The Car thread

[Ian Nacho]

1 hour ago, Facecloth said:

Anyone had a Hybrid? Was debating picking up a second hand one but I'm concerned I'm gonna be lumbered with a huge bill to replace the battery soon after, and pretty much cancelling out any monetary benefit I might get. How long do the batteries last and how much are they to replace?

 

I would just do some research before you did anything.

[The Bear]

2 hours ago, Facecloth said:

Mine doubled from £500 odd to over a grand when I got my renewal back in April with Hastings. Called to discuss it and they said they'd look into it, so told them to forget it as it was too much hassle. Moved to the AA and it's now £340.

I hope you used TopCashback. They give you £42 for every new AA car policy you take out. 

[Steve_Walsh5]

On 16/04/2016 at 21:19, Rob1742 said:

I recall leaving around £12 in my Audi trinket tray when I took it for a service, then found only £7 when I picked it up.

On reporting the fact that someone has pinched money out of my car, I was told it was my fault for leaving money in it in the first place. They pointed to notices on the wall that states valuables should be removed.

I agree with their point to a degree, but really think they should be employing honest people, rather than oiks whose aim every day would be to see how much change they can pinch out of cars on a daily basis. At no point did they apologise, or say they will investigate.

I wasn't bothered about the fiver, more concerned that at the time my Audi was my pride and joy and don't really want those types looking after my car. If they are pinching your cash, what else are they doing, or more likely not doing.

 

Looks like Audi have done the same to me. Car went in this morning for a service picked it up an hour ago stopped at a shop on my way home went in my ash tray and the £2 coin I had in there has gone. I know it was in there as I only put it in on Monday when I got given it in change.

[Col city fan]

3 hours ago, Steve_Walsh5 said:

Looks like Audi have done the same to me. Car went in this morning for a service picked it up an hour ago stopped at a shop on my way home went in my ash tray and the £2 coin I had in there has gone. I know it was in there as I only put it in on Monday when I got given it in change.

This is just not right mate. I know it’s only 2 quid, but theft is theft.

[Steve_Walsh5]

1 hour ago, Col city fan said:

This is just not right mate. I know it’s only 2 quid, but theft is theft.

When you are paying over £500 plus for a service you really shouldn’t have to be making sure all loose change is out of the car. I’ll be going down there first thing tomorrow morning, like you said it’s only £2 but it’s the principal of it. 

 

Also I had a phone call during the service saying my rear brakes need replacing and that they can do them for £225. I said no instantly as I only had the car MOT’d in May and it hadn’t had any advisories. When picking the car up I spoke to the lady who I was dealing with and mentioned that it had only just had an MOT and they hadn’t said anything about the brakes. Apparently now they didn’t need doing but they were only good for around another 10,000 miles. 

 

First and last time using that Audi dealership.

[The Bear]

Brakes are the biggest bullshit garages use to get more money out of people. 

 

My MOT was last week and apparently the pads were "worn below the manufacturers recommended limit". I could see the front pads myself and they had a good 6-7mm left on them, and the wear sensor hadn't flagged they were low either. The rears were a bit lower but still fine for a while yet. 

 

They do it on every service and MOT to try and convince non-mechanically minded people who don't know better, to part with more money. 

[Ian Nacho]

My car idles going down to about 700 RPM then it feels like it's about to stall then it goes up on its own to around 900. It keeps doing this, drops back down to 700 then goes back up. I had a new clutch and gearbox in a couple of months ago and it's stalled whilst idle then but it only happened once. I know it's probably nothing major just the car has never done that before.

[RoboFox]

Mine went in for it's MOT today. A local garage to me in North London that I haven't used before. They came recommended, and are well reviewed on the "Good Garage Scheme," but I'm always dubious as it's not my usual guy (I'll travel back to Leicestershire for both an MOT and service)

 

Lo and behold, it's failed. A "dangerous fault" in that it's leaking fuel and is a fire hazard, plus three other major faults.

 

With the new legislation, I'm unable to drive the car away until at least the major fault is corrected. £35 for an "investigation" into the source of the leak, plus whatever the repair costs will be... I've yet to find that out.

 

Now they're enforcing these new regulations, garages can hold your car to ransom providing they find a "fault" with it? Seems like a lot of people are going to get shafted. 

