I'm almost to the point of dropping in on this garage..... Car is an '05 Micra, low miles."Apparently" her reverse light wasn't working, and they wanted to replace the light unit complete for £102..... I went to look today and the light was fine! :confused: so I removed the light unit and stripped it down - Garage said bulb wasn't making contact in the holder.... what tosh! It was as clean as a whistle! Cleaned some grime off and washed the foam insert and dried it by the woodburner, and refitted. All fine.Next thing.... Indicator bulbs starting to lose their orange coating... fair enough... Mum was told it was £45 for re-coating them orange again! WTF! I just got a pair of bulbs for £5.99 from Halfords.....Now, the numberplate light IS out.... Garage never mentioned that! I give up! New bulb for that too will hopefully sort it.Don't want to name the garage really, but there we go! Another sad addition to my inbuilt distrust of all main dealers! :(

Edited 29 November, 200916 yr by devonutopia

Honest main dealers are becoming very hard to find these days

Unfortunately the country is full of dealers like this.

They pray on the ignorance of people who know nothing about cars.

Name and shame Jason!!

That's terrible! I think I'd be off to Trading Standards for the £45 orange coating issue!!!

Steve

That's terrible! I think I'd be off to Trading Standards for the £45 orange coating issue!!!

Steve

I thought this element was worse than the whole reverse light thing too! It's like being quoted for tartan paint! Anyone in their right mind wouldn't think this was OK (and I'll let the old dear off as she's only been driving 3 years or so and relies on these types of people to keep her car on the road.....).....

Edited 3 December, 200916 yr by devonutopia

At the garage we sell quite a lot of those orange indicator bulbs [part number 581] as they are a common MOT failure. We sell them for £1.50 + VAT each and no labour charge!

I got given bulbs by my MoT tester FOC.

Shows how low people are sinking in this country though when they do this. Whats even worse is that there are those who will be caught out by it.

.Don't want to name the garage really, but there we go! Another sad addition to my inbuilt trust of all main dealers! :(

should that be distrust ?

shocking dealer tactics, i bet they go under soon

should that be distrust ?

shocking dealer tactics, i bet they go under soon

Ummmmm, yep! :OKind of hoping they don't go totally under as Mum's got a free MOT for life thing when she bought the car and they're useful for that alone. I've told Mum to always ring me when the advisories / failures come back though.

Have now sent them an email hoping to get to the bottom of this.

The bit that shocks me most is they didn't say you needed new brakes!!!

The bit that shocks me most is they didn't say you needed new brakes!!!

They DID the first time that dealer got me disgruntled. I took both her front wheels off and the pads were only half worn, if that, and the discs were still good too! The only time I gave them slight credit was when they said the front tyres were getting low, but I made sure Mum took it to her local protyre though.

Shop them to trading standards, AND Nissan as representing them.

I assume they've failed to put it in writing?

I have the quote/estimate for replacing the rear left light.... with the reverse light working perfectly for me.

That is appalling - re-coating the bulbs? :eek:

That is appalling - re-coating the bulbs? :eek:

I know! Sounds as ludicrous as recoating the brake pads, re-rubbering the tyres....

I would want to speak to the general manager, free servicing or a trip to the papers!

I'd speak to Nissan HQ about this. That is a shocking scam!

My sister falls for cr@p like this the whole time as she knows nothing about cars. When I was 17 MOT garages always tried to rip me off for random rubbish. Like claiming I had rusty brake lines and offering to replace them, even though I had re-made all the brakle lines the previous week.

Try getting something along the line of this:

The discs are worn, they are at 23.3mm so we had to replace them.

Right so what is the minimum thickness on them then?

23.5mm

Oh right, but they are only 24mm new, so that seems a bit crap, that plus your parts department told me they are worn at 19mm.

Confirmation in the big book,19mm, and i gave the option of either free change, or they take off the new ones and put the old back at their own expense.

Result, free brake discs.

Had a reply today saying apparently the quote was an all-in charge for renewing the indicator bulbs, not recoating them, AND also to replace a split wiper blade (I'm sure the wipers were working fine when I drove her car on sunday.....). Still want to check what they said to Mum, but for now, NIssan have redeemed themselves, if not just come up with some bull**** excuse to cover their backs.

Edited 3 December, 200916 yr by devonutopia

Even with that, the price is still extortionate!

Steve

Is this Nissan dealer owned by Kwik Fit now, strangely familiar repair tactics going on there.

this is why main dealers are mainly known as the main stealers. not good news this, I would take it further

Edited 2 December, 200916 yr by justinbarrow

Oh -don't just blame yer local Nissan main Stealer - couple of years ago I took one of our vans to a Fix or repair daily garage ,with a headlamp out - got it back minutes later with comment -nothing wrong .Drove it out ,to be stopped by AN APPRENTICE -telling me that a headlamp bulb was out .

Likewise good few years ago ,we had front pads on a Transit changed by a main dealer .At some traffic lights, I noticed on rolling back ,there was a distinct clunk from the front brakes .Took it back -to be told that we were imagining it .Not satisfied ,we took it to another main dealer ,voicing our concerns .Couple of hours later ,we got phone call - they'd changed padsand callipers to no avail ,then called Ford tech support to find problem was with pads -they were made slightly smaller to prevent dirt build up and sticking - guess who got the fleet servicing after that .On the discs issue - last year got an advisory on MOT -"Disc pads slightly worn" - checked them to find they were OK, and on checking for this MOT found worst one was about 3-5 mm.So to save any disc scoring & MOT aggro changed them .At same time checked metal on discs -approx 20.5mm ( Haynes says new =22,change =19) so about half worn .So what is advisery this year -"discs slightly worn" - worn from 22 to 20.5 in approx 60k .

He did mention it when issueing MOT -and got shock when I told him I'd measured disc ( a la Haynes spec) with a digital mic at 20.5 -so did he want to contest it .

Edited 2 December, 200916 yr by VWD

Back to Ford we have a guy at work who is not at all technically minded, any how last year asked me to change a bulb as one had blown. As they were H7 I did not have a spare so he picked one up and I fitted it noticing the back panel was kanckered with most of the clips broken off (from where he had taken it to a Ford garage the time before), anyhow a year later and he had 2 go, so called in to the ford garage in carlisle and asked them to change the bulbs. Reply we can maybe look at it tomorrow, unbelivable.

I was totally gobsmacked by the Ford attitude - these were lease vehicles ,with Ford dealers getting all the work since we could not ask them to supply a bulb( side/head /indicator or whatever ) without asking for it to be fitted(and at what cost for a five minute job).Know some other firms main dealers charge a minimum of 15 mins for a bulb change =approc £15 for a bulb change .

Quite honestly - it would have been cheaper for our firm to have paid for bulb out of petty cash and let us change it than go to a main dealer ,and wait for up to an hour ,for lease co to authorise and then garage to fit .

On oneoccasion ,did go to the dealer who serviced our vans to get a bulb changed - totally different attitude - they sent in the request to the lease co , and sent a bloke to fit bulb ,whilst waiting for authorisation .Asked what would happen if it was denied ,they declined to comment ,but hinted it was cheaper the way they did it ( and anyway - come next service - the van MIGHT need a bulb or two )