I took my ka to a ford garage to have it looked at yesterday, and they wanted to charge me huge amounts?
Has anyone else had the same experience??
Answers:
You've only yourself to blame for buying such a 'girlie' car, and there just fiestas in a different dress!
All the time, welcome to the joys of car ownership.
Ford are a big rip off and they charge you just for pulling up these days, I'd go with my independant garage owner every time, becasue 1 your helping your local buisness's to stay afloat and 2 your helping our wallet!
You will find main dealers more expensive, they have to use original parts and their labour charges tend to be slightly higher than independent garages.
Yep, happens to me and my 98 grand am alot! They always try to "rack" me for MORE money and stuff that really doesn't need doing. OR, my husband does alot of the work himself such as brakes, oil changes, electrical, etc. The most expensive thing for me on my car was the clutch. That was around $600..but I NEEDED it.
Never have work done by a dealer. they cost a fortune for any car. independant garages use new approved parts which are exactly the same as ford but not built by them even though some parts are genuine
It's typical of most main dealerships, your best bet is always small independent garages. Why don't you try a car maintenance course, it't not too difficult my mum did one and she was in her 50's. Most college's run one and it could save you £'s
Now you see why I learned to fix my own car!
Do you wonder at labour costing £28 an hour
might cost a bit more but i always use a main dealer dealt with to many cowboys in the past you only get what you pay for
Of course. Almost everyone has. You must be new to this game. By the way, what's a "ka"? Is that ebonic or something? Or are you from Boston?
Yes we have ford try to make you spend money even if you dont want to, they have just had my partners ford tourneo for 8 weeks trying to replace the main headgasket which was on back order then wanted to charge us under £2 grand for it. It up to you where you have your car service at as long as the garage you use uses ford parts they cant argue , we hate ford at the moment they rip you of. They even wanted to charge us for the £70,000 service. Ford are just rip of merchants
It's all down to overheads, Fords (or any dealer) have huge business premises and lots of staff to pay and they have to make the money somewhere. Go to a third party garage for most servicing/MOT work unless your car is really new and under warranty or you have loads of money to waste!! And the work they do is no better either, parts will be Ford originals, but who cares about that! It's not like your racing the thing, "may the force be with you!"
You have now leared a good lesson, "Don't bring your car to a dealer for anything other then recalls and warranty work."
Freind of mine works for a vw garage and they have been told, in writing that there is to be a minimum work time of 1 hour even if they can fix the problem with a drop of oil, this means a minimum charge of £70, more if its a female customer
For all the Americans reading a ford Ka is a small three door car sold here in the UK and europe. Do a Google image search.
This is quite common I'm afraid. Garages rely on the fact that most people don't know much about cars so they can get away with this kind of thing. However it's worth remembering a couple of things. A main dealers labour rates will be more expensive than an independant and it will only use genuine ford parts which are more expensive. Also most main dealers will suggest replacing parts once they start to show wear or at least once the wear is noticiable when driving the car. However many independants are used to dealing with people who have smaller wallets and who are prepared for their car not to feel like it has just rolled out of the showroom. So just because your independant garage doesn't think the some of the work needs doing doesn't necessarilly mean the other place was trying to rip you off, they may just work to different standards. It also doesn't mean they weren't trying to rip you off though.
At the end of the day the best thing to do is to find someone you trust, ideally who comes with a lot of personal recomendations from friends, and stick with them. Either that or learn enough about cars to fix them yourself or at least to know when you are being taken for a ride : )
its quite simple,if u cant afford proper main dealer prices take it to "fred in the shed".
thats what service centres were made for, a story book of errors followed by a telephone number for the bill
Unfortunately, if you drive a KA, they will assume that you are pretty stupid and know absolutely nothing about cars
Sounds like you took it to the main dealer. The fact main dealers exist and charge what they do shows how many people there are out there that are CLINICALLY INSANE!! Never ever take a car to the main dealer, unless you truely do wake up in the morning and think you are a Sprout, as they will invariably take the P**s.
never use main dealers they charge stupid money for an apprentice who doesn't know what they're doing to service your car, and then they let them loose to test drive it. imagine that
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