 

 

Edited 7 June 2018 by RoboFox

[Rob1742]

17 hours ago, The Bear said:

Brakes are the biggest bullshit garages use to get more money out of people. 

 

My MOT was last week and apparently the pads were "worn below the manufacturers recommended limit". I could see the front pads myself and they had a good 6-7mm left on them, and the wear sensor hadn't flagged they were low either. The rears were a bit lower but still fine for a while yet. 

 

They do it on every service and MOT to try and convince non-mechanically minded people who don't know better, to part with more money. 

I took mine for a service the other week. Okay they crashed it and had to keep it a week and a half to repair it. And, when they drove it to the body shop they drove it all around the world ( I have an app that can trace my cars movements), but and this was the good bit, they made a video of what they had checked, including showing you on video how much break pad you had left. They went all around the car and told you what they had done.

 

This is the future, this will set the good guys apart from the bad. If there is a fault, they need to video it and show you. 

 

So so although they crashed it, this was negated by the video that I thought was great.

[VLC86]

4 minutes ago, Rob1742 said:

I took mine for a service the other week. Okay they crashed it and had to keep it a week and a half to repair it. And, when they drove it to the body shop they drove it all around the world ( I have an app that can trace my cars movements), but and this was the good bit, they made a video of what they had checked, including showing you on video how much break pad you had left. They went all around the car and told you what they had done.

 

This is the future, this will set the good guys apart from the bad. If there is a fault, they need to video it and show you. 

 

So so although they crashed it, this was negated by the video that I thought was great.

Good idea but it surely wouldn’t take much to show a buggered brake pad if they wanted to though would it.

 

My OH got the same treatment from Audi but when the service cost £880 I couldn’t give a shit about the video.

[Mike Oxlong]

Getting a car serviced at a dealer is like sticking a wad of cash on the barbie 

 

Seems to me like they have high overheads which the customer has to pay for one way or another

 

 

[The Bear]

They don't call them Stealers for nothing. 

[Rob1742]

9 hours ago, Costock_Fox said:

Good idea but it surely wouldn’t take much to show a buggered brake pad if they wanted to though would it.

 

My OH got the same treatment from Audi but when the service cost £880 I couldn’t give a shit about the video.

They went all around the car with their phone, and stuck the phone into the wheel and then you saw them measure it, so at least you can see the result clearly, and they would have to have done some serious jiggery pockery to show a false result.

 

Its just a good way to show a customer the problems now.

 

There is a post on here saying a MOT Centre say they have a fuel leak and so can’t release the car. I think if they actually videod it and sent it to you it at least gives you peace of mind that they “probably” aren’t having your trousers down

[RoboFox]

16 hours ago, RoboFox said:

Mine went in for it's MOT today. A local garage to me in North London that I haven't used before. They came recommended, and are well reviewed on the "Good Garage Scheme," but I'm always dubious as it's not my usual guy (I'll travel back to Leicestershire for both an MOT and service)

 

Lo and behold, it's failed. A "dangerous fault" in that it's leaking fuel and is a fire hazard, plus three other major faults.

 

With the new legislation, I'm unable to drive the car away until at least the major fault is corrected. £35 for an "investigation" into the source of the leak, plus whatever the repair costs will be... I've yet to find that out.

 

Now they're enforcing these new regulations, garages can hold your car to ransom providing they find a "fault" with it? Seems like a lot of people are going to get shafted. 

 

 

 

I had the quote through this morning. Best part of £1000 to fix all of the problems with it. 

 

That's more than the value of the car... Just not worth it. Unsure what to do, trying to get them to do the bare minimum to get it released but in the event that they refuse, I'm tempted to just f**king cut my losses write the thing off. 

 

What a great birthday present. Thanks a bunch, life.

[The Bear]

Shitter. 

 

What were the other major faults, out of interest? 

[Steve_Walsh5]

3 hours ago, RoboFox said:

I had the quote through this morning. Best part of £1000 to fix all of the problems with it. 

 

That's more than the value of the car... Just not worth it. Unsure what to do, trying to get them to do the bare minimum to get it released but in the event that they refuse, I'm tempted to just f**king cut my losses write the thing off. 

 

What a great birthday present. Thanks a bunch, life.

