Sloppy Service

Hit-and-miss garage servicing rips off car owners and puts lives at risk.

Slack practices are rife in the garage servicing industry, according to the latest undercover investigation by Which?

The consumer organisation took 50 cars, all less than three years old and still within their new-car warranty, to garages throughout the country for servicing. Before they went in, Which? inspected the cars for any pre-existing conditions the garage should spot, and five adjustments were made - four simple faults such as a blown reversing light bulb were introduced and the screenwash bottle was topped up.

46 garages missed at least one fault, and two - Central Garage (Raunds) Ltd, 23 High Street, Northamptonshire and Motormaster in Leatherhead - missed all five.

Shockingly, over half of the garages missed the low brake-fluid level. Even a half-competent mechanic should notice this, while a good mechanic would try to diagnose why it's low as this could lead to brake failure, due to either worn brakes or a leaky braking system.

More than three-quarters of the garages failed to adjust the very low spare tyre pressure, and nine garages failed to adjust the other tyre pressures properly. Low tyre pressure may mean there's a puncture, and it increases the likelihood of premature tyre failure - so could be life-threatening.

Thankfully, few garages carried out significant unnecessary work, but 20 still charged for windscreen-washer fluid, even though it had been topped up just before taking the cars in.

Only two garages achieved top marks from the Which? inspectors for both spotting all five faults and for high overall servicing standards - Highams Park Motor Company, North-East London, and Colliers Jaguar in Tamworth, Staffordshire.

The average inspection rating was a poor 2.28 out of 5. Each service was rated considering how many of the introduced faults were spotted and how the garage acted on finding them, whether the garage spotted and reported on other pre-existing faults, and whether the service was carried out in line with the manufacturer's recommendations.

Which? found no discernible difference in standards between franchised garages and independents, although independents were considerably cheaper. Franchised dealers charged an average price of £255 for a service, whereas independent garages charged £166 on average - 35 per cent cheaper.

Twenty cars went to independent garages, 19 to franchised garages and 11 to 'related' franchises - those of manufacturers owned by the same company as the main franchise - for example, Which? took Jaguars to Ford and VWs to Skoda.

Few of the garages inspected - 12 out of 50 - said they followed formal codes of practice. Which? thinks there are too few regulations to make garages toe the line and that tougher rules are needed to sort out the rogues.

Neil Fowler, Editor, Which?, says, "UKowners spend more than £21 billion a year maintaining their cars. We reckon this should go to reliable businesses with sound service procedures, not gambled on rogue traders.

"Unacceptably, getting your car serviced is still a hit-and-miss affair. We've found a generally lax approach to servicing, unbelievable basic errors and cases of plain ineptitude."

Bookmark with:

• Delicious
• Digg
• reddit
• StumbleUpon

Don’t know what this is?

Read the 50connect Guide To Social Bookmarking.