I put a completely new VW exhaust (minus CAT) on my first Mk3 coupe just after I bought it.

But a few days later the usual Mk3 back box bracket let go and my brand new exhaust ended up scrapping along the deck.

So I took it to the nearest garage after work (I wont mention Kwik-Fit's name) and asked if they had the skills to weld.

They said yes and I explained to them whats wrong and gave them the car.

Waited for like half an hour in the waiting room and then the dude calls me over and says "sorry our welder has finished for the night, but its ok as its actually the entire exhaust system you need to replace not just a bracket"

I explained that I had fitted a brand new one myself a few days ago so stop telling me lies...I then requested some free locking wire to get me home.

I've just started working at vw and we get calls all the time to look at pepoles cars as there local terry tibs garage has told them some cap that the customer doesnt belive, its amazing some of the stuff pepole come out with! like a old lady with a polo was told her car has failed its mot because of a leaking strut and it has about 500 miles left, the car was a 57plate! its nasty to think the amount of pepole that get ripped off each day! we allways put the used parts in the car ready to show the customer and show them the work that has been carried out by actually showing the customer if there present the work being carried out and they can even chat to the technican doing the work just to make sure :-)

i hate some of the lies pepole come out with, its just pure harsh

Just the usual "We can't track that because you need two new steering arms, the offside's bent and the nearside's seized solid"

You realise it's not lies but incompetance when you ask them if they know what single-side adjust is and they look blank.

I did like the place that tracked the Scirocco up though. "Your tracking's well out, it's +9 degrees on one side and +1 degree on the other.... ok, I've done it, it's 5 degrees each side now which is fine" ended up standing behind that bastard and watching his every move while he did it right. Then he goes "See, I told you your wheel wouldn't be straight, we aren't allowed to change that because we've had no end of bother from taking steering wheels off" /i sat in the car on the ramps, whipped out my sockets and reset the wheel there and then. He didn't appreciate it when I asked if they'd got any jobs going, and said that I could start by training him.

Just the usual "We can't track that because you need two new steering arms, the offside's bent and the nearside's seized solid"

You realise it's not lies but incompetance when you ask them if they know what single-side adjust is and they look blank.

I did like the place that tracked the Scirocco up though. "Your tracking's well out, it's +9 degrees on one side and +1 degree on the other.... ok, I've done it, it's 5 degrees each side now which is fine" ended up standing behind that bastard and watching his every move while he did it right. Then he goes "See, I told you your wheel wouldn't be straight, we aren't allowed to change that because we've had no end of bother from taking steering wheels off" /i sat in the car on the ramps, whipped out my sockets and reset the wheel there and then. He didn't appreciate it when I asked if they'd got any jobs going, and said that I could start by training him.

This fucker cost me £30 Grrrrr ..

(tollgate tyres)

took my astra in for 2 new tyres - had owned the car for a week and they were bald. Call up - "is my car ready" "yes madam come down when you finish work" girl from work gives me a lift (I'm now 3 miles from home in January freezing cold) arrive at the garage - "where is my car" "your car is in the car park. Whilst fitting the tyres we noticed that your track rod end was bent. We have ordered a new one and your car is undrivable till tomorrow once its fitted - by law we are not allowed to let you drive it"

Thanks you moron I'm now stuck here, my boyfriend doesnt have his phone and can't pick me up right now!

the next day "Is my car fixed yet" "no madam, vauxhall sent us the wrong part" "get my F**KING car fixed by tomorrow I need it for the weekend"

friday "is my car fixed yet" "yes madam come and collect it today its right here. We saved the track rod end to show you" collect my car & refuse to pay for anything else other than parts.

6months later my father in law services my car.... Oh whats this locking clip doing here.... wheres it come from.... When they messed about with my car in January they only took the locking clip of astras that holds the steering together.... If they'd loosened due to not having the clip on my steering would of failed and I'd of had a horrific crash!!!!

rear tyres needed replacing a few weeks later... took it too A14 tyres they were £10 cheaper and didnt f**k about with it!

First and only time I took my car to Kwik Fit for tracking the idiot couldn't work out what to do, neither could his collegues. At one point all the staff were stood around the car at once scratching their heads. When they'd finally got their arses in gear they gave up after ~30seconds because 'it was seized'. Complete idiot then thought it was ok to rest his tools on my bonnet. I voiced my objections and left. I now refuse to ever take any car to them again and have since bought a Gunson Trackrite which has always been easy to use and given good results.

hahaha best thread in a while loads of giggles

i just cant believe how insanely ignorant some garages can be, how on earth do they have a career in the motor industry when there are so many more talented mechanics out there looking for jobs and will do the job right! its beggers belief, it really is! for every one shit mechanic out there, there must be 100's waiting to take they're place

Edited 14 July, 201016 yr by pugownerbilco

not a garage story, but, when trying to sell my old mk1 golf, i had a woman take the oil filler cap off while the engine was running, peer in to it and tell me, 'you see that (and pointed towards where the cap was) the engines misfirin'

i politely told her to stop wasting my time

Legend haha!

