Very arrogant of you David which considering your reputation surprises me.

So basically what you're saying then is just because a bloke works from a van he lacks training, knowledge and skills?

Complete bollocks! Pick the right one and all he lacks out of your list is premesis. It's simply more convenient for some people to have a mechanic come to them rather than pissing about with, and having the additional cost of, having a car recovered to a workshop.


I cant help but think there's an ulterior motive to your statement as that sweeping generalisation just doesnt make sense.

Well based on that reply, I won't be taking my car to APi with such an arrogant owner.:Whatever_

Honestly what a blinkered view.:sleep:

Sorry David, I said £900 + VAT :cuckoo: - didn't mean to price you out of the market, so to speak. :Whatever_

knowlegde and experiance aside i would question any travel tradesman, mechinic, mapper, tree surgeon etc etc about warrenty and insrance, do they have public liability insurance? is there a writen warrenty etc etc

Very poor comments David.

The best mechanic I've ever come across was someone who worked on my car on the road (not even a driveway).

The speed and quality of his work put most "workshops" to shame.

RIP TweenieRob.

So you're admitting jobs do go wrong at said companies too with all their trained staff, proper facilities, knowledge etc:wonder:

Hi,

just found this thread. :confused:

To do headgaskets correctly its an engine out job, not something you really want to do outside on your nicely block paved drive. Its not worth doing just the one, always do both and we always advise whilst its out, split the block and check out the crank bearings especially if the engine has covered a fair few miles. :thumb:

From 22 years of experience we have found at least an 80% chance that the engine will rattle out its big ends shortly after a top end re-fresh, so whilst its in bits you may as well at least take a look at the bottom end. :D

We charge £700.00 + vat including a skim and new gasket per side, a bottom end, peace of mind re-fresh at this point would only set you back an extra £300.00. + vat

I have to agree with Dave, its very hard being in business these days, although its never been easy, we have HM revenue & customs to consider, business rates, insurance, try 18K per year with 3 monthly checks on all 7 ramps and compressors, add health and safety, risk assessment, planning restrictions and warranties its a wonder we bother at all,

Someone moonlighting on your drive doesnt have to worry about any of the above which is why they can do it cheaper, is it value for money though ? especially when they have no workshop address or land line, cheap is not always best.

Waits for fallout :shtf:

Cheers :D

Kev

i bought a very cheap 1996 wrx with the head gasket gone on it, done the work myself on my driveway (before this winter snap!) only cost me £165 lol.
1st ever time of stripping a gc8!!! and done it without taking the engine out.
its running perfect, no faults and if it goes tits up it dont really matter lol.

david is losing business thats why the comments? imo.

OK back for the very last time.

Bob - people who live in glass houses.

Yes I am honest enough to admit that jobs go wrong and we fix them properly, promptly. No one is infallible.

On the contrary my workshop currently has 2 jobs in that we are untangling where complete idiots, who thought they could repair a Subaru have made a right bloody mess.

Parts that were allegedly fitted haven't been. thermostat fitted the wrong way around.

Keep going moonlighters it keeps my workshops full of work.

I'm gone, I will not be back. This is not a thread about APi and my opinions which I am entitled to. I am stating facts, that as far as the professional world is concerned moonlighters generally [ with a few exceptions ] can and do cause trouble.

David

if you have money, then a gargae id say is best, + if it all goes tits up
they will more than likly get it sorted, there time.

yes its cheaper with side macanics, but will they cover it if it did go wrong.
this is a mixed mind type of thing, as me my self did do the garage way, till i was done over that many times, it cost far to much

know i take matter in my own hands, and do the lot my self (bar the mapping :) )
and to be honist, never had things go wrong.

but over the years, scoobs can be checked 100 times over. and things can still to tits up
you can have the best parts money can buy, 2 days later pop
back to post, id personally would never spend 1.5k on a head gasket to be done
i get head sciming for 20/30 per head, me striping it. the head gaskets 1 ton, or just over. then theres the head bolts

this dosnt go near the 1.5k mark to me.
compaired to some cars out there, the scoob is one of the easyest cars ive worked on.

someone can slatter this coment, and i'll say this.
i never even did motor macanics at collage or anything.
so in affect, i shouldnt have any nolage regards cars at all

but no one can come to me, and say i dont know what im doing. i can build an engine duck :)

i`m admitting that if i had a £5k+ impreza then davids gaff is where she`d be if anything went wrong..........:notworthy

but as my wrx cost me £800 sending it off for the work to be done at a cost of abouts 1k (including collection) would be complete lunacy.

i`d rather break her up or sell on for the price i bought it.

