cbowditch

Sounds like a nonsense story if you ask me. No mechanics work at 8.30pm.

pippyrips

bo**ocks - someone there probably saw this thread prior to you going in and prepped a story

sterb5

i have had a clutch done. just seems funny to me how he said i could pick up at 5 but then needed road test at 8 30
oh well u learn from ur mistakes i guess.think ill do the extra miles next time and go to scooby clinic or similar.thanks for ur comments all

MPC-GTR

I recall seeing a program on the TV doing undercover investigations regarding the quality of work done by places such as quick-fit et al.(it may have been watchdog or similar) A car was taken to Halfords for some straight forward work - it was later caught on hidden camera being driven by some of the staff behind the building doing donuts. The worker did end up losing his job, but still think how annoyed you would be if you found someone doing that in your car.

gaz-cole

an insurance company i worked for insisted every car to be driven (unless blown engine suspension damage) to cover our own backs due to the amount of untrust worthy customers saying this that or the other even if there car came in for say example a head light but once road tested they didnt need doing again

Dazza01

Good call mate excellent company mine doesn't go anywhere else



Oh and a map to the clinic before you ask, print it off and keep it safe

corradoboy

Oi ! That's my map and it's copyrighted

rossi_classicwrx

I expect that story was fabricated because the driver probably noticed someone flashing at him the night it was out so expected you to be told about it. He therefore made some crap up about it. You should have torn shreds into them for doing that.
I had a similar experience with my old car at a tyre fitting firm. I dropped the car off on the way to work to have new front tyres fitted and when i was out on my lunch break (went to maccy'ds as it was next door) my car went through the car park. I got the rest of the tyres changed on the car aswell and didn;t pay anything for it.

Dazza01

sorry but i saved it cos its been a marital aid to many in helping them find the clinic mind you its also been used as evidence in the divorce courts as to where all his money went

bob r

iTrader: (46)

like i said it was "taken without consent" therefore an arrestable offence (i believe) hope you got a huge discount.

10man

Well the car should only have been taken out for a test drive to make sure tht every thing was okay before you got it back. seeing as that your car was booked in it should have only been work on in there working hours. If there was some one working late then it would have to been there own car or a private. If your car was damaged off the garage premises out of the garages working hours it would not be covered be the garages insurance.

COLZO

Just out of interest was this an actual Subaru dealership?

mike2.5subaru

9.15 near the Garage, youngster !!! Probably went back to work when it's closed had a free ride in a car he'll never own, return it back by 11.00 and nobody would ever know. or so he thought. "BALL$ ON A PLATE"

SVVG

iTrader: (1)

I had this exact problem when I first bought my P1 (I was young and naive....) took my car to a Subaru dealer in Wolverhampton - and when I went back to collect it it had 60 extra miles on the clock. They told me they needed to run the new oil in hence the extra mileage. I NOW NEVER EVER go to main dealers - especailly as they were raving about how fast a customers new WR1 was.... and did a really shoddy job.

Heard a similar story about a friend of a friend´s father who had a 911. He took it to a main dealer - I think in Surrey somewhere, and then went into London for the weekend. He saw his car parked up outside a shop in the King´s Road, and had his spare keys on him..... so drove it home and turned up to the dealer on the Monday morning to ask for his car back..... I like the strory regardless of whether it´s total BS!!!!!!!!

Anyway - the moral of all the stories above is DO NOT TRUST DEALERS. In the words of Danny - "They are in the employment of the government...." They are expensive because of their high overheads and lack the knowledge of a successful tuner - who on the whole will give more of a sht about retaining your business - and I am much happier letting Mat or Olly Clark use my car when they have been kind enough to let me leave it there for the usual 4 months (!) than some grease monkey who knows bgger all about them.

Rant over - I thank you.

MartynJ

As the Manager of a tuning business I thought I should comment on this post..
Test drives are as you are all aware a necessary part of our job...Without them we would find it hard to verify results seen on the dyno...(The *** test still being usefull).
On cars we have carried out substantial work on Alan the owner of the business will drive the car home (35ish miles away) and back the next day..
A test drive of this distance would be difficult during our normal working day due to the workload of the garage...

I of course agree completely that "TEST" driving someones car purely for the sake of it and around a city centre is bad practice.. We had one of our own customers cars written off by a valeting company...Took his supercharged Lotus Elise to get it valeted in Exeter as he had sold it..Returned later to pick it up only to find that it had been driven into the back end of a bus and written off....Why is it necessary for a valeter to test drive a car...?
Who knows?
Test drives in our place are only carried out when necessary and only by experienced staff....
Please remember that not all garages are the same....
www.enginetuner.co.uk

RLE

iTrader: (2)

I remember seeing the photo's of the Lotus in Maxim or similar.
Appreciate test drives are part and parcel but I suspect the owner of your garage will indicate that he will be taking the car home well in advance? Saying that isn't 70 miles a little excessive?

