Surprising car repair estimate

Shooter1 said:

I think modern day cars are designed so that we cant do anything to them ourselves, at a time when the labour costs associated with having any work done at a main dealer are a complete rip off.

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I don't think this, I KNOW it is the case! "They" do not want you to fix ANYTHING, at all. I understand that in some European countries it is actually ILLEGAL to work on your own car. I started out as a car mechanic, and spent four years at it, but it was so long ago, and cars have changed so much, any experience I have is largely irrelevant now. I never encountered ABS in a professional capacity, so I have no idea at all how it works, or what might go wrong with it. Electronic ignition was only just coming on to the market as I left the trade, so I have little to no grasp of that. The whole field of "electric string" was always a mystery to me at the best of times, colour blindness didn't help. Central locking was only just coming in on the top end cars, electric windows were rare.

som none dealer garages can be as bad as main dealers .

We had one here who was charging almost dealer prices prices . He was charging the customer 4 times what he was paying us for the work we did.

A pressure test and skim on a head was £90 for cash and he was charging around £360 for it plus the rest of what he was charging.

crissdee said:

I don't think this, I KNOW it is the case! "They" do not want you to fix ANYTHING, at all. I understand that in some European countries it is actually ILLEGAL to work on your own car.

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Like where?
Some countries it's illegal to wash, work on your car etc in the street

It should be law that all vehicle user replaceable consumables ie bulbs - should be easily accessible as a safety priority.
Offside Corsa headlight bulb was airbox out jobby, dreading a near side failure!

KILLERPARSNIP said:

This always amazes me, in some country's in Europe you have to carry in your car various things, First Aid kit,Red breakdown Triangle and spare Bulbs but what use are the bulbs when you need a full crew of mechanics to change them ?

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In Spain you now need to carry a special, registered to the vehicle, device which, in the event of a breakdown, uses GPS and satellite connections to report your location...


Funny thing is, there are already Chinese fakes, which people are buying because the government don't have enough of the real ones.

We got ours at the Post Office. Took four days to register it online...

Spanish government website...

Always thought it was an EU requirement for you to be able to fix a headlight on the side of the road n car spares for such an incident.

You have to carry a spare set of bulbs, but the fact than it is unlikely you will be able to make a roadside repair hasn't registered with them yet it seems? To be fair, you may be able to do the rear lights?

Balders said:

Like where?
Some countries it's illegal to wash, work on your car etc in the street

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Not sure off hand, but I seem to remember reading it somewhere. A quick Google suggests I misremembered, I withdraw the comment...

crissdee said:

Not sure off hand, but I seem to remember reading it somewhere. A quick Google suggests I misremembered, I withdraw the comment...

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I think thats the case in Germany i think its to do with environmental reasons so any work on your car involving fluids or washing your car with detergent...

I had both indicator units fail in my mirrors recently and was dreading changing them. It turned out not to be too hard a job with just a few tools. About an hour total so I'm glad I can follow instructions and not have to resort to paying a dealer.

A larger job but removing the sump on my 06 diesel CRV meant dropping the subframe, removing the serpentine belt and unbolting the the air-conditioning pump.

chris l said:

In Spain you now need to carry a special, registered to the vehicle, device which, in the event of a breakdown, uses GPS and satellite connections to report your location...

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Funny thing is, there are already Chinese fakes, which people are buying because the government don't have enough of the real ones.

We got ours at the Post Office. Took four days to register it online...

Spanish government website...

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tin foil hat but the battery would be out until it was needed

Squintykid said:

A larger job but removing the sump on my 06 diesel CRV meant dropping the subframe, removing the serpentine belt and unbolting the the air-conditioning pump.



tin foil hat but the battery would be out until it was needed

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Sealed unit, government made... lot of people keep them in a Faraday bag....

My car was in for service yesterday at my local trusted independant. I always get a couple of quotes from main Merc dealers just for interest. A basic B1 service excluding brake fluid change and the quotes wers £418 and £382 respectively.

I asked my garage to do the service to include a change the brake fluid and also check and price for a new battery as I knew it was knackered. The best on line price I could get for a decent brand battery, supply only locally and on line was £180 but my local guy charged me £150 including fitting and coding it to the car's system which is essential on my car so the whole service bill was substantially less than the cheapest Mercedes main dealer quote.

Anyone who uses main dealers for servicing is off their trolley IMO as there are plenty of small trustworthy businesses around if you look. Mine now services the whole family's cars plus those of several friends and I have a little story from years ago when I had a Skoda Citigo especially for towing behind the motorhome we had at the time. It was only 4 years old with c 11k on the clock and well maintained but failed it's MOT at Halfrauds on emissions. They said it was either the DPF (it didn't have one ) or the CAT and wanted me to book it in. I called into the Skoda dealer who sold me the car and they said "CAT" so I dropped it into my local guy and told him what had been said.

He rang me later, told me to sit down and said "it's a faulty spark plug". That says it all as far as I'm concerned.

you would think car designers would design serviceable items to be easily accessible.. the spark plugs should be replaced on mine soon but they are to the rear of the crossmounted engine..! cannot even see them, major job to replace..

There was a report on TV here talking about the EU phasing out petrol engines quite quickly, something that has now been deemed unrealistic and has been delayed. However BMW announced that its new range of petrol cars were going to be designed for 'life', meaning that every single part could be replaced easily and cheaply. The thinking behind it was, if new petrol cars were unavailable, people would buy and continually repair those. Haven't heard any more, but sounds like a good plan to me.

Lons said:

The best on line price I could get for a decent brand battery, supply only locally and on line was £180 but my local guy charged me £150 including fitting and coding it to the car's system which is essential on my car...

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Battery coding is a bugbear of mine. Anything remotely modern has a screen you can use to change all manner of settings, so why do we need a special diagnostic tool to tell the car it has a new battery?

KILLERPARSNIP said:

The next move will be your new tank of petrol, diesel or electric charge will have to be coded to the car before use ! Bring back the Ford Cortina, Morris minor or Reliant Robin !

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Ahhhh..the plastic pig

Gym.Hodgson said:

It should be law that all vehicle user replaceable consumables ie bulbs - should be easily accessible as a safety priority.
Offside Corsa headlight bulb was airbox out jobby, dreading a near side failure!

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Same as my pick up

Prices vary so much & it's not always big companies doing the mugging .

My lad needs new Brake pads & sensors on a 2020 plate Merc Vito... only on the front.

Mobile mechanic price £180 fitted.

Large garage with overheads £90 fitted.

What's the correct price .

xlucine said:

Battery coding is a bugbear of mine. Anything remotely modern has a screen you can use to change all manner of settings, so why do we need a special diagnostic tool to tell the car it has a new battery?

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I don't know about other cars but apparently on mine the alternator increases the amount of charge to the battery as the number of charge cycles increases so as the battery gets older it receives a higher current. If the software wasn't recoded a new battery would be overcharged which would shorten it's life.

I have a Topdon diagnostic scanner which can reset for a new battery but it doesn't list MB for some reason. It wasn't too expensive and worth having with garages charging anything from £75 to £ hundreds just to plug a scanner into the OBD2 port. I bought it for the motorhome we had as I regularly got odd annoying but minor warning messages which it easily cleared.