On 09/03/2019 15:16, Bill wrote:
In message ,
sm_jamieson writes
3. Backstreet garages who will do almost anything, but would you trust
them ? I would, if I was friends with someone there.

Depends on the car. For my Skoda, I'm happy with the main dealer who
always seems reliable and sensibly priced. Pleasant surroundingsÂ* if
it's a while you wait job.

For the Rangie, either a recommended back street LR specialist, or my
normal back street garage. For the latter, unless it's something pretty
standard, I go online and try to find a descriptive post detailing how
to diy. My backstreet man has never been insulted by this and, on one
occasion, looked at it and came up with a better approach.

As I'm sure everyone knows, some main dealers have to be experienced to
be believed. Locally, Jeep stands out. "We threw out all the tools for
that model when we moved", " If it's 4 wheel drive, we can't do the
tracking", "You will have to wait until we can borrow the Jeep
diagnostics tool from Jeep HQ". I never actually got as far as putting
my vehicle in, but online Jeep forum posts indicated that not letting
them get their hands on mine was a very good move.

I do most work myself, but have used main dealers three times (warranty
work twice and a new key once) all three times were bloody awful. Long
delays, failures to meet deadlines, repeated visits to do something that
they'd supposed to have already done. In once case, they did so much
wrong that I didn't feel safe in the car afterwards and got rid of it!

I have used a backstreet garage for a bit of welding on my wife's car, a
mid-winter cambelt change before going away, a dual-mass flywheel and
clutch and an injector problem. I have found them to be excellent,
timely, well priced and very, very honest.

SteveW