I have worked in the Automotive trade for 20 years and it amazes me the horror stories that I continue to hear in my own workplace (I work for a Volvo commercial vehicle main dealer).

A recent case of 'Stan in his van' - a local unknown customer rang us up and wanted us to have a look at his vehicle with a 'engine fault'. Vehicle arrives on the back of a recovery truck, the customers vehicle is half stripped or rebuilt depending how you look at it.

We ring the customer up and ask him exactly what he wants done; he wants the engine rebuilt using the parts that 'Stan' supplied him with. I examine the parts (I'm in charge of the parts dept) and tell the customer that the piston/liner kit, big end / main and thrust bearings are all wrong as they are off a later engine variant.

We are then told to fit them anyway as 'Stan' said they were correct and of course this 'expert' knew what he was talking about despite the fact that he stripped the engine and got out of his depth as he

1. Didn't have a fcuking clue
2. Had no special tools
3. Was more of a cowboy than the Lone Ranger

So we rebuilt the engine as instructed after the customer signed a disclaimer and guess what - it was chuffing more than Ivor The Engine.

We then instructed the customer again that it needs a full engine rebuild (6 pistons/liners, full bearing set, complete gasket set, 6 new injectors, new water and oil pumps etc) but he decided to take it as is, after all 'Stan' told him that's it required was one piston/liner replaced.

As it drove away we all thought 'It will be back soon anyway' and guess what it came back in last Tuesday as the engine 'just stopped' in the words of the customer. Long story very short it now looks like it needs a factory recon engine.

Like they say 'A fool and his money are easily parted'.

I shouldn't laugh but if the customer had listened to us from the beginning then he'd have saved himself the price of an exchange engine. :cuckoo:

can of worms thread i love it.

OMG the issue here is David making out all mechanics who work out of a van with no premises are moonlighters, which is not true!

You can't put them all in the same bracket!

It can work both ways though, I paid good money for a "pro" to repair my first scooby engine, and to be honest it was a **** job, list of things wrong with it.

Alternator belt tensioner was broken, i used to show and shine the car, i was under the bonnet every week, "pro" argued that it was like that when it came in, so i let it slide.

Superglue splodge on front bumper, this bumper was a brand new my99 bumper that had been sprayed and fitted by myself 2 weeks earlier, it was immaculate.

Tab burn in drivers footwell, again, i was a complete bufty freek and the car was cleaned every few days, it was a none smoked car from japan, again it was denied, i later found out that the mechanic at the time was a smoker :rolleyes:

A few months later my wheel bearing went, throwing caution to the wind i went back to have the wheel bearing replaced, 6 months after this the steering went a bit weird coming off a roundabout at speed, i pulled over just as my front wheel fell off and wedged up into the wheel arch 5 mins from work, the new wheel bearing had collapsed, the wheels center cap had flew off, and so had the end of the cv joint, complete with hub nut. the brake calliper was damaged, and you can guess what happened to the disc.

This pissed me off something rotten, i was fuming, i rang up the "pro" and demanded that something be done about it, i told him i would be removing the entire hub right now and would bringing it over to have it fixed, when i arrived a new mechanic was working, the old one was gone, i was hanging about for ages so i went around the back to have a word and he told me he was not happy fitting a new bearing to it as the stub/spindle was worn, if he did it was just going to go again in a few months time.

So i walked around to the shop to sort it out with the boss, who told me he would ring around and see if he could get a salvage hub, while all this is going on my business is closed, i have been unable to open it, i am starting to get really pissed off, a hub is sourced and sent over, thank ****!

Nope, "pro" then argues that i should be paying something towards the hub "cuckoo" at this point i was ****en sick, my car was parked up outside work with a missing hub, i had lost a days trade and i just needed to escape this utter fail, i paid around 50quid and vowed never to use them again.

