Hi,
My XKR (x100) has gone in to a main dealer for a 120k service and they said my vee mounts need replacing as they have split. I have agreed with them a fixed price for them to do this and a few other bits and the service. I now get a call to say that all the bolts have snapped when they tried to remove them from the vee mounts and is going to cost me an extra £500 as they need to get a third party in to drill out the bolts and re-tap.
I say the removal of the bolts is part of the replacement procedure and they should know the risk of the bolts snapping so why charge me the extra?
why do they have to get a third party in, are their own mechanics not able to do this (not good mechanics if they cant in my opinion)


Any advice or comments would be appreciated, thank you.

 

I agree with you. If they knew what they were doing (having done it beforehand), they would have told you that; "it's possible the bolts may shear, so that will be extra."
For example, If you replace an exhaust manifold you just know some of the fixings are going to let go! Their fault......not yours.

 

Unfortunately I don't think there is much you can do here, clearly they will have to do extra work that was not expected and they will not do it for free.

As was suggested above they could have said "it's possible the bolts may shear, so that will be extra." but then again, that is the case for any garage job on an older car.

I think you will just have to suck it up and think twice about using a main dealer for any garage work.

I was also gutted when I had to use a main dealer to push in a bush on my subframe, it is a 10 min job, they charged me £100!


Now "why do they have to get a third party in, are their own mechanics not able to do this (not good mechanics if they cant in my opinion)"


Probably because they seldom work on older cars or have the skills to "repair" anything that is broken, they are just used to swapping new items for old.


The problem with repairing items these days is that the labour time exceeds the cost of a new unit so the experience needed to repair anything is being lost.

 

Thanks for the comments. I have a bit of good news, when I spoke with the dealer this morning the first thing he said to me was they will cover the extra at no cost to me, now how about that for a result! I wonder what made them change their minds?

"The problem with repairing items these days is that the labour time exceeds the cost of a new unit so the experience needed to repair anything is being lost." I agree, and it's a shame as it takes the satisfaction of knowing that you have repaired something and made it work again if you get my meaning?

 

Great result!

 

[QUOTE=Ghoolie;910023]Thanks for the comments. I have a bit of good news, when I spoke with the dealer this morning the first thing he said to me was they will cover the extra at no cost to me, now how about that for a result! I wonder what made them change their minds?

Maybe a certain "dealer" reads these forums ??????? !!!!
Was a good result and in my opinion the correct result.

 

When they quoted you for the work then it comes at the agreed price regardless of any subsequent difficulties.

If they had given you an estimate, they could then have come back with additional costs for the sheared bolts.

Graham

 

Hi Graham,

Thanks for the reply.
Absolutely agree, fortunately I had the dealer to email me what they were going to do and the price for doing it.
As far as I was concerned part of removing the vee mounts is to undo the bolts holding them in place. As I said before they know what is involved, and the risk of them snapping and I could almost be certain they would have tried to used an air drill to undo them.

Andy

 

I'm surprised at the responses. yuck

 

You shouldn't be all too surprised, IMHO.



When get a bid on a job I assume the mechanic (or plumber, or contractor, or whoever) is aware of possible complications and makes at least *some* allowance for them in the bid.

If the job goes exceptionally smoothly, however, I fully expect to pay the full amount agreed upon. If the job goes upside down and problems develop, I still expect to pay the agreed-upon price. That's the whole idea behind a bid.

*Of course* there's a degree of "reasonableness" involved. If something really strange comes up....something that really couldn't be reasonably anticipated.... that's a different matter.

If broken bolts are a common occurence for the particular job in question then the bid should have allowed for that possibility.....that's just smart business....or a disclosure made that broken bolts often occur and would result in additional expense.

If broken bolts are NOT a common occurence for the job in question then I'd expect the shop to suck it up and hope for a better day tomorrow. It's sorta like working flat-rate....some days you can flag 20 hours, other days you struggle to flag 5. You take the good with the bad.

There is something I find a bit odd about this particular case in that *ALL* the bolts were broken. I don't know how many bolts are involved in total but if one breaks, that's a good time to stop, fall back, and regroup with the customer....and explain that the scope of the job is changing. This is where options are discussed.

If you break off *several bolts in a row*, and you're bid doesn't allow for such an eventuality, then it's a tall order to expect the customer to just accept that the repair bill has jumped by £500 and he has no options except to pay or go **** up a rope.

Disclosing possible pitfalls can be tricky. On one hand the shop wants to protect itself and avoid unpleasant surprises that will make the customer unhappy. OTOH, such disclosures can scare off the customer. The shop loses the job.....and the income

Cheers
DD

 

Hi Beav,

Interesting and puzzled as to why you are surprised, what would you have done in this situation?

 

If I may relate an experience from my very long automotive experiences . . .

In the early '80's an employee came to my office in tears. She had left her Volvo at a local dealer for engine problems. The repair bill was more than the value of the car. The analysis was that the 02 sensor needed to be replaced. Removing the sensor failed and the tech required that the manifold be removed. Removing the manifold broke a stud in the head. Removing the broken bolt required the head to be removed. This was a 4 year old car, not an antique.

I was able to resolve the issue but it is a statement on the issues than can occur in professional auto repair. That is why the standard time manual is most often used to the benefit or detriment of the tech doing the work.

 

Well it's now been a week in the garage and they still await the arrival of the third party specialist to drill out the bolts and re-tap the thread. I got a text message from them on the 14th to say the specialist required to do the job will be with them Monday 17th.
Today (Monday 17th 3 pm UK time) I get another text message to say the specialist has been delayed and won't arrive until Tuesday (18th).

They have no loan car, even though originally they had a car booked out to me until Monday (17th). That was until they told me on Tuesday (11th) that they were not going to charge me the extra, but they had to have the car back on Wednesday (12th) evening. Why? I have no idea.
I have taken 4 days holiday for this and managed to work from home for the rest.
I find, in this case, the service from this Jaguar dealership appalling and I think I will be writing to the service manager of the dealership, although I don't know what I'm going to get from it apart from venting my dissatisfaction.

Rant over, sorry!

 

Got the car back on the 21st. However before that they also managed to break the bleed nipples on two calipers which then had to be sent to another company to be drilled out that took two days - no charge!
The end result is that the service manager took £100 off the bill for all the inconvenience caused.

On a sub note I have a camera in the car mounted on the windscreen that has captured some interesting footage, but that's another story.......

 

you cant leave it there,tell us whats in the camera

 

 

 

Graham

 

This sounds a bit familiar?.... Not Brembos silver in color by any chance?

 

Well they have Jaguar on them, but they are Bembos, sounds like you have had experience in this area?