Worst thing a garage has done to your car?

[ToyotaTosh]

I always empty my car when it gets jobs done, other things such as sensors left hanging, earth straps not put back on, oil leaks as it was overfilled, speedo sensor broken on removal......

Only one garage I really trust and I'll be going back to them in the future after trying various others that are closer to home ..

[Whitey]

GTSCHRIS.COM sold a mate of mine a damaged engine for £800, when he complained he had the car back for diagnostics and said if he took him to court he would counterclaim for another £760 for the diagnostics!
Anyway GTSCHRIS.COM lost the case today in court. Dodgy guy.
He also supplied test results for the engine with no engine number and couldn't even tell the court how he could produce test results for an engine he had no record of selling.

[Tsia]

GTSCHRIS.COM sold a mate of mine a damaged engine for £800, when he complained he had the car back for diagnostics and said if he took him to court he's counterclaim for another £760 for the diagnostics!
Anyway GTSCHRIS.COM list the case today in court. Dodgy guy.

I think we all decided it was best that this was left to the courts

[Whitey]

GTSCHRIS lost the case today.

[4ndee]

I agree that there are dodgy garages and mechanics. I have worked with lots of retarded mechanics too. But there are garages that pride themselves on being honest and portraying a good image. If people care about there jobs they care about what they do. I worked damn hard for years to become qualified and I care about making sure I do my job 110% if anything is broken it is fixed and not glued on . The problem is that people who have no idea about mechanics and cannot even get a basic qualification are allowed to work on your cars.

[Tsia]

Thankfully I've not had too many bad experiences with garages. The only thing I've really had was my brakes not stopping me very well due to a garage not bleeding them correctly and the handbrake not working after having new cables fitted.

[Whitey]

Had MK1 of mine set on fire because the garage messed the cooling system up and it set the dirty sump on fire while going at 70 in the night. Only noticed because the central reservation was glowing orange! :-O

[cvega666]

GTSCHRIS.COM sold a mate of mine a damaged engine for £800, when he complained he had the car back for diagnostics and said if he took him to court he's counterclaim for another £760 for the diagnostics!
Anyway GTSCHRIS.COM list the case today in court. Dodgy guy.

You've already posted this. I would thread very carefully if I were you at this point.

In relation to this thread, I've been lucky to have Pacific Works recommended as a garage and I've had only good experiences with him!

[Moo]

In relation to this thread, I've been lucky to have Pacific Works recommended as a garage and I've had only good experiences with him!

[Whitey]

Sorry mods, could you delete the second repost of mine. Did it by mistake on my mobile :-/

[ashley]

If we're gonna talk about good garages, I have to recommend my local garage- totally straight up and have always given me great tips and advice. He's never tried to fob us off with unnecesary work either, but probably cos he knows we end up doing it all ourselves.

My only complaint is that he won't 'let' my cars pass emmissions when they really shouldn't, but then I kinda respect their professionalism in that respect.

There are some sound garages out there, it's just a mine field finding them

http://www.autoinsider.co.uk/local/gara ... i_9112.php

[PeterRST]

Bought stuff from Chris twice and both times it was absolutely spot on and cheap aswell.

Always two sides to a story and I'd be careful to post up stuff like this on the internet.

As a company you're always bound to lose in court as the laws in sales business to customer are quite hilarious.. You can easily rip off any trader if you like and win in court, IMO.

[toxo]

I've not had too many bad experiences with garages but the ones I have had all seem to involve keys! I had my Fiesta in for its MOT at a local garage, and they had another Ford in at the same time. Helpfully, all Ford keys can LOCK all Fords. They locked my car with what they thought was my key to discover that it was actually on the passenger seat and they'd locked it with the key for the other Ford. Cue embarassing 'Hello sir, do you have a spare key for your car?' phone call.

Another garage lost my keys for 6 weeks, that was fun.

Also I've just remembered a garage that had my car for 2 days, refused to do any work on it because it was 'dangerous' and when I came to collect it they had left the driver's door open, so the interior light had drained the battery...

[toxo]

Oh and another... the same garage that locked the key in the Fiesta!

I checked the MR2 in for its MOT, it had a small stone hole in the fuel filter so it leaked fuel. There was a new fuel filter in the glovebox. I asked them to change the fuel filter while it was on the ramps. I got a call to tell me that the car had failed its emissions test because the tester was picking up fumes from the fuel leak...

They also failed the car for having Raybrig lenses, when they were the garage that SVA'd it in the first place when it was imported, before I'd bought it!! The lenses were fitted in Japan...

[Al-sw20]

Cue embarassing 'Hello sir, do you have a spare key for your car?' phone call.

So, so unprofessional. That kind of stuff should be embarrassing enough for them to get in the locksmith at their cost before you come to pick it up.

[toxo]

lol, I laughed when they told me the story because I know just how easy it is to break into that car!!

[jasongtr]

GTSCHRIS lost the case today.

are you repeating this for a reason, or just because nobody seemed to care the 1st time you said it?

[Torero]

About 30 years ago, I had just passed my test I was given a cheap car by a friend of the family. It was an automatic but good enough for a first car. After about a month I had a grinding sound coming from the front wheel by the gearbox when I was turning, so being a bit naive [a phrase used quite a lot on this thread] I took it to a local auto specialist in Swansea who I now know was the biggest sheister and conman in the game. I was charged £55 for a wheel bearings and replacement pads on the front axles.

Anyhow, about 5 years later I met his junior mechanic who had left to set up on his own and he told me some of the horror stories about the guy and went on to say that my repair was nothing more than a loose nut on the hub which needed tightening and a split pin replaced. Cost 5p and about 5 minutes but the thing that pi**ed me off most is when I scrapped the car 4 months later and found out from the breaker that the pads were down to the metal.

[cosmos]

Im assuming Tsia read Whitey's thread and didnt pick up on the fact that the said case had been concluded to Whitey's friends advantage, so i believe Whitey was merely in thread two drawing Tsia attention to the aforementioned outcome, cvega666 later expressed a response that was of a guiding nature i would hope.

[Whitey]

cosmos, you're right, this thread was about bad experiences with garages. Don't understand why my post is any different to the previous peoples apart that mine is about an affiliated garage and backed up with a court case that took a year to pursue.

This board banned my mate for talking about the case on here until the case was settled and now it's gone against GTSCHRIS he's still banned from the site! Little bit unfair, he was a Premium member too.