Charging £48 to change a light bulb?

Just FYI Halfords charge £10 to fit a single headlight bulb.

Yes, a garage might chose to impose a minimum labour charge.

However, the reality is that any half-decent independent garage would warn a customer that it was going to cost £48 to change a headlight bulb, and give them the option of doing it elsewhere as a consequence. Unfortunate, many would not, and that should serve as a clear warning they are not to be trusted.

It depends a little bit on car make. Not all bulbs have easy access. A couple of my lights take a while to change because of this. It’s a pain in the arse.

You’re not replacing an LED headlight for £25 though. If a bulb is being changed then it’ll be a traditional halogen bulb which are a standard wattage. When an LED headlight fails you’re generally looking at £1k+ for a new complete headlight unit.

They replaced a brake light for me during my last MOT, it was £18.50 and thought that was a con. I'd definitely be questioning £48!

Has the bulb been changed since the previous MOT test and why was only one too bright?

I think you should question the charge but there also seem to be some details missing

Doesn't work like that. Every mechanic I've been to has always had a minimum charge which is normally an hours labour, some might only charge for half hour. You will find the £48 is that mechanics minimum charge.

The only thing you can do in this situation is go back to the garage and explain that you feel the labour charge is unreasonable without prior authorisation (it clearly is) & see what they say.

If it wasn't a mistake & they won't budge / don't have a reasonable explanation (difficult to see what they could be if you know it literally took 5 minutes), then you are a bit stuck in terms of getting your money back.

A review on Google etc would be helpful so other potential customers are aware of their practice.

Unless they have made a mistake (e.g. default to units of 1 hour labour and forgot to manually adjust..), I would strongly suggest you don't use this garage again. Willingly charging a customer £48 to change a headlight bulb is not something a "trustworthy" garage would do...

They didn't charge you labour for the MOT, they charged you labour for changing the bulb which would have left you with an MOT failure otherwise.
I imagine they have a minimum of 15 min for doing jobs and charged you for 15 mins which covers the time to get the bulb, fit it and dispose of the old one + packaging - time they can not use working for anyone else.

5 mins thou - you are lucky, some of the new cars changing a headlight bulb can be a 2-3 hr job as you have to disassemble the front of the car to get at them sometimes.

no

I thought You were talking about a lightbulb in the home and I was about to say that was ridiculous, but you’re talking about a lightbulb in an actual car so I think the cost was reasonable

Does your invoice not say how much time for the labour you have been charged? My always states how many hours, or parts of an hour x garage hourly rate, they are charging me for.

That’s very strange, headlight bulbs are generally standard wattage.

I might, in an emergency, and very very begrudgingly buy something from Halfords if I absolutely had to and had no other option, but their rip off prices (£10 to clip on wiper blades) are shocking.

They usually hide it as an all in price with the product so a pair of wiper blades is "only £25" including fitting, but £10 to fit is a con.

I did a pair for an elderly lady outside of Halfords to save her the fee.

I only got the headlights done at the garage yesterday, because I had tried and failed already and I didn't have the time to mess about.

I drove home, shone the headlights up against the garage wall, and adjusted the out of alignment one so it matched the one that was ok. I drove it back and he very grudgingly passed it. I didn't realise that the tester could adjust it and it seemed very tight. I think it was because I had a discount voucher for the MOT, and despite it being a large national chain, they probably wanted to make their money back up. I would never use the company again.

Presumably OP knew there was a headlight bulb out. You’d have to be an appalling driver not to notice unless you never drive at night.

Did they contact you to ask if they could do the work required? They should have told you what it was and how much before they did the work. You have 10 working days to put right anything that fails on an MOT and then retest it, but then it would depend if they would charge to retest I suppose

It's called a stupidity tax. You've probably been driving around illegally for days.

Well, anyone charging money for it should 'know what they're doing!'

How many Mumsnetters would it take to change a lightbulb?

Sorry, Op I couldn't resist but what happened to you isn't funny.

You could have had your MOT done got the failure certificate and taken it elsewhere for the minor repair or you could have replaced it yourself and taken it back. There is no charge for a retest.
The MOT cost is purely for the test.

I've changed one myself before. The issue is probably the alignment in DIY. In fact when I took the car in for the MOT after the garage moaned that "someone" had fitted a bulb and it was not aligned properly. I just kept my mouth shut.

Normally it is fairly easy to change a bulb. But some cars are stupid and it takes forever. This might be why the charges tend to be quite high from chains. Because the standard price not only has to cover the 5 minute job, but the one that takes 30 mins.