Volkswagen Ripoff
I recently had my VW Polo taken to the garage for its annual MOT (mandatory technical inspection) test. VW very kindly sent someone to the company parking lot to pick it up, drove it to Reading where it promptly failed the test, and they put together a list of what would need to be fixed before it could pass the test. They gave me a quote for how much it would cost.
Oh boy.
I had to get them to replace the two front tyres or they weren't going to let me have the car back at all - but the quote for the remainder of the repairs was absolutely off the chart.
- 2 new tyres, 100 pounds
- brake fluid change, 88 pounds
- rear brakes adjustment, 45 pounds
- thermostat housing replacement and coolant change, 216 pounds
- rear wheel bearing adjustment, 45 pounds
- driver-side license plate light replacement, 37 pounds
- off-side side light change, 37 pounds
- off-side brake light change, 37 pounds
The list goes on. And on.
Needless to say, I was not amused. After pondering the situation for a couple of days, I called another garage up - one not affiliated to VW (which, I am now assuming, must stand for Very Wealthy). They laughed out loud, and gave me a quote that was, in all cases, less than 50% that of VW. In some cases, it was a 90% reduction on the cost quoted by the branded garage.
Now I'm sure that from the point of view of someone who's been through this a number of times, this is pretty obvious, but that doesn't change the basic reality that there's a very large number of people out there who have no idea that they're getting ripped off quite to this extent. I wanted to go to a VW garage because the car's service history is entirely through VW and I'm sure that has a positive effect on the value of the car, but if it's going to cost me 400 pounds extra to get the rubber stamp, then the value for money simply isn't there.
VW's website claim that their parts are engineered to a superior level. That's all well and good, but how can it cost 37 pounds to replace a lightbulb? The last lightbulb was from VW, and that one's broken, hence the need to replace it - clearly superior engineering only goes so far. Three lightbulbs and you're talking about 111 pounds. To replace lightbulbs. How do you justify that?
Anyway, since the retest is free, I'm going to get the car fixed elsewhere, then get VW to do the MOT retest, which hopefully should come out clean this time, and I'll still have a VW stamp on the MOT certificate, even if they didn't do the work on the car. I'll probably pay them the 125 pounds to do the 90000 mile service and get that stamp in the book too, but if there's any serious work arising from that service, then my local garage can do it - not only does he charge less, but he's actually grateful for the work.
Posted by nlvp at February 16, 2005 12:35 AM