody angry. These places have to apply a national standard and should be trusted and yet if they are not getting customers through the door for service work can easily tweak things to generate MOT work.

They are no better than cowboy builders / plumbers etc and its about time trading standards sorted them for once and all. A normal shop cant mug a customer who walks through the door but some of these places still can.

A colleague of mines car failed Its MOT as the brake pipe was twisted (not perished). Although an accepted failure the quote of £86 to take off the wheel, remove the caliper and twist it back round was taking the mick...a friend eventually did it for nothing. (Although I hold my hands up to them in the fact they pointed out the pipe wasnt perished!!- perhaps that quote would have totally scared the customer off.)

Can anyone think of another profession who can 'generate' work so easily and dishonestly when times get hard? Obviously some are taking a chance as there is no obligation on you getting them to do the work but not everyone has the time to start kiting their motor around different garages before taking it back to the original MOT garage.

rant over

MOT next week

[Tony-Bones]

The problem we have is the MOT is 2/3 opinionated, so it's easy for the testers to set their own standards.

[Kazi]

Would warn the garage that any work it may need will be done elsewhere or by themselves. This may make them think twice as im sure they'd rather not do a re-test...

[Yeldarb]

our porsche failed its first the MOT on a "buckled wheel", so I asked for the complaint form to fill in and said the car will not be moved untill the failure was inspected by someone who knows what they are doing (in those words). 10 mins later the car passed, all they did was deflate the tyre and blow it back up and guess what..... Problem solved but customer lost forever.

Just complain the failure is unjust. They don't like the guys from VOSA putting their noses around the garage door.

I do not trust garages unless I personly know the owner.

[aztecbandit1]

My partner took our fiesta for its MOT yesterday and the garage said it was going to fail on the handbrake not working enough and told her they could fit new shoes and drums so it would pass, so i went over and adjusted them while it was there and funny enough it passed, :) think a few of them just think people dont know much about there cars so will book it in for any work they say is needed??