Do garages engineer in problems with cars they service?

[Number Six]

I have a car that used to belong to an old bloke who, judging by the records, took it to be MOT'd and serviced to the same place every year - in some years it seems that was pretty much the only time he drove it as the mileage is very low.

 

Anyway, the car is 12 years old, and on the last MOT it had an advisory on the suspension bushes. I noticed too that it had a very slight oil leak.

 

When I took it for an MOT - having done 70% of it's total lifetime mileage in the previous 12 months - there was no mention of any wear to any of the bushes.

 

The MOT did note that there was an oil leak though, and it had been getting worse. I put off looking at it because I was worried it might be a big job to fix it, and there is no point having a cheap car if you're going to spend lots on it. However, the oil patch outside the house was getting quite big, so the other day I put it up on my ramps and found that the cause of the leak was an oil filter that wasn't even hand tight.

 

Now of course the filter could have got looser in the 16 months since it was serviced, but I suspect it was never tight in the first place, and cynically I'm thinking the garage the old guy used (a major chain, and not a Sheffield branch) knew it'd spend a lot of time sat in the same place so any oil leak would be obvious, and also that he kept the car meticulously maintained, and would therefore probably pay to have it 'fixed' when it came back 12 months later for an MOT - when I guess the bushes they'd mentioned the previous year might have 'needed' replacing too.

 

Or am I being to cynical?

[Cyclone]

You got an advisory from the MOT but when you took it to the MOT they didn't mention it? I'm confused.

[Number Six]

There was an advisory about the bushes attached to the last MOT when I bought it. i.e one the old guy had done just before he sold it. When I got it MOT'd 12 months later, there was no mention of any wear to the bushes - and they look fine to me.

 

Sorry, that wasn't very clear!

[Honeysuckle]

Sorry to moan but its quite hard to understand your post, I had to read it a few times before I understood it! I think you are being cynical as they are hardly problems that would raise the garage vast amounts of money. I could be wrong though.

[Number Six]

Sorry to moan but its quite hard to understand your post, I had to read it a few times before I understood it! I think you are being cynical as they are hardly problems that would raise the garage vast amounts of money. I could be wrong though.

 

Bushes is a few hundred quid, and I suspect they would have told him there was a bit more to fixing the oil leak than putting the filter on properly - I doubt a 90 year-old would be getting under the car to see if there really was a 'new sump' on it, for example, especially if the leak had stopped.

 

If you have a customer or two a week who are trusting old souls who bring their car to you every year and you get an extra £500 or so out of each of them every couple of years, it soon adds up.

 

I've never known an oil filter come loose before, and it's such a basic part of servicing the car you'd think it'd be done properly even if they let the tea boy boy do it, so it got my cynical mind working.

[vwkittie]

Don't forget that inspections on items like bushes aren't exactly scientific it's partially down to how carefully they are looked at and what tolerances an individual will allow.

 

I used to go to one garage who always insisted the wishbone bushes were fine and didn't need replacing even though I'd queried them. I now go to a different garage and one of the first things he said was that they needed doing quite badly (and they did because the car was much better behaved after), with very few miles in between (it is a weekend car and does very few miles a year).

 

So I put this down to the first garage being rather lackadaisical, and frankly, producing shonky MOTs.

[Number Six]

Don't forget that inspections on items like bushes aren't exactly scientific it's partially down to how carefully they are looked at and what tolerances an individual will allow.

 

That's true enough - but the car only had c.30k miles on it from new - and had done less than 500 miles in the year previous, when they were flagged as 'advisory' and it had over 44k on it a year later, when they weren't mentioned, which makes me more suspicious.

 

The consensus seems to be though that it's just me being cynical!

 

edit to add - not sure what went on with my maths earlier - ignore the '70% of total mileage in a year' bit in my earlier post!

[truconstruct]

The consensus seems to be though that it's just me being cynical!

 

Of course there's one born every min so they say.

 

The fact that most people are willing to stand there and have an egg cracked under their hat doesn't mean you are wrong.

 

It will mean that garages do try it on all the time and sadly will take advantage of the easiest prey.

[Cyclone]

If you can find a garage that you think is honest then it's well worth sticking with them.

There are definitely dishonest ones out there, but I think they tend to go a lot further than giving an advisory on an MOT.

I suspect that most people routinely ignore advisories and only do some work when it becomes a fail or they notice the problem for themselves.

[Number Six]

If you can find a garage that you think is honest then it's well worth sticking with them.

There are definitely dishonest ones out there, but I think they tend to go a lot further than giving an advisory on an MOT.

I suspect that most people routinely ignore advisories and only do some work when it becomes a fail or they notice the problem for themselves.

 

Yes - but this garage had been mot testing the car for seven years, and for a car that hardly moved it seemed to need quite a few repairs in that time, according to the invoices I have. Just seemed to me a way of them storing up work for the future.

 

It's hard to find a garage you can trust, but I definitely agree with you about sticking with one once you have found it.