Garages trying to pull a fast one?

[Iamzod]

My car developed an odd clunky, notchy steering Noise on Monday driving to work right after we had the front end in bits on Saturday replacing the control arms & the tracking was done on Sunday.

Being concerned that something was maybe loose I popped into a garage near work on my lunch so they could take a look as I have a 26 mile drive home and don't fancy becoming part of the central reservation.

They take my car in whilst I read a 3 year old car mag, 30 mins later my car appears from the garage.

Have you had any suspension work done in the last 6 months he asks, why yes it's had 2 new control arms, 2 new springs, and new ARB bushes is my reply.

He then tries to tell me that whoever fitted my spring on the drivers side has not done it properly and both my top mounts are shot and need replacing, they would be happy to do it for £40 parts & £200 labour, it'll take 90 mins he says, that's £130odd quid an hour?

How come it's silent over bumps if the mounts are shot? Suspicious! Even more so as I fitted the springs & control arms myself and it passed an MOT about 5 days ago with the control arms as advisories on the rear bushes.

I got the car home & had a play for all of 10 minutes & noticed the noise is at 180 degree intervals, can't be the top mounts, gotta be the rack or column. Sure enough the collapsible section needed a bit of grease on it, 15 minutes and a dirty, greasy finger later and it's fixed, nice smooth silent steering.

Anyone else had similar blatant scammage attempts?

 

[kindai]

Had a garage try to tell me I needed a whole new rear exhaust and supports for the Z4 when the original support rusted through, total cost of something like £600.

Tied it together with some cable ties and wire and some aluminum tape, drove home 120 miles to a friendly garage who fixed it with a 2 minute weld job free of charge.


Also had a garage try to rip a friend who is a girl off for replacing a tyre, tried to charge an hours fitting. Told them she was paying £10 maximum for fitting (what all the local tyre places charge per wheel) and if they didn't like it to take it off and we will go elsewhere.

 

[Nick1881]

I had a rubbish little Civic 1.5 (Rover 200 shape) and the back box got bunged up, like the silencer wadding came loose and got stuck inside somewhere, I had no power, popped to a local exhaust place for a new back box, I'm sat in the waiting room and the guy comes in, "You need a new mid section too" I'm confused and ask him to show me, he takes me out and shows me under the car, it's just surface rust on the mid section, nothing major, certainly no holes or risk of it failing, I tell him I'd just like a back box please. Sure enough it ran fine afterwards, no blowing or other problems.

I've heard plenty of stories of Kwik-Fit etc squirting some dirty oil on a shock or brake caliper and saying it needs replacing on a 'free check' or MOT.