Such an awsome thread, made me laugh so much, especialy at how clueless these supoosed "mechanics" actully are..

my boss at the body shop told someone thier battery was going flat because of the chip in the headlamp was letting electric out

hahaha

Some people are real gullible.

Took my old Lupo to a place for tracking (after id had a minor incident with a curb in the wet) and they tracked it up no problem, lovely stuff!

Took my Polo and it was too low to get on the ramps so I had to go elsewhere, took it too one place and got the "We can't track that because you need two new steering arms, the offside's bent and the nearside's seized solid"

and they tried to charge me £10 for just looking at it, I have a quick trot over show them how to do it and 15 mins later I leave £15 worse off and leave the two mechanics mumbling under their breath, something along the lines of "cocky little bastard"

I enjoyed reading all them!

It does make you sick at all the crap they come out with, but I'm ok as my dad and a mate of his own there own garage plus hes a gearbox specialist.

You just need to find a good respectable garage.

Matt

is it me or does the mk3 have a bent steering arm thing going on

Ye lol iv noticed that haha

oh and another one garage told me mrs that she needed new pads and disks, they were only 3 months old :p

Could be Miss Stig....

i get that feeling the way she drives sometimes

I have been told that the Gearbox on the 6n2 is not a common fault (balls) everybody who looks for the car and does some reasearch, knows about the rivets etc

and also the pedal box was supposedlly NOT a recall.

Oh and look on the VOSA website shows it is.

Being laughed out of the dealership was not the best first impression of VW croydon.

The only time I can remember being lied to at a garage was KWIKSHIT KWIKFIT

I've forgotten the details now but I took my car in to have the tracking done, when I came back they had it up on the ramp and the manager started to tell me the CV joint or something was dry and knackered and I needed it repairing. Bearing in mind it had been in to my trusted mechanics garage the day before for the exact same thing to be fixed. He tried to show me it was dry and it clearly wasn't.

I told him about that having been fixed the day before and said something along the lines of 'I might look stupid but I probably know more about cars than you, don't assume anything because you've just been caught red handed haven't you'. The managers face was mortified haha

These are some of the best I've ever read!

The best ones I know of include one of mine, and one of my mothers (the best I've heard)

Yes both are Kwik Fit

Mine - had a works van, it struggled to start for a couple of days, then just died one day :( got it collected and when i explained what had been happening (the battery light kept flikering on the dash) i was told the altenator was on its way out, so it was taken to kwik fit and they changed the battery it died again that evening, then it finally got taken to have the alt replaced didnt bother me - i didnt have to pay a penny :-D

Mothers - her car exhaust was blowing so took it to kwik fit to find out which bit it was. T'was the cat that had gone. Last time we had to get it done quickly (it just went) we were told that the cat would be next and were told it would be no more than £200. Took it in, the attitude of the little twit was appalling! Was told it would be more than that - we were quoted £540!!! My mother just laughed at him and told him to sod off with that price, took it elsewhere and got it done for just under the £200 we were originally quoted!

Never ever going to Kwik Fit ever again!

Went to buy a 306 GTi-6 and whilst i was being picky he got a phone call and pretended the person on the other end of the phone was someone else interested in the car.

I shook my head with a giggle,told him to let them have it,and walked. He looked like he'd just splashback'd himself.

Cant believe those stunts actually work.

Went to buy a 306 GTi-6 and whilst i was being picky he got a phone call and pretended the person on the other end of the phone was someone else interested in the car.

I shook my head with a giggle,told him to let them have it,and walked. He looked like he'd just splashback'd himself.

Cant believe those stunts actually work.

