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 Topic: Cost of repairs..
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01/12/2024 at 11:30am
Location: London
Outfit: Lunar Cosmos 524
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My local Citroen dealership (it's a nationwide chain) offers a two tier pricing option for servicing - they will do the full main dealer experience at silly parts prices (BUT not as outrageously obscene as some brands!), OR they do a cheaper basic option using approved pattern parts, that generally brings the service bill down to comparable with local independent garages.
But they do still take liberties if you're unwary! Last service they reported a blown headlight bulb and quoted IIRC around £60 to fix! I declined with probably my usual blunt response to 'thieves', DIY repair took me all of 5 minutes with a £5 bulb I had as a spare! I'd done the bulbs before, I already knew it was a simple job done in minutes!
They also reported that the auxiliary (alternator) belt needed replacing soon, quoted something like £140 in total, with the belt costing £45! Declined! Took it to my local independent to be done along with MOT, took him all of 20 mins to swap out while I watched, and the quality branded belt cost £20 - total cost £35!
Fully appreciate that garages HAVE to invest in lots of diagnostic machines and special tools these days to stay in business and that ups their costs, but they don't seem to 'know' anything any more, bit like trained chimps reading the diagnostic readout, and that's as good as it gets! Then they just keep fitting parts, usually very expensive parts, until the problem is sorted (if you are lucky!). There is little understanding of a fault at fundamental levels.
Used to use a main dealer years ago, who had a brilliant service department manager, at the mere mention of a problem, he'd proffer a likely culprit out of his head long before any computers or 'chimps' got dragged into the process, rarely wrong, THAT was true knowledge! Sadly, they first moved premises, too far away to be convenient, then went out of business.
Last major job I did on a car was about 10 years ago, changed the timing belt and all the associated pulleys, and the water pump as false economy not to do so when it was accessible in the strip down, on my Diesel Citroen C5. In principle, a relatively simple job, in practice a time consuming task that took far longer than it should because of the way the car was built, with manufacture a priority over servicing! Also had to buy a number of 'odd' sized Torx type tools to deal with one or two fasteners! Been quoted £800-£900 by garages to do the job, cost me a little over £100 in quality parts, and a day of my time, would have been easier and quicker if I'd had a hydraulic ramp, as needed to keep swapping from under the car to into top of engine bay!
Think that convinced me I needed the money less than the aches and pains in old bones that came with grubbing around under cars! These days, I think it's even worse, EVERYTHING has got more difficult to deal with, and I definitely don't need more aches and pains on top of the one that come from simply getting out of bed!
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