is my garage screwing me?

[robertnitro]

Went in for mot last tues got failure list back and so i agreed to get a lot of the parts myself to keep cost down,garage agreed to fit everything and only charge labour fair enough.
Got all parts this thurs and took them to mech said they would get on it right away.(this is a garage with 6mechanics and only 2 pits so its common for 2 or more guys to be working on a car at a time) Fri "yea eh were still working on it, give us a call later"
which turned into saturday and now saturday has turned into "possibly mon or tues next week call us back later"

Rant over

Question is: how long should it take a resonable garage to fit 2x front pads 2xrear shoes and wheel bearings, middle and rear exh sections,a solid brake pipe and an exh manifold?

 

[andycupra]

well not 3 days..

most places if they had two mechanics working on it could have that done in less than 4 hours if all goes well (although i suspect most would charge for 6 hours labour).
Im thinking they wouild charge an hours labour for pads and shoes, potentially an hours labour for each wheel bearing, an hour for exhaust and an hour for exhaust manifold and an hour for brake pipe, (although this last one depends what pipe)

What worries me is that you will pay for the labour but have not agreed which this will be?
When you supply parts yourself garages often stretch the job as they only make money on labour and not the parts as well.

Whats the failure list show then?

 

[vngtx]

i could do that all on my own in 4 hours. but at most garages, when other work comes in eg. services or easy and profitable jobs, other work gets pushed to one side.

 

[robertnitro]

I kind of suspected that myself.they say there not that busy and i can see from walking past that theres only a few cars waiting to be done,so mab the other cars will be better money makers.

Mot rap sheet was: ns and os wheel bearings excessively rough, both rear brake minimal or no effort,handbrake no reserve travel, front pads bellow reqd thickness and 44% out of balance,major exhaust gas leak at manifold,major exhaust leak at rear section + excessive cossosion (i got the middle too as i know it was already a bit shagged even though it was passable) corrosion of ns front to rear brake pipe. the rest was just advisory

 

[robertnitro]

Or could they possibly be stalling for time so they can charge me a full re-test fee after the 10 working days has passed! just read on the back of the vosa info,didnt know that

 

[Caffienated]

...didn't think the 10 day rule applied unless the car had left the garage? Might be wrong... I've never run it closer than an hour before closing time on the last day...

Srsly, though, that's an afternoon's work with average tools and abilities in the road outside your house. A proper garage should have no trouble with 4 hours, especially if they normally work 2up.

They may not be inflating the hours, though to be fair you won't know till the bill hits, but on the other hand it's all about profit when it comes to ramp time. Lots of garages up here offer what can only be described as f... Off prices for what they percieve as awkward unprofitable jobs on older cars as they can get more money from a steady stream of easy over priced work on more modern cars, and don't want to tie the ramp or pit up with something they're not going to be able to charge much for...

Good luck!

 

[Caffienated]

afterthought, if they haven't actually started, and you don't want to do it yourself, maybe retreive your car and call a local mobile mechanic? Just an idea. Might even be cheaper if you're lucky! Prolly worth getting prices first though...