That actually happened to me. I was selling my E30 touring and I guy had just come back from a test drive and giving it the final look over when another guy had just got off the motorway and called for directions to my place.. whilst on the phone I had to ask the original guy if he wanted it and he said yes so I had to tell the guy on the phone that it has sold... he wasn't happy..

this was my old ibiza

As it so happens my pedal box snapped about three weeks ago now, and being as it wasn`t such a hard job i took the pedal box out, but i got wound up and thought rather than break it ill let seat do it, i mean who should know how to put a mk2 Ibiza back together better than them right? wrong very wrong i took my car to them two weeks ago on a Tuesday, being informed it would only take an hour and a half the job would only cost me 164quid, agreed on by me and the dealer, two days after i got a call your car is going to take a little longer because we have to order some more parts and the price will go up 50quid, i thought ok fair do ill just let them crack on with it. Then after 5days still no word so i rang them this was there exact responce *Were sorry Mr f*****ter but your car is going to take abit longer as we cant figure out how it goes back together, and we have another car at the side of it trying to figure it out* well that started the alarm bells ringing deep. So i rang them on the Friday asking if my car was ready still no, and best of all the technician working on my car was going to be off till Monday, so i said i need my car back by Monday or i cant get to work, they assured me that by Monday evening my car would be ready to go. Fair enough i thought Monday came car still not ready fuming at this point i just wanted my car back. Tuesday afternoon i get a call your car is ready sir so i said finally, bearing in mind they had had my car for eight days by now for a job that was suppost to take one and a half hours, then the rude guy on the phone told me that the bill wasn`t £214 but now £305 i went ape that was it, but they still wouldn`t give me my car. Friday came payday so i went back armed with money and mother long conversaition later and the service guy who was great by the way (Barry i think his name is) cut the price back to what had been agreed and gave me my keys, so i went to my car opened the door and all they had done was install a pedal box, nothing had been built up and to top it all off because my car had been there 11 days my battery was flat. that was that as far as nicetys were concerned no indicators, no wipers, no cowlings, no nothing, so i went and told them that i needed a boost which with some reluctance they did then fitted my stalks after i asked for all the names of everyone who had worked on my car, i am truly upset about the fact that they showed no mercy in trying to charge me for a sub standard job. Then when i got home and checked there work i found bolts missing off the pedal box, which look to have been thrown away and all the screws for the cowlings have been whizzed as well. So just to clarify i had no car for 11 days

no offer of a courtesy car

tried to overcharge me

and did not do the job properly

so in hindsight i think this will be the one and only seat i ever own thanks to the Hobin group

kwickshit

took my mums 03 micra failed on a few things no big deal sorted them out myself wasnt paying them to screw it up so when finished took it back bearing in mind they had 3 things to check and it took them 45 minutes how thats quick ill never know so i started asking the manager how long it was going to be he said "i dont know he has to log on with his card and sort it out " turned round to him and said it looks like a funny card machine hes stood chatting to his mate not using any computers he came out with " no he has to wait till its logged in " so i said funny he has been stood there with the pass cert for twenty minutes so dont try blagging my head sunshine then the guy came running in saying it was all done

never using them again ever

Edited 15 July, 201016 yr by m4ttyf

More frequently its customers lying to us at ours! 'this gargantuan scrape on my sill wasnt here when i dropped my car off! ' thats odd, there must be something on the lens of our CCTV that only effects your car, love.' needless to say she ended up with the special labour rates, cheeky bint. also had some guy threaten to takes us to vosa bercause his car didnt pass without advisories, fucking idiots everywhere.

Friend at work just avoided a sh@fting by a local Renault stealer. She had a re-con engine fitted by them, at huge cost, only for it to get an oil leak down the back of the engine. She took it back to be told it was a common fault and they had fixed it, more £'s. The oil leak was still there, so back in it went. They ring her up to say that the head gasket has gone and it will be over £600 to replace it, not covered by any warranty even though its re-conned, as they don't know how she has treated the engine, bearing in mind she is in her late 50's and doesn't go over 40!! I take a look down the back of the engine and the rocker cover is leaking. She took it to a local independent and got charge half hours labour and parts. Cheeky stealer.

kwickshit

took my mums 03 micra failed on a few things no big deal sorted them out myself wasnt paying them to screw it up so when finished took it back bearing in mind they had 3 things to check and it took them 45 minutes how thats quick ill never know so i started asking the manager how long it was going to be he said "i dont know he has to log on with his card and sort it out " turned round to him and said it looks like a funny card machine hes stood chatting to his mate not using any computers he came out with " no he has to wait till its logged in " so i said funny he has been stood there with the pass cert for twenty minutes so dont try blagging my head sunshine then the guy came running in saying it was all done

never using them again ever

in all fairness your meant to retest the whole car again not just the parts its failed on, but that doesnt excuss him sanding around

hills one stop in trafford, manchester on my old mk3 gt

charged me for a gearbox refurb and some other stuff for the price of £750, which it later turned out they had bodged the cv joint back together and not refurbed the box at all

to top it off they had broken the height adjust off the seat. if only i wasnt so young and foolish back then, i would of hung them out to dry now