Need help on fixing car problems

wiltonson

wiltonson

wiltonson

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Joined
16 May 2003
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756
Recently carried out annual service for my 5 years old ford focus at a Ford garage. The report came with a strings of items to be repaired and their repsective prices.

1. Selector shaft seal leaking £54.40
2. Clutch pipe leaking £105.10
3. O/S/R trailing arm bush split £535.90 (to be done with no.5)
4. Both rear radius arms bushes split £195.00
5. both rear lower spring arms bushes worn £535.90 (to be done with no.3)

Are these prices normal? I have made appointment with other garages to check and give me a quote. Hopefully they will be cheaper. I'm in Reading and if anyone has any good recommendation of garages please could you let me know.

Thanks
 
Those prices seem exceptionally, ridiculously, unjustifiably high to me. :eek:

I can't see how they can possibly justify charging £535 for a single trailing arm bush. It's a £10 (absolute max, more like £5 probably) bit of rubber. The two lower arm bushes are similarly £5 apiece, and fitting the lot shouldn't take a garage more than an hour or two tops.

A local independant garage would probably charge you about £100-120 for that repair - an hour or two's labour and £20 for parts say. Not the £1070 that ford want!

Personally, in total for all of the above repairs, I wouldn't want to pay more than £300-350. There's nothing but ususal wear and tear there - suspension bushes do go, seals break, and pipes leak... Certainly nothing to warrant over £1400's worth of work.
 
Looks like they are replacing whole arms rather than just the bush - some mechanics like to do that because its easier for them.

As said, go elsewhere, thats far too much for those jobs - its a Focus, not a Ferrari.
 
hi timbo.

Thanks for the reply. I made a mistake with the description. the price of £535.90 is for both no. 4 and no.6. They said it's cheaper to do both together.

Having said that, it still costs me £708.40 if i chose to get it fixed at their garage. I'm in so much headach now as I need to get my MOT done by end of this month.

Hopefully those independent garage will quote me something more affordable.
 
Well, I know suspension arms on all the cars I've had have been about £50 or £60 brand new from a non-main dealer parts place. So it would still only work out at £2 including fitting for both rear arms.

Any normal "village" garage should give you a quote of roughly half what the Ford garage want.
 
timbob said:
I can't see how they can possibly justify charging £535 for a single trailing arm bush.
Click to expand...

It'll be £535 for all of jobs 3 and 5 together, still extortionate though. take it to a reputable indy garage, they will just replace the worn bushes etc, rather than do you up the bum for the whole arm.

How many miles has it covered? do you live at the end of a long cobbled street? sounds like its falling to bits :D

Fog
 
wiltonson said:
Recently carried out annual service for my 5 years old ford focus at a Ford garage. The report came with a strings of items to be repaired and their repsective prices.

1. Selector shaft seal leaking £54.40
2. Clutch pipe leaking £105.10
3. O/S/R trailing arm bush split £535.90 (to be done with no.5)
4. Both rear radius arms bushes split £195.00
5. both rear lower spring arms bushes worn £535.90 (to be done with no.3)

Are these prices normal? I have made appointment with other garages to check and give me a quote. Hopefully they will be cheaper. I'm in Reading and if anyone has any good recommendation of garages please could you let me know.

Thanks
Click to expand...

Were they all items that failed on the MOT or just noticed on the service?
Last year, Ford diagnosed almost exactly the same faults with the suspension on her T-Reg Focus saying 'O-er it wont last a year blah blah blah'
Next service comes around, not even a single mention nor an MOT advisory!!

Such a bunch of monkeys! By all means, get the clutch and selector shaft sorted but DONT let ford do it. The same T-Reg focus is on its 3rd Power steering pump in 3 years and its does less than £10k miles a year!
 
Focus suspension bushes are notorious for going after about 5 years, doesn't matter what the mileage is.

Wiltonson - for a giggle, if there is a RapidFit attached to your Ford dealership ask them to price up the work. I guarantee it'll be much closer to what would be considered a good price for those repairs, which makes me laugh as they inevitable use the same parts store (and occasionally the same mechanics) as the main dealer.
 
I still find it amazing how things like this go on more modern cars, but yet my 144,000 mile 20 old volvo never has any of this go wrong :confused:

That bill seems utterly huge to me.
 
I'm not sure what to think. I remember doing the service at a local garage about 9 months ago and they didn't fault anything apart from the tyre have signs of cracking as the rubber material is starting to age. then all of a sudden when i do my services at ford they came up with a huge list of repairs. Somehow i felt that i won't be going back to ford dealers in the future.
 
A bit of update about my car.

I put my car to a local garage, well it's the nationwide auto centres. and asked them to quote me the price for the stuff ford dealer quoted me. The report they gave me makes things even more exciting now

for the issues listed on my first post, this is what they said.
1. don't know how much, need to wait until next week
2. will costs 300 pounds to fix (can't believe they quoted me a price 3x times of what ford dealer gives me!)
3. don't know how serious is the problem, need to wait until next week and they have an Ford Expert to look at my car.
4. don't know how serious is the problem, need to wait until next week and they have an Ford Expert to look at my car.
5. don't know how serious is the problem, need to wait until next week and they have an Ford Expert to look at my car.

I really felt that they haven't got a clue what are the problems. Or if the problem really exists.
 
What a bunch of monkeys. Any mechanic should be quite able to inspect the condition of suspension bushes without waiting for a "Ford Expert" to do it for them.

Take it to a proper local independant village garage.
 
wiltonson said:
A bit of update about my car.

I put my car to a local garage, well it's the nationwide auto centres. and asked them to quote me the price for the stuff ford dealer quoted me. The report they gave me makes things even more exciting now

for the issues listed on my first post, this is what they said.
1. don't know how much, need to wait until next week
2. will costs 300 pounds to fix (can't believe they quoted me a price 3x times of what ford dealer gives me!)
3. don't know how serious is the problem, need to wait until next week and they have an Ford Expert to look at my car.
4. don't know how serious is the problem, need to wait until next week and they have an Ford Expert to look at my car.
5. don't know how serious is the problem, need to wait until next week and they have an Ford Expert to look at my car.

I really felt that they haven't got a clue what are the problems. Or if the problem really exists.
Click to expand...


Thats not quite what was meant by a good independant garage. Places like that and Kwik Fit are not garages and are staffed by monkeys. Take it to a proper independant garage, not a tyre and exhaust place.

Nationwide autocentres are as much like a garage as McDonalds is a restaurant :p

Fog
 
Ive had a rear trailing bush done at a local parts garage and they didnt do too bad. I brought the part off ebay for 15 pounds and they fitted it for 2 hours labour at £40. I would have got the labour at half that price but there was no time left so I asked the same place that was doing the mot to handle it.

If they have to consult expert anybody its not going to be cheap, they are just giving you fair warning there
 
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