To think they're trying to rip me off - shaking with rage!

[OneToughMudderFudder]

So booked car in for a full service before we set off on a road trip next week. Stupidly mentioned that to the guy when confirmed the booking [duh!].

Get called after an hour with the garage saying that they've found numerous things wrong with the car, including brakes needing stripping down, completely new brake fluid and engine flushing and they want an additional £700 to correct them (said very cheerily as if we have that just lying about).

Car sailed through its last MOT 6 months ago, all brakes were replaced last year, but apparently now its dangerous to drive . I haven't noticed any problems with the car apart from it being a little juddery very occasionally as it's an automatic diesel and needs a good long high speed run which it hasn't had recently, to burn off the diesel particulate filter, but it will get plenty of that over the next few weeks.

Guy was very rude when I said I would check with DH, saying the car was dangerous to drive, asking was I serious that I didn't want the work done! He was very annoyed I wasn't prepared to immediately agree to shell out there and then. I'm pretty sure they thought I would be freaked by them saying it was 'dangerous' because I'm a woman.

We had this a few years ago where we took both (different) our cars in for servicing and ended up paying nearly £2k for 'faults' they found. Not falling for that again.

Is this common when sending a car for a service? AIBU to think they were pulling a fast one?

Ask around for recommendations for a trusted garage. Ours belongs to a friend in our church, he did a 2nd opinion on my mums car - similar to your situation OP. None of the recommended work actually needed to be done.

Just get a second opinion

Can't see why you'd be shaking with rage though.

I’ve just had the same shit at the beginning of this week when. Quoted over £700 worth of “advisory” work on a 2 year old car that’s well maintained - I feel they thought they’d get their money’s worth from the “free service” that I was entitled to packaged in with the purchase of the car.

Told them not to bother as I was more than capable of doing most of the so-called required work myself, and that they were wasting my time for nothing. When I got there, a large amount of this so called work had been “done” as a gesture of goodwill - i.e hadn’t needed doing in the first place and they didn’t want to get caught out so pretended they’d done it.

Absolute misogynistic bollocks.

Did this garage do the brakes last year? If so I'd get DH to ask why they need doing again? If not then I'd get him to say he will take it back to the place that did them and ask them to explain themselves.....

Just say "thanks for letting me know, we'll consider it for later. Let me know when I can pick the car up after the service".

But yeah, I have a raft of stories of garages trying to rip me off and I've probably been ripped off a few times as you just can't tell.

The best one was the guy who told me my brake disks were damaged and needed changing immediately and would fail an MOT and "when is it due" he asked? "It was last week" I said, "and it passed just fine" - he went a bit quiet and then said he'd just do the work I brought it in for!

Just tell them thanks but you'd like a second opinion. Try a local garage maybe?

On the contrary, Kwik Fit once gave me a free tyre, I suspect for being a woman, so I can't complain about them.

They're taking you and your car for a ride OP.
Kwik fit tried that with my mum. She booked her car in for a service and they phoned her later to say they had changed the entire braking system! Shot to bits luv, don't know how you drove it here without having a pile up. Yada, yada. By the way, your bill is £475 plus v.a.t. That was around 20 years ago. Her car had only been through its m.o.t just the week before.
They got a Hell of a shock when my 6'6" built like a brick shithouse steel worker father turned up instead of a little woman.
He gave them the choice of either putting the old brakes back on and dropping the bill or having their monkey wrench shoved up their arses sideways!
They replaced them and dropped the bill 😂

Just googled Servicing Stop (as had never heard of them) who you used to procure a garage for the service of your car. The reviews are horrendous, lots of people reporting similar issues.

www.theguardian.com/money/2017/mar/18/servicing-stop-charges-can-add-up-car-garage-driving

I think you'd be best to source your own garage in future. Use the good garage scheme and local reviews to help you. My local garage is great, never feel ripped off and they are honest with me about the options if they find an issue. They value repeat customers whereas the type of garage using something like Service Stop is going to go for the cash grab as unlikely you will return.

If so I'd get DH to ask

If not then I'd get him to say

I'm not being rude by why does the OP need her DH to do this? She is more than capable of talking to the garage herself.

Absolute misogynistic bollocks.

That absolutely pisses me off. I phoned the dealership for a quote for winter tyres, it was extortionate so I said no. They immediately phoned my husband at work and asked if he wanted to go ahead. My husband asked what I said and when they told him I'd said no he replied well it's a no then.

Definitely get a second opinion OP.

The AA used to do a check on these garages and the vehicle. They exposed a lot of scams.

Why is it that mechanics still seem to think that women are clueless about cars and they can get away with fleecing us for as much as they can manage?

Sad to say cantfindname to do it because they can. Women aren't in my experence that intrested in car mechanics. Over time I've tried to explain how various systems on a car work, its not really that complicated, but in general the intrest has been "Yes OK all i want to do is drive it!"

Furthermore these days even tho the principles of operation remain the same, a lot of car systems are getting more complex with the introduction of more electonics and thats a field very ripe for exploitation. Once upon a time i used to race tune Minis but these days so much is sortware controlled and requires diagonistoic software either manafactures main dealers only, or very expensive.

However most standard serviceing Oil changes and brake relines etc are pretty starightforward tho it is a real PITA to change a lightbulb in headlamps nowadays:9

As to the OP see if you can find a small independant garage and as usual trust that inbulit femine instict you have that can spot a bad 'un at a 100 paces!.

