main dealer labour charges rip off

edd001 · Post by **edd001** » 31 Jul 2004, 00:57

that is very bad.
if that was our garage (main dealer) we would have just charged for the cambelt as it had to come off anyway.

alan s · Post by **alan s** » 31 Jul 2004, 04:00

Unfortunately it's a worldwide problem and Citroens are more prone to it than most other brands because of the reputation that they have had back from the days of the D series that it has been in the interests of repairers to keep recycling to stop people from either DIYing repairs and to frighten the local grease monkeys from even trying, this "Citroens are so different; got some weird ideas" story has whiskers on it.
Get them to tell you what they are and watch them squirm, particularly if you know a bit about them & can refute the arguments. FWD and east/west engines might have been a bit rare in the 50's but today???
We had a case over here recently where someone bought a BX and it had almost $10,000 spent on it in about 2 years; included in the cars "service records" were regular 'Major service to the ECU' for a few hundred $'s and one time even had a second charge for "servicing the EFi" on the same account.
A young fellow, (friend or relation of the repairer involved) had stated on the open forum that the previous owner "was a bit tight, if you know what I mean " as he'd been told by the repairer, so the new owner put a list of jobs & charges on the forum for all to see. Incidentally the car still wasn't going right and the reason the reference was made to the previous owner being "tight" was because the repairer reckoned if he hadn't been scared of spending money, the car would have been fixed. That's how arrogant they can be.[;)]
I recently bought a car that had (supposedly) all the spark plugs, air, ioil and fuel filters changed 8 months apart and had an LHM change where 6 litres of LHM was charged as well as 1 1/2 hours labour. When I bought it I immediately took the LHM tank out only to find it had never been out of the car and would only take 4 llitres.
The car had been serviced by a Citroen dealer; the guy with the BX had used (or been used by) a so-called "specialist."
Alan S

Stempy · Post by **Stempy** » 31 Jul 2004, 19:08

My Citroen dealer horror story was with my previous Xantia. The day after it had been in for service the front brake pads went down to the metal! Had to call the AA and have new discs and pads fitted at the nearest dealer to where I was at the time. The dealer who did the service eventually reimbused me with the cost of the pads and discs, but I still got lumbered with the labour.

jeremy · Post by **jeremy** » 31 Jul 2004, 19:14

Deliberate charging for work not done and parts not fitted is a criminal matter. Prosecution of garages may not appeal to the police but this is something that they should be dealing with.
jeremy

edd001 · Post by **edd001** » 31 Jul 2004, 23:28

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Stempy</i>

My Citroen dealer horror story was with my previous Xantia. The day after it had been in for service the front brake pads went down to the metal! Had to call the AA and have new discs and pads fitted at the nearest dealer to where I was at the time. The dealer who did the service eventually reimbused me with the cost of the pads and discs, but I still got lumbered with the labour.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
checking break pads is part of any service so if they did not tell you about it then they were charging you for somthing they did not do,
utterly disgracfull.

pazauk · Post by **pazauk** » 28 Aug 2004, 02:07

I'm haveing my xantia 2.1td done at a local pug place £174 for a cam belt change, found my water pump was leaking £167 for a water pump total cost with fitting a wopping £647 going to question the cost as the cams off for the water pump why the high labour cost????