A few months later the headgaskets failed on the engine rebuild anyway, utter **** job.

Sourced a proper pro outfit to fit a 2.5 engine and the mechanic managed to remove my engine with a small ratchet set, he said all the bolts were not torqued up, and he was surprised the engine stayed under the bonnet.

This supposed "pro" is not an advertiser on SN although he does post from time to time, to be fair the web shop side of his business is pretty good, but the mechanical side is utter horse ****.

Another mate put his car in for a rear brake upgrade, it cam back with one classic rear hub and one bugeye one :cuckoo: one side had a rear brake calliper mounting bracket, the other never needed one.

So **** its hillarious.

Sticky............just a bit off topic, but was this your classic with the red back end :D

Shaun

Yup, i think you know who the "pro" was :)

this is were this thread took a dive, slagging off left right and centre at the first opportunity

For me this thread isn't about a workshop being better than a driveway of cours it is. No one in their right mind would argue that.

What I disagree with and incredibly strongly too is the dreadful sweeping generalisation that just because a bloke works out of a van its going to be sh*t job and the bloke's a cowboy. Totally agree there are cowboys with vans out there but there's a whole load with premises too.

Its like me saying all Subaru specialists south of Leicester are shoddy. It's utter bollocks, totally unfounded and completely unfair to the specialists that are very good south of leicester.

Just because someone works mobile from the back of a van doesnt mean he'll do a bad job.

Just because someone works mobile from the back of a van doesnt mean he'll do a bad job.[/quote]

i agree, and not just cos i work from my van (not mechanic though)
although i too have built many a car on my drive (nice in summer, not so nice this weather) just because someone can do it cheaper that doesnt have premises doesn't mean its cheap cos he'll do a ****e job, it more than likely means its cheaper because there's less overheads to pay.

agreed a true legend...was mr g...

Back to original question.

If thats the cheapest you can find, buy another one for 1500 and break the one youve got.

i think the whole point that david and others were trying to make was how do you destinguish between a cowboy and a none cowboy that rocks up to your front door? and also are you legaly covered?

i wouldnt say legaly mate.
as if that van man guy was a good macanic, if that gasket failed they would change it
you can always check every part on a car, dont mean it will not break down.

even if a company does your car, that garrentee covers the part/s changed
nothing else, even if a repatable company did say the head gaskets, and did check the bottom end. if in a month that person ran a shell, would that also include the garentee on the bottom end as they checked it. no it wouldnt

the only thing id say is the advantage, if thing did go tits up. if that company dont sort it out, you can get trading standards involved, which aint worth the paper its printed on. its always there word against yours. its hard to prove that garage corsed it

and thats the only differnce between and bloke who comes to yours and a hi rep garage.
nothing to do with tools, i spent quite abit of money on tools. if i come across acar that needs a certain tool, i'll go out & buy it.

.................

So every garage you go to you ask to see their public liability certs do you? Get real fella sh*t mechanics can be found all over the place not just in vans. Just the same way good mechanics can be found in vans not just buildings. It's just wrong and unfair to label any one a moonlighter or a cowboy just because they work from a van. That's like me saying all Asians are terrorists. It's a sweeping generalisation that just isn't fair!!!!

Class:lol:

yes i do, 99% of the time it tends to be up on a wall if you look ;) theres very few places i use specificly cos of hte trust reason

last place i know that didn't have cover blew up 7 cars mapping them and then walked away.

but i don't think you bothered to read what i put at all, i said how do you tell the difference, not that all are cowboys.

what its true.

uptill 10 years ago. id never touched a car, i just picked it up from there.
got a haynes manual, then realised that almost every car out there are about the same
as long as you have torque settings/sequences ect, you can basicly do any car
over the years, ive completly rebuilt engine. find foults, can surgest things also

im always asked know, why dont i go into garage work, all i can ever say. is no papers at all to prove what i can do.

so the aboth comment stands. ive even redone friends scoobs up, and still fine today.
always get persons ring me up asking to fix there cars ect :)

Take a look at Qui** Fit, The amount of premises and backing they have and success

But the Experiance i've had with them and a lot of other people Complete Rip Off Cowboys Liars