£5,000 bill to replace cylinder head,please anyone help!!

[windymiller]

Hi,we have a 1992 j 2.4 d auto surf which has been in our local garage for 7 weeks !!having a new cylinder head replaced.The final bill has come in at just over £5,000 with 73 hours of labour!!! we originally had a verbal quote of £2,500 to get it back on the road (and only as we had already accrued labour charges we decided to go ahead) which he now disputes I have done some looking around and find this new amount totally unacceptable.We paid the bill and had the car back for 3 days and no more than 20 miles were driven when it broke down,we got it towed back to original garage and they now say it is a suspected oil pump failure or big end and nothing to do with them and not covered by warranty.Could anything they did cause this if it is oil pump or big end?? He also quotes 20+ hours to actually get a firm diagnosis. We arranged for another garage to collect the car to give us a 2nd opinion and now the original garage will not release the vehivle until he has had an independant check done even though there is no outstanding bill due.

If any kind person would be happy for me to e-mail them a copy of the final bill for them to give me a like for like quote that i can take with me to the small claims court i would be very grateful i am willing to pay for your time.I am at my wits end with this situation.Please e-mail me on kate_e_miller@hotmail.com thanks so much

[dirtydog]

OUCH!
thats bang out or order to try and charge that much at a few thousand over what it should be!
i cant see how they can keep the car with no outstanding amounts due!

[Chillitt]

start by calling trading standards. if they wont let you have the car back call the police!

[windymiller]

I spoke to the police earlier today and they claim he can retain it as we are making a complaint and he wants to get an independant opinion the police will not get involved as it is a civil matter.what i need are some heavies with a tow truck !!!! we simply have to wait until he is ready to give it back for our 2nd opinion.It is scary but he seems to be protected all the way and we do not get the same treatment

[That Ruddy Squirrel]

Where are these bunch of thieving (the next word is censored to protect the innocent) ?

Wondering if some of us know em.


Trev

[windymiller]

A certain garage that supposedly specialises in 4x4 repair located in the Northiam area of east Sussex

[That Ruddy Squirrel]

hmmmmmmmmmm

Wonder if our Andy knows em - have sent him a pm

[chrisinflight]

That bill is a disgusting amount! Sounds like they had problems fitting the head and have charged you for learning time! I would get some quotes together from other garages, all the paperwork involved and go to Trading Standards and the MEDIA. You will get help from this forum- with 8000-odd members, someone will be able to assist.
Dont give up on this one. Find out why it broke the sencond time and pursue claims. (Mind they dont swap a broken oil pump for you working one).
good luck

[hellmett]

Re

I am absolutely disgusted!

You have been ripped off, plain and simple!

It's deffo a matter for trading standards.

You should go to a solicitor asap and sue them.

£5K, £5K for that, my god!

These people deserve to be jailed for such a blatent fraud!

I gather from your post that you are a lady, that would probably explain why they have over charged you!

I will never understand this kind of treatment!

Gary

[skyhooked]

windy i'm getting the head replaced on my surf, if you like i an email you an copy of the invoice that may help your case, basically it breaks down something like this -

head (compete) £800
labour £200
oil, filter, coolant, waterpump £100 or so cant quite remember

hope this helps

[Medieval Dave]

Can I suggest that EVERYONE who has had a head replaced should make the effort to dig out the invoice and mail it to Windy? a handfull of invoices would be a lot better than just one.

I'm betting that none are more than two and a half.

TonyN - do you have any thoughts

IMHO 5k is just theft. and anyone who wants to believe a second failure is entirely unrelated needs the other sort of head checked.

Dave.

[spans]

HI, 5K for that amount of work is just a total rip, I bought a new head, and everything, not more than £1k for materials, labour should not be more than 500, I would be amazed if anyone was charged over £2K - 2.5K.

I hate it when thieves just rip people off, name and shame the garage, anyone out there please mail your copies of invoices of the same work to them, and lets try to get them some help.

Anyone know their legal position, what can they do?

[windymiller]

That would be great thanks! The only additional work done was to replace exhaust front down pipe and middle section,but our cylinder head was £830 plus vat without all the gaskets and twiddly bits etc these have all been charged extra.The main issue we have is the 73 hours of labour which to me sounds excessive to say the least,also even if the second breakdown was due to something they did or didn't do they could be in the process of covering it up as we speak before the 2nd opinions come in.So i think that we will end up going to small claims court for the overcharging only.Feel very helpless,i am a female (although thats no excuse in this day and age) my husband works in London all week and the surf is mine for my doggie business so i am the one dealing with the garage.it has really been disastrous from the outset.They lied to get the work in the first place,saying head gasket,£800 would take a week to do,on day 6 i rang to see how things were going and they hadn't even started work on it and we were going on holiday 2 days later so had no time to arrange to get it to another garage which in hindsight would have been the sensible thing to do.While on holiday rang 3 times to see what was going on and was told we had accrued £1100 of labour,it was the cylinder head and they wanted paying for labour to date and parts before they would do anything else so paid them £2400 incl vat.Was expecting final bill to be £800 - £1000 at most because all it was supposed to be was labour to put back together and the bill came back at £2600,NIGHTMARE they had us by the short and curlies because they had the car and they knew i was desperate to get it back.

[eck]

I know what us scots would do with a garage like that up here closed one down before would do it again these guys think their clever but they always fall eventually.

[spans]

That would be great thanks! The only additional work done was to replace exhaust front down pipe and middle section,but our cylinder head was £830 plus vat without all the gaskets and twiddly bits etc these have all been charged extra.The main issue we have is the 73 hours of labour which to me sounds excessive to say the least,also even if the second breakdown was due to something they did or didn't do they could be in the process of covering it up as we speak before the 2nd opinions come in.So i think that we will end up going to small claims court for the overcharging only.Feel very helpless,i am a female (although thats no excuse in this day and age) my husband works in London all week and the surf is mine for my doggie business so i am the one dealing with the garage.it has really been disastrous from the outset.They lied to get the work in the first place,saying head gasket,£800 would take a week to do,on day 6 i rang to see how things were going and they hadn't even started work on it and we were going on holiday 2 days later so had no time to arrange to get it to another garage which in hindsight would have been the sensible thing to do.While on holiday rang 3 times to see what was going on and was told we had accrued £1100 of labour,it was the cylinder head and they wanted paying for labour to date and parts before they would do anything else so paid them £2400 incl vat.Was expecting final bill to be £800 - £1000 at most because all it was supposed to be was labour to put back together and the bill came back at £2600,NIGHTMARE they had us by the short and curlies because they had the car and they knew i was desperate to get it back.

Outrageous, it took me to take the head off my car, and rebuild it all about 20 hours, and that was with the fact that I have never worked on a diesel before, let alone a surf, so I was learning in the process. I would think a call to watchdog wouldn’t hurt either, as they are such a rip off garage, and you already have and have paid for the bill, give watchdog a call, you never know they might just invite them to the studio to answer for it.