Just one question does anyone here know of a garage with the one Female mech?

I've never seen one!

Just one question does anyone here know of a garage with the one Female mech?

The garage at the end of our road certainly has 1 female mechanic and possibly a second. I'm not sure if she works on the cars but I assume she does I doubt she's employed to just answer the phone.

@OneToughMudderFudder yes you are right I think. Years ago I had my newish car serviced by a dealer who told me that before driving it away they had found around £1Ks worth of 'advisory' issues (bear in mind this was around 15 years back so £1K was a lot.)

I decided to ignore this and shortly after took it to a local greasy garage where they are lovely and honest. (I have continued to use them now for 15 years as have DCs with their cars.) They told me nothing needed doing and put a screw in the exhaust plate for n o charge whereas the dealer wanted/ insisted it needed a new exhaust system.

This gives me such rage, there’s some really really good independent garages out there but shits like this put people off.
There’s four locally who are all really good, great reputations, go the extra mile and don’t treat women or men any differently.
However there’s one that is just shocking (law suits and all sorts) and I wonder how they continue to do business, yet some how they do.

My friends used to get ripped off rotten by car service places when they were at Uni.
They were new to all this so just used to pay up.
Until one day one of them had their car 'looked at' by a mechanic friend....took it to shop 2 weeks later to get MOT and suddenly it had hundreds of pounds worth of 'faults' that didn't exist when his mate checked it.
He took it to two different service shops - both of who only found the original fault he went in with!
The original service shop was linked to the car dealership he got his car from so i can only imagine how many people they are doing this to.

Tbf an MOT only means the car is safe on that day.
But I think it unlikely brake pads need done after just a year (I do 25,000 miles a year and mine are gone after two years - I know because I recently had them checked)

Legally if you have an MOT they couldn't stop you driving off. However if it really is dangerous I'd expect them to call the police for driving a defective vehicle. Bet they won't though.

Alsoyou could get a second opinion by putting it through a council MOT centre. They don't do repairs so no vested interest.

#Justaboy It isn't only a lot of women who aren't interested in car mechanics and just want to drive the thing. Many men are the same. We don't need to know how it works. I don't need to know how my central boiler in the kitchen works, but I do want the service engineer to fix it without conning me.

We just want to be able to take a car to have the necessary work done on it, and not get ripped off by being told a load of flannel about all the extra things that suddenly and mysteriously need doing too.

Kwik Fit did that to me a while back. Took car in for MOT which it passed, but when I phoned to see if it was ready for pick up they told me they wouldn't "release" it to me because of the dangerous condition of xyz. This was a relatively new car. Having confirmed that it had in fact passed the MOT I said I was coming to get it and no, I wouldn't be shelling out another £500 odd quid.
They refused point blank to give me the car until they had spoken to DH . I was so furious that I literally couldn't go down therefor fear of kicking off big time. Needless to say, when DH went, they handed it over without a squeak. He did have a word with the manager but still takes his own car there which makes me very cross.

I took my car back to the main dealership to have a minor problem fixed & they did a ‘curtesy check’ & told me the brake pads needed replacing because they were too worn. Hurriedly back tracked when I asked why they had changed so much from the service & MOT they’d done less than a month before..... Bastards.

I had similar with a van we had a re-coditioned engine fitted. It had to be serviced as pat of the warranty which the garage did but forgot to do the MOT (which had been booked).

They did the MOT and told me the van had failed on omissions..when I asked why they waffled on about it being an old van etc etc. Pulled them up on it and pointed out they had just serviced the re-con engine and surely omissions were part of that.

Stupid twats had actually forgotten work thye had just done and were trying to pull a fast one

I was so angry ilove because the guy kept on intimidating me saying I shouldn't be driving my car, it was dangerous to drive and because we were going abroad I needed the work doing immediately. It was so manipulative and he was furious when I told him just to do the service. A more vulnerable person would have given in. I didn't really need DH's opinion, I just said I needed to ring him to stall the garage and so I could rant to DH.

I was also worried they might damage the car because they've 'lost out' on money they expected to get out of me.

I've made a complaint to Servicing Stop and have told them if there are any issues, I'll come after them. I'm expecting them to relay that back to the garage as a warning.

Wow Holly, exact same situation in that Guardian article. DH started using them first, obviously without reading the reviews which I've trained him to do!

Sometimes I think garages do take advantage, the mechanics are under pressure/Have targets - def not saying this is ok by the way. Also some just see a female and think it's ok to fleece us as we 'don't have a clue about cars'.

Back when DH was a master tech, he worked on armed response vehicle's for the local police, normal cars, tanks when working on the army base etc. He's never done MOTs and one day I forgot to book it in where he worked and they had no availability.
Took it to a local garage who failed my car, it had 4 red sheets of failures. They tried to get me to book in and the work would have cost thousands. Said no thanks, DH would do the work. They scoffed a bit, asked would he even know what he was doing. I told them who he was and where he worked and they asked if I could give them a minute.
Came back out 5 mins later, car has passed MOT and didn't even have any advisories

I tend to go to the same garage. (who I trust) to avoid this. I can't see how it's not in their interest to find work that needs doing. I think you're right to be suspicious.

Oh yeah just remembered with my last car a Honda jazz, it needed the window mechanism fixing as part of a recall. They did a free check over. Told me my brakes we dangerous. I called the garage I normally use in a panic. They said something like "well they would say it needs doing" and were well known for this. The dealership wanted about 500 and my garage charged 200.