MOT time!

[Domestic_Ginger]

I am hoping to get some advice. We have used a dealership in the past. It wasn't cheap, but open on a saturday. They quoted £250 to change a headlight fitting. Looking into it; £20 for the part on ebay and the beam alignment done for free with a wheel alignment elsewhere. I'm a bit more cautious now. A couple of questions:-

Where to get an MOT done? Are kwikfit etc ok? KF are charging £30 excluding any repairs; is the rest of their service poor or expensive?

How much do people pay? The max allowed is £55 from what I can gather.

Forgive my ignorance, I have only been driving a couple of years and have very little interest in cars.

EDIT:

Just to not bump this old thread; maybe will post an update later. I have booked in with a local garage on a recommendation so will see how that goes.

[DanceswithUnix]

I am hoping to get some advice. We have used a dealership in the past. It wasn't cheap, but open on a saturday. They quoted £250 to change a headlight fitting. Looking into it; £20 for the part on ebay and the beam alignment done for free with a wheel alignment elsewhere. I'm a bit more cautious now. A couple of questions:-

Where to get an MOT done? Are kwikfit etc ok? KF are charging £30 excluding any repairs; is the rest of their service poor or expensive?

How much do people pay? The max allowed is £55 from what I can gather.

Forgive my ignorance, I have only been driving a couple of years and have very little interest in cars.

I use a local MOT tester, which means if the car fails they don't have anything to gain as they don't profit from any repairs as they aren't a garage so won't do much more than bulb replacement. They tend to pass things. Can't remember exactly what they charged, but I think it was close to the max.

I personally wouldn't touch kwikfit for anything, having had a couple of very bad experiences there. Last straw was when I had a leaking back box on my exhaust. They put the car on the ramp, and did lots of tutting and said I needed a full exhaust system including a cat converter, and all my tyres could do with replacing as well at a total cost of over 2 grand. I went to a specialist Alfa garage where they had a back box hand made in Italy from stainless steel, sent over and fitted for about £400 and everything else was fine. Gave the car a lovely deep rumble to the V6 too

[kalniel]

While some kwikfits aren't at all bad, I'd tend to avoid them for MOTs as well. As above, there are dedicated MOT testers who just exist to test rather than repair - these are the gold standard really as there is usually less incentive for them to be dishonest either way - even if I use my dealer for MOTs I can see from the certificate they are outsourcing to a local tester rather than doing it themselves.

Second option which might be a touch cheaper is to find a good independent garage - the sort that has so much work due to good reputation that they are more conservative about work needing doing. These aren't immediately obvious, but when you live somewhere for a while you start to hear recommendations - try a local facebook group or something perhaps and ask for recommendations.

[peterb]

I use a local Indy, they usually have offers on MoTs so it costs me about £30. I know them well enough that I trust them, and they are small enough to want to retain my goodwill.

[Saracen]

I've got a local 'specialist' I use for everything. He's an ex-senior guy from my local BMW dealer and was recommended for my M3 when I got hacked off with the main dealer's service levels.

I've been using him for about 15 years and he's superb. He picks my car up, does a "pre-MOT" check (fluids, check wipers, bulbs, etc), gets the MOT done (at a nearby MOT specialist) and delivers the car back to me. He charges me about £15 for his bit, and always gets a bit more than that as a discount off the 'standard' MOT fee, so it costs about £50-£55 in total.

In that 15-ish years, only once has it needed anything doing for the MOT, and that was a beam alignment that was included in his £15.


On the other hand ..... about 25 years ago I had a Granada 2.8i and, being a bit dozy, took it to my local Ford dealer. They failed it on about 8 items and quoted £2500 (remember this was about 1990 and £2500 was worth more then than now and it isn't exactly chump change now) for "repairs".

I drove it out of that Ford dealer and within 30 minutes, into a small, local MOT tester. It passed. I showed him the Ford dealer's failure certificate and he strongly advised me to go to an actual Department of Transport centre and get them to check the car out and to complain about the Ford centre because their failure points were "utterly ludicrous". His comment was that it was fabricated, and a fraudulent method of drumming up either repair work or a sale for their used car business and was giving the industry a bad name.


Those, to my mind, are the two extremes.

My advice .... unless/until you find a small, honest guy like my ex-BMW guy, go to a test centre that doesn't do repairs. My ex-BMW guy has built a thriving business on quality and customer service, and has never advertised. He gets new business solely by word-of-mouth recommendations, and his reputation is his business life. He's the kind of tradesman (ditto for sparkies, plumbers, gardeners, general handymen, decorators, etc) that are pure gold to find, and well-worth keeping on the good side of when you find one.

Shame they're hard to find.

[jimbouk]

It tough if you don't have a garage you trust, and can't do it during the week.

Before I found a garage for my Roadster, I took it to the council MOT test centre. As they aren't a garage, they have no incentive to be anything other than honest. They charge the standard MOT fee rather than offering a discount to get you through the door, but worthwhile paying the extra £20 for peace of mind. However they are a Monday to Friday operation, but the Bath one for instance is open at 7am for car drop off.

Failing that try and get a recommendation. I browsed Pistonheads forums and asked on the owners club when looking for a place to take my 924 in Bristol, happy with the result.

[Phage]

Another vote for a local independent. Look for a local recommendation. Do you know, or are related to any petrol-heads ?

[peterb]

It's worth learning a bit more about cars so that the unscrupulous don't try to bamboozle you - and as Saracen says, if and when you do find an Indy you trust, cherish them!

Smaller outfits have more to lose from a bad reputation, and if you can find a mechanic that trained with a dealership for your car before starting off on their own, they are usually worth using (but not if they were given the boot for incompetence )

[Biscuit]

I have an indy i trust for basic services and MOT, they never rip me off, very friendly, always quick and they seem to take pride in their work. My parents have been using them for 15-20 years.

The only thing that concerned me with them was when I asked them to check my valve clearances, the looked at me like I was mental. I now do one year at the indy for basic stuff and one year at a Honda specialist to do the complicated stuff.

Its the same kind of thing if you need to get tires/battery quickly, you dont go to a typical garage as you wont get the best rates. Head to a specialist tyre and battery place and its 10% cheaper.

[Zak33]

Cheap MOT's are a way to up sell you into extra work.

No such thing as a free /cheap lunch, as they say.

Try a new MOT station every year until you find a dude you like

[Saracen]

I was driving the wife's VW when it died, with symptoms suggesting alternator. This was about 5pm, on a Thursday. I got it started and nursed it to my BMW indy, getting there about 5:20. He tested the alternator and confirmed the problem, rang his supplier and was told an alternator could be delivered next day. We were supposed to he going away friday AM, for a long weekend.

Well, long story short the supplier delivered the alternator on his way home, about 6:30. Knowing we were supposed to he going away, my indy guy fitted it THAT NIGHT.

Friday, 7:45AM we get a call saying the car's fixed, ready to collect.

So, 17:20 Thurday, car arrives at garage. By 8AM, next morning, some 15 hours later, it's fixed and ready. Cost about £130, inc labour.

How many garages would do that?

He gets my just about all our business now.

[Tumble]

And so he should after service like that!

[Spreadie]

{snipped awesome service anecdote}

Most of us have local grease monkeys of that ilk in our area - the trick is finding the buggers!

[OilSheikh]

F1 autocentre seem pretty good. HUKD seem to love them

[Biscuit]

F1 autocentre seem pretty good. HUKD seem to love them

Usually means they are bloody terrible but bargain basement cheap.

[kalniel]

F1 autocentre seem pretty good. HUKD seem to love them

They try and undercut Kwikfit on prices, this tells you something..