They haven’t got any power to hold your car until it’s done mate. 

 

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.express.co.uk/life-style/cars/970378/MOT-test-car-repair-mechanics-DVLA/amp

[RoboFox]

Just now, Steve_Walsh5 said:

They haven’t got any power to hold your car until it’s done mate. 

 

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.express.co.uk/life-style/cars/970378/MOT-test-car-repair-mechanics-DVLA/amp

Yeah, he got back to me and said I can drive it away at my will, but as the fail is now on the MOT database and with the DVLA it's advised that the repairs are done. With the amount of ANPR cameras and police in London, I'm as good as f**ked if I drive anywhere.

 

Depressing.

[Steve_Walsh5]

4 minutes ago, RoboFox said:

Yeah, he got back to me and said I can drive it away at my will, but as the fail is now on the MOT database and with the DVLA it's advised that the repairs are done. With the amount of ANPR cameras and police in London, I'm as good as f**ked if I drive anywhere.

 

Depressing.

If you book it in for an MOT elsewhere im sure you are allowed to drive it to that garage. Obviously you won’t be allowed to to drive it around London. But if you only drove it to the pre booked garage for an mot or repair work that’s fine. 

[Tielemans63]

Alright lads. I'm thinking of going full-on middle-age-boring-bastard and buying a Kia. Thinking a Sportage or the new Stonic.

 

Don't know much about Kias though. Anyone had one? Any good?

[Ian Nacho]

On 15/06/2018 at 18:55, Paddy. said:

Alright lads. I'm thinking of going full-on middle-age-boring-bastard and buying a Kia. Thinking a Sportage or the new Stonic.

 

Don't know much about Kias though. Anyone had one? Any good?

You can't really go wrong with many car manufacturers these days, maybe with American and Italian being the exception. 

[Steve_Walsh5]

41 minutes ago, Ian Nacho said:

You can't really go wrong with many car manufacturers these days, maybe with American and Italian being the exception. 

French as well. Renault, Citroën, Peugeot wouldn’t bother with any of them. Also the depreciation value of them is horrendous,

 

I looked at a Renault Kadjar for the Mrs, you can get one that’s a year old with under 30,000 miles for just over £10,000. 

 

Regarding Kia’s I know a couple of people who have had them and they couldn’t praise them enough. Do they still come with the 7 years warranty?

[FoxesDeb]

I remember my brother looking at a Kia and saying that to keep the warranty in tact you had to have it serviced by Kia, and it was so costly it wasn't worth it. But that was a few years ago, so might not be the case now. 

[Bellend Sebastian]

Later this year our childcare costs will drop by a significant amount, meaning we can theoretically afford to replace our aging hatchback with something a bit nicer.

 

I've only ever bought secondhand cars outright, but although we can afford a decent size monthly payment, there's no way I'm going to get have the cash sitting around to do what I've done previously.

 

I know that if you're prepared to pay out £400 a month you can have pretty much anything you want, but I'm tight and want to keep the payments down as much as possible. Not desperate for car to be brand new, and not bothered about changing it every couple of years (owned current car for 10 of its 13 years). Wife also has some self employed earnings.

 

Any tips on getting value for money when paying monthly?

[Steve_Walsh5]

38 minutes ago, Bellend Sebastian said:

Later this year our childcare costs will drop by a significant amount, meaning we can theoretically afford to replace our aging hatchback with something a bit nicer.

 

I've only ever bought secondhand cars outright, but although we can afford a decent size monthly payment, there's no way I'm going to get have the cash sitting around to do what I've done previously.

 

I know that if you're prepared to pay out £400 a month you can have pretty much anything you want, but I'm tight and want to keep the payments down as much as possible. Not desperate for car to be brand new, and not bothered about changing it every couple of years (owned current car for 10 of its 13 years). Wife also has some self employed earnings.

 

Any tips on getting value for money when paying monthly?

Depends on what you are going to go for. 

 

HP, PCP, PCH?

[Bellend Sebastian]

35 minutes ago, Steve_Walsh5 said:

Depends on what you are going to go for. 

 

HP, PCP, PCH?

I'm not that sure of the differences. Is HP when you own the vehicle at the end of the term? PCP is where you don't, and they're basically expecting you to take out another one, yeah?

 

PCH, no idea