Service (that wasn't done) & new parts when not needed

“Service (that wasn't done) and new parts when not needed”

Written on: 19/05/2012

I booked my diesel Picasso in for a full service and paid extra for fuel flush and clean. Paid for it online (£204) and dropped car off, as requested, for 9.15am. I then hit the town to kill some time. Had a call at 1pm to say my rear discs and brakes were below the minimum amount and my rear silencer was corroded. As funds were tight, I approved the brakes as it is the family car.

I went back to the garage for 3pm and car still on ramps (no-one working on it). At 3.20pm it was lowered and driven about 20 foot to front of workshop. I paid the extra £176 for brakes (on top of £204 already paid) and went home after they had it for 6 hours.

3 days later, I had a new turbo vacuum valve delivered and went out to replace it myself. As it is located on back of engine, I had to take off the airbox. Hold on I thought, the airbox hasn't been touched. Alas, opened it up and the air filter was black (should have been changed 3 days earlier on service). I got suspicious at this point and checked the oil - it was black and sludge-like as well. Took oil filter out and that was black with lots of crud stuck in it. I then printed out their 67 point check and found 61 of the points had not been done (6 attributed to exhaust and brakes which supposedly needed replacing!!!). A quick angry call to them got the car back in the following day and courtesy car was given to me.

I went back and their senior mechanic confirmed the lack of a 'service' and performed a complete new service for me to compensate (!). The car was also given a full valet and a new silencer fitted free of charge by means of compensation (even though I had paid and ordered a new one elsewhere by this point). They also fitted the vacuum valve as a freeby. It is also to go back for other bits to be done free of charge, as they should have been picked up on the service (coolant leak and split PAS fluid hose).

Whilst there, I got to see the original mechanics report on my car. Strangely enough, the rear discs were measured as 7.6mm thickness. Hold on, for a 2.0HDi new discs are 9.0mm thickness with a wear limit of 7.0mm and for a 1.6HDi (which mine is) they can come as 8.0mm new and 6.00mm wear limit. Nevertheless, they were not below the wear limit and still had loads of life left in them, so did not need replacing urgently, per the telephone call.

How many other people have paid for a service and not checked to see whether it was done or not? It was only by chance that I checked.

They made it clear that the day I took the car in they were short staffed, hence the delay, but is that my problem? Surely they should have turned business away if they couldn't cope or rebooked people in for other days? I was also told there would be a disciplinary against the mechanic on my car, but again, I am not interested in that. I just wanted an honest service on the car, for what I paid good money for. Pretty disgusted it was just released without being done. They even had the cheek to say it was also test driven (twice per the paperwork), but all I saw was it being taken off the ramp into a parking space, supposedly after the work was done.

The end result is that I was disgusted with what was done initially, but pleased at how they dealt with my complaint and tried to appease me. I still need to go back for rest of the work to be done when parts received, so fingers crossed that works out ok.