Car woes
So I took my Clio in for a service and MOT at Arnold Clark Grangemouth on Wednesday. Not my normal choice of garages, but I'd been pressured into buying a service plan when I got the car last August, on the assurance that it would cover my service/MOT costs as well as any replacement parts I needed. Good deal, I thought at the time.
I got a call later that day (I had booked a holiday, but had spent most of it recovering from the cold that knocked me flat on Tuesday) saying that the car had failed its MOT, and would I like to authorise repairs? It needed new wipers, a new lightbulb, and a new headlight housing - but, more seriously, the drive shaft gasket was split, a rear suspension spring was "incomplete", and the front anti-roll bar link was damaged. Oh, and the brakes, clutch, and timing belt were fairly worn too, and should apparently have been done last year - before I even bought the car.
Fine, said I, how much of this is covered under the service plan? None, came the reply, you'll have to pay us £600 to get it to just pass the test, or £1000 to replace all the parts we marked as questionable.
So I told them I'd call them back, and called my local garage, who had done some work for mishichan for a good price. They took a couple of hours to find part prices, but then called me back with a quote: £340 ... including a £40 MOT re-test, which hadn't been included in the Arnold Clark price.
I hopped back on the bus to Grangemouth, picked up my car, and dropped it off at the garage - luckily I'd booked an early MOT, so it was still legally roadworthy with a few days to go on the certificate.
Today I got a phone call: they'd replaced all the parts, but while doing so, they'd discovered some things the Arnold Clark mechanic had completely missed: leaking engine oil (which explained why the car was drinking so much oil), a worn rear bearing (I'd stopped on the road before because the car's driving had felt rough), and a toothed ring in the front driveshaft assembly which was completely cracked (part of the ABS assembly, apparently - which might explain why my ABS randomly fired while I was going round a roundabout the other day!)
The total repairs ended up costing £605 including re-test - a shock, and I'm going to have to live lean for a couple of months, but since I'd already steeled myself to paying Arnold Clark's prices for repairs which wouldn't actually have fixed the car, I was alright with paying it.
I'm thinking of selling the car and getting a replacement at some point - it's got a few parts which are starting to wear and will probably need replaced eventually, and will probably cost more than the remaining value of the car... although I kinda worry that I'll end up with the same situation in the new one. At any rate, I doubt I'll be using Arnold Clark again...
I got a call later that day (I had booked a holiday, but had spent most of it recovering from the cold that knocked me flat on Tuesday) saying that the car had failed its MOT, and would I like to authorise repairs? It needed new wipers, a new lightbulb, and a new headlight housing - but, more seriously, the drive shaft gasket was split, a rear suspension spring was "incomplete", and the front anti-roll bar link was damaged. Oh, and the brakes, clutch, and timing belt were fairly worn too, and should apparently have been done last year - before I even bought the car.
Fine, said I, how much of this is covered under the service plan? None, came the reply, you'll have to pay us £600 to get it to just pass the test, or £1000 to replace all the parts we marked as questionable.
So I told them I'd call them back, and called my local garage, who had done some work for mishichan for a good price. They took a couple of hours to find part prices, but then called me back with a quote: £340 ... including a £40 MOT re-test, which hadn't been included in the Arnold Clark price.
I hopped back on the bus to Grangemouth, picked up my car, and dropped it off at the garage - luckily I'd booked an early MOT, so it was still legally roadworthy with a few days to go on the certificate.
Today I got a phone call: they'd replaced all the parts, but while doing so, they'd discovered some things the Arnold Clark mechanic had completely missed: leaking engine oil (which explained why the car was drinking so much oil), a worn rear bearing (I'd stopped on the road before because the car's driving had felt rough), and a toothed ring in the front driveshaft assembly which was completely cracked (part of the ABS assembly, apparently - which might explain why my ABS randomly fired while I was going round a roundabout the other day!)
The total repairs ended up costing £605 including re-test - a shock, and I'm going to have to live lean for a couple of months, but since I'd already steeled myself to paying Arnold Clark's prices for repairs which wouldn't actually have fixed the car, I was alright with paying it.
I'm thinking of selling the car and getting a replacement at some point - it's got a few parts which are starting to wear and will probably need replaced eventually, and will probably cost more than the remaining value of the car... although I kinda worry that I'll end up with the same situation in the new one. At any rate, I doubt I'll be using Arnold Clark again...