Forewarned is forearmed (Independent Garages)

Member Name: pebbles

Product:	Independent Garages
Date:	22/11/00 (104 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A valuable and costly lesson was learnt

Disadvantages: conned, cheated and angered!

Just a word of warning to others, having learnt from my experience.

I have always been cautious about taking my car to a garage for repairs, I now always get recommendations from others, before I use them.

The reasons for this is I thought I was doing the sensible thing after buying a second hand car, to take it to a garage to have it checked over and serviced. This particular garage was owned by a colleague's father, and rather naively I trusted him.

Having put my faith in them and handed over the keys (they were even kind enough to give me a lift to work and pick me up later to collect it!) I had a call at work to say I needed new bits and pieces, this also included new brake plates etc.

I was given the impresssion by the 'father' that he would do me a good deal and not charge me the earth. They did better than that I was charged the universe! £700!

The end result was from learning from my stupidity, I had the car checked by a well known breakdown company and they informed me that the pads were never changed as the ones I had, had hardly been worn and he could see that they had been in the car a while!

If you go to a garage ALWAYS ask them to ring you to let you know what needs doing and how much it is going to cost. If you aren't sure if the repairs need doing, then ask them to hold fire, collect the car, pay any money owing and get a second opinion. If by that stage you are happy with their decision then you can always return to them and a good relationship is maintained without any ill feeling.

Don't wait for the egg to hit your face like I did!

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