Reply to: I am in the wrong business, and so are you lot

[beaker]

They're in the wrong business too...

A commercial barrister earns up to £500 an hour...

[Another Dodgy Agent]

My triple garage contains:

BMW M Roadster (S54 Engine)
BMW 320d (6 months old)
Ford Galaxy

All spare cash is sitting in my war fund waiting for the bottom of the property decline.

Nice collection, speaking as a fellow BMW owner:

BMW Z4 3.0 (wife)
BMW E46 M3 (cos I just can't grow up!)
Vauxhall Astra (borrowed off daughter when we are on shopping expeditions)

[BrilloPad]

I am told that these days the Japanese are most reliable. Is this correct?

We have a Toyoya garage near us - I might take a look sometime.

[Clippy]

This is why I stopped buying VWs. They aren't appreciably more reliable, but they are expensive to repair. People claim that British cars were shoddy and unreliable, but everywhere there seem to be stories like this about the supposedly well engineered German ones.

Must admit, I agree.

VW are still trading on an image from years ago of bulletproof reliability.

I get all my work done from a VW qualified grease monkey who does the work at home at weekends at half my VW dealers price.

[oracleslave]

My triple garage contains:

BMW M Roadster (S54 Engine)
BMW 320d (6 months old)
Ford Galaxy

All spare cash is sitting in my war fund waiting for the bottom of the property decline.

Like the Ford Galaxy Pity about the dice though.

[DimPrawn]

What do Swindon millionaire tycoons drive these days if not a porsche or an Audi?

My triple garage contains:

BMW M Roadster (S54 Engine)
BMW 320d (6 months old)
Ford Galaxy

All spare cash is sitting in my war fund waiting for the bottom of the property decline.

[JaybeeInCUK]

Was the original price for new parts?

I had the gearbox go on my S2000 (don't tell me S2000s never break). It was going to be £4000 from Honda (I didn't even ask if that was inc VAT or not), but I also used that partsgateway place and got a nearly new one for £450, plus about the same for an independent to fit.

Most people won't go the extra mile, and also get all obsessed about dealer stamps. If it costs you a couple of thousand pounds more to get the dealer stamp, do you really gain enough in resale to make it worth it?

The dealer stamp means very little to me unless it's a BM/Jag or other elite marque, for the rest of us it's yet another "benefit" the industry uses to legally fleece customers. In fact, I've heard some horror stories about some main dealerships fobbing customers off on shoddy repair work.

To answer your first question, no, mine was a 2nd hand box, from another Saab with much the same miles as my existing one, but you never can tell. The grease monkey made some shrieking noises about the box looking "very, very old", but then many Saabs go 200K miles without anything going wrong, so it's a chance I'm willing to take for the saving I made.

[oracleslave]

Recruitment consultant being shafted.... I think that's called karma.

http://forums.contractoruk.com/busin...e-thieves.html

[Charles Foster Kane]

I am shocked. My VW Touran broke down with a hooky alternator.

Bill for repair

£690.00

£100.00 per hour for labour!

£100.00 for diagnostics which "they had to do" as the battery was flat as it would be.

£100 for a new battery.

"never mind" said the service rep, "you get a 2 year warranty on it"

Yeah great, it goes back to the leasing company tomorrow!

Recruitment consultant being shafted.... I think that's called karma.

[expat]

Most people won't go the extra mile, and also get all obsessed about dealer stamps. If it costs you a couple of thousand pounds more to get the dealer stamp, do you really gain enough in resale to make it worth it?

Human nature, most people won't accept that they have just lost a lot of money in one sudden crunch, no matter what they do next. Sadly, the car can be fixed but the financial stuation is fooked, you only get to choose which way it is fooked. Still, life's like that, as they say at Australian stag parties.

[VectraMan]

A few months back my gearbox packed up in my Saab, got quotes between 1100-1500 PLUS the vat to put it right. Now, the engine in it went Boom! a few years back, and that barely cost me £400 supplied from some big breakers up north.

Was the original price for new parts?

I had the gearbox go on my S2000 (don't tell me S2000s never break). It was going to be £4000 from Honda (I didn't even ask if that was inc VAT or not), but I also used that partsgateway place and got a nearly new one for £450, plus about the same for an independent to fit.

Most people won't go the extra mile, and also get all obsessed about dealer stamps. If it costs you a couple of thousand pounds more to get the dealer stamp, do you really gain enough in resale to make it worth it?

[Peoplesoft bloke]

No, that's for a car with a turbocharger, active 4WD and all other sorts of shiny gubbins.

That said, Audi dealers are absolute highwaymen.

I always get the minimum work done just to get the dealer stamp, then get anything serious (new brakes etc) done at my friendly local garage who can source the same parts and whose labour costs much less.

On a point of order, not all TTs are turbo (or 4wd).

EDIT - correction to self - the 2wd ones were unofficial imports.

[JaybeeInCUK]

I'll give you guys a tip; buy the parts yourself. Here's why...

A few months back my gearbox packed up in my Saab, got quotes between 1100-1500 PLUS the vat to put it right. Now, the engine in it went Boom! a few years back, and that barely cost me £400 supplied from some big breakers up north. So I'm thinking..."something doesn't add up".

Got a price from www.partsgateway.co.uk for £230 inc vat and delivery. All I had to do now was get a price from a grease monkey to fit it. I had a falling out with my last big-job mechanic a few years back so I had to shop around for labour prices. Guess what?

Phoned up 6 places and every bugger wanted to SUPPLY and fit, but nobody wanted to touch the fitting only. "Sorry, we don't do that here".

"Oh? So you don't fit customers brakepads if they bring them in?"

"Well, yes we do, but yours is a big job".

"But your way, you need to source a gearbox yourself AND fit it - surely that's an even bigger job?"

"Ermmmm, naah mate, it's not like that".

"Riiiiiiiiight."

I found a mechanic to do it - oddly, the same herbert who'd done my MOT all this time, I just got lucky when I walked in, he was out, his dolly-bird Mrs knocked up a quote with her 'Point and Click' pricing software, and I insisted on a hard copy, otherwise, as he told me afterwards, he wouldn't have touched the job either. Paid another £300 for labour, so got the whole job inside £600 - so even if, against the odds, something goes wrong, and I have to start all over again, I'm still quids in.

Same principles apply anywhere else you go to buy anything - you see a lot of blokes in their 40's and 50's working under the same roof, all with wives with frivolous spending habits and 2 brats in universities each needing 20k a year, you know you're about to get your pants pulled down.

[ThomasSoerensen]

Didn't you buy a Phaeton or some such crap?

I don't buy cars - I just look at them a lot. Then I take the tram home. Sad, I know.

[oracleslave]

Must chime in on the Audi front.

Mate had an S4. Nearly bankrupted him.

Audi, more expensive to run than a Porsche and no more exciting than a VW.

What do Swindon millionaire tycoons drive these days if not a porsche or an Audi?