Same thing happened with my Rover 220 turbo a good few years ago. Had only gone in to have the skirts repainted and it was seen racing an Escort RS Turbo down the dual carriageway. In fairness to the garage (Rover dealership) when I confronted them with it they accepted it had happened; offered to sack the 17 year old apprentice and offered compensation.

Wasn't going to have the lad fired. Evidently the garage had to accept responsibility if they allowed their customers car to be driven by the paintshop!!! In the end I accepted a free service which included new brake discs and pads (circa £500.00)

danwrx1980

My Mum's bloke Ray, took his old cortina into the garage (years ago, it was the crusader model) then went away working abroad for three weeks. Told them he would pick it up when he got back would it be safe and ok? Yeah sure, no worries, we'll keep it in the secure compound for ya.

Anyway he gets back a couple of days earlier than expected and went down to pay his bill.
Er sorry sir you can't pick it up quite yet its not ready. WHAT! After 3 weeks its not ready!!!

Well it is but the Dealer Principal has gone down to Cornwall in it with his family for the week!!!

Unlucky!

MartynJ

Depends on the work carried out...We consider it good practice to put at least the first 50 miles on a new engine , perfect for checking for any water/oil leaks or any other potential problems...

scoobyboy

im sure if the dealerships got together they could take legal action over some of the posts on here.
some of you may have had a bad experience at a dealership but dont tar them all with the same brush.

judgejules

Sounds like first class BS to me. Speak to the servicing manager or the owner of the place and ask when the mechanic was working to and why the car needed a test drive at that time of night when it was ready at 5. Ask to see a copy of the mechanics time sheet, signing in/out etc. Ask to see some time stamped CCTV of the car leaving and returning to the premises to corroborate the mechanics story. Ask them what route they took for the road test (he wont be sure if someone else you know didnt see him so he'll have to tell the truth there). I wouldnt be happy with this at all, f**k me I'd be livid.

At my last service I managed to speak to the test driver/mechanics as he was returning the car to the premises. He said to me something along the lines of:

Mechanic - Thats a quick car, is it modded.
Me - Nope, pretty standard.
Mechanic - I prefer acceleration to top speed and that thing is quick off the mark. If its standard its one of the quickest I've driven around here.

Now my car was in for a 30k service, which part of that would require a 0-60 thrashing to warrant such comments? Not quite as serious as yours but its made me think twice about going back to that scooby dealer. Are there any mechanics out there that dont think a car in for service is a free ticket for a legal joy ride?

My brother's scooby has had some scary data on its SECS when he used to put his car in for service at a different dealer. This was when the SECS was pretty new and they didnt know that it could record peak values for speed/revs etc. Now, they just unplug the SECS and say they forgot to plug it back in after running some tests...

Im sorry scoobyboy, but one bad apple messes up the barrel.

Jules

_Meridian_

iTrader: (1)

I take my car to Zen Performance for services etc. Given what Paul's car will do, I suspect mine has little to interest him....


M

scoobyboy

but it shouldn't should it and it's not fair on the good dealerships i think a lot of people on this board need to realise that when they voice their one sided opinion.

judgejules

Honestly, I have yet to find a dealership that I would recommend. I've moved around the country a fair bit in my driving years, and yes, some have been good, but have eventually let me down or proven themselves to have the same problems as has been highlighted in this thread. What you need to realise is that peoples "one sided view" is usually based on an event that they are coming on here to talk about. In my eyes a dealership needs to work to earn the reputation and respect of its clients, when I ask a new dealership to service my car, they are starting off on a neutral ground, the bottom rung so to speak. There's no way I should walk into a dealership with rose tinted glasses thinking that everything will be hunky dory due to the history or reputation of dealerships in general.

Scooby dealerships are well aware of how tight nit their community is, they are few and far between and should be going the extra mile for their customers, not pulling stunts as read about in this thread.

Jules

scoobyboy

again a biased view that all garages provided an awful service.

judgejules

So what dealership do you work for scoobyboy?

Jules

Tuts

How is it a biased view when all he is stating is that there are not that he has been to that he can recommend?

If he said all dealers are crap without going to all dealers then that would be biased.

Personally I don't go to dealers for servicing because they are a rip off and that isn't biased its a fact!

I have used 4 dealers for ordering parts though and found 2 of them were excellent and the other two couldn't be bothered so I went elsewhere.

Stephen Pope

So when I buy my next Scooby, if the advert says FSSH, do I walk away?!!!

scoobyboy

if you believe what most on here say you would.

dn12345

I'm with Dazza 01.. take it to the scooby clinic. There's no chance they would ever want to take advantage of mine overnight as they all have their own to have fun in! Take it to a back street mechanic to whom scoobys are a novelty and some young apprentice is going to jump at the chance of 'test-driving' your motor and thrashing it to within an inch of its life.

RedScoob

Very good point (even if it was tongue-in-cheek)..... Always buy on condition, not what a piece of paper tells you.
Besides, have you never heard of the Italian tune-up? Chances are that the yearly thrash by the 17year-old apprentice will actually do your car some good.