E30 Zone

Hi all, it's been a long time since i been on here, glad to to see this mastermind site is still up though!

I was put foward to "E30 Specialists/track day preperation" in shropshire by my audio worker for my car, he is at the top of his game, literally -travels all over the world doing shows etc cant fault his work/knowledge, & so when he recomended these guys as another customer of his swears by them & he used knew them too i thought they would be the same therefore had no hesitations...

I wanted a full service, a good once over check, the brakes i felt needed doing somehow soon, fix obc light, & dash clocks light inspecion 1 or 2, and/or anything else picked up.....

got a bill for (reading from receipt)....£628.87 !!!!!!! (labour £403.75) for the following....

carry out insp 1
service & general
check & pre mot check
fit cam belt
fit rear axle carried bushes?? (phoned me to ask)
fit obc bulb pack
& rest listed parts for general service

picked the car up several days later....

turned out of the garage -the car was on half way temp, just thought its one off & blasted the heaters on full to cool down, the car remained on half/ sometimes over from there to near my home 50 miles away, coming to traffic the car stared getiing very hot so obvious i pulled into the next station. it was losing water & overheating, cut a long story short i blasted the car home like that about an hour later turned out to be a blocked pipe to or from the tank which that mechaninc sent out another one of his to my house to fix sometime later......

also at the staion the car went dead, so cheked the battery to which i found the clamps not even tightened and hanging off! the obc still does not illuminate, every single light on the dash is on now red, green, oil, inspec, clock, even now as we speak (cars off) and the red n orange lights are on...he opened that to replace a bulb for the clocks, (faulty si board?) the mpg gauge no longer works, or the petrol reserve light, the brake line/wear light is on & the brakes are FU&8eD!! i honestly can say it might aswell not have any brakes at the minute it doesn not stop! there is a very very bad shudder upon braking from the left wheel & pulls heavily too. & another garage thinks there might be a leak from the power steering rack! & its not idling right at all, too high, & when ur coasting it feels like a handbrake is on or something pulling it back to where it will eventually stop! oh & i had to replace a fuel hose as it was leaking petrol that bad i could watch the needle.

"brakes were fine according to him & mechanincs" when i asked before collecting, they did not road test the car at all.

im sorry for all this but any solutions to the problems? and have the garage done that work, was that figure correct! i dont know what to hold them accountable for and what not.

i'd take it back and ask them to go over it again,give them a chance to sort it,once youve paid your in a difficult situation...especially if the obc lights are not working that shows they havent fulfilled what you payed them to do...list the problems and see how you go,if they dont help tell them youll be contacting trading standards,hope this helps

Tel

What a f'ing joke, you must be furious!

sorry to hear all this, you really need to sit down and calmly talk to the boss.
but...

black_sport wrote:coming to traffic the car stared getiing very hot so obvious i pulled into the next station. it was losing water & overheating, cut a long story short i blasted the car home like that about an hour later

this will not have helped with any problems at all!!

Dam it man, that's harsh! Get back there and as tel says the words "trading standards" may get them to pull their heads out their arses.
Good luck mate

Ant

furious, mate i feel like smahsing his face in!! and btw that was the boss!

but this was done in july 2010, although i dont think it makes that much difference if im going down a legal route, its only a dry use car really & gets used 6 months of the year if i can help it, its harldy done any miles since then more or less been parked up! ive just been going over and over it again thinking what to do hence this delayed response, but now i wanna get thing done slowly for summer all this shits in the pipeline! & i know it wasnt sensilble driving it back from the petrol staiton but i jsut didnt give a toss then just wanted it home plus that wouldnt of effeceted of the issues i have now anway

i don't think the labour cost for all the work quoted in your list above is very excessive tbh and problems may occur after leaving a car for a good few months, especially after having driven it home from the garage. just thinking if you go down the legal route mate, that's all but i sincerely wish you every success with getting it sorted

My advice would be to seek a satisfactory resolution with the garage, this is the first line of action.

How did you pay for this work, I'm hoping by creditcard? If so open a dispute with the credit card company. They will investigate this with the supplier, and I believe get them to give you a full refund. You can then have the work done somewhere else.

Good luck and keep us posted. This is terrible.

Who is the 'E30 specialist'?

Hi mate sorry to hear what as happen to you hope you get something sorted soon!
Garage's are always in a hurry they never really do the job right!,in the past i found screws missing,the cover for the ht lead's was also missing,the door panel was not fitted correctly i had to refitted this myself!Since then i have found a great mechanic.It took me a while to find someone who knows what he is doing..

You need to get trading standards in on this no matter what. They can and will do a lot to help you get a resalution. Personally I would get them to foot the bill for a BMW dealership to fix it.

People may think it is cheaper to use a "specalist" for servicing but pound for pound a main dealer will still come in at a pretty good price. For serious work I use a very well respected guy from here and his partner in crime. For jobs that need doing I would only use reconmended people on here because if your good you will know about it and any dodgey bodgers get burnt pretty quickly on here.

The price sounds OK for the work done...not the for the work not done or done inccorectly.
Try a sensible, calm chat to start with. Liek a car, losing your cool never helps.
If the garage is all it claims that will set right what needs doing

You're going to have real trouble proving it was like that when you took it home six months ago. They'll say the OBC etc. was working when you left, you'll say it wasn't. Where do you go from there?

cecotto479 wrote:You're going to have real trouble proving it was like that when you took it home six months ago. They'll say the OBC etc. was working when you left, you'll say it wasn't. Where do you go from there?

Exactly.

If you have a problem go straight back and be calm, Talk to the boss. If you cant get it resolved then seek further advice from trading standards etc.

Leaving it and then complaining on here after 6 months isnt going to get you anywhere i am afraid.

did you discover all these problems on the way home ? or now after 6 months ?

it all seems a bit odd to me

got a bill for (reading from receipt)....£628.87 !!!!!!! (labour £403.75) for the following....

carry out insp 1
service & general
check & pre mot check
fit cam belt
fit rear axle carried bushes?? (phoned me to ask)
fit obc bulb pack
& rest listed parts for general service

the labour sounds about right if this work was carried out did you check all of the above were done ? is there a bill for the OBC light bar?

If you drove the car out of the shop surely you would have noticed most of the faults- ie no brakes, lights on etc, why did you not raise it then? I doubt you will get very far six months down the line unless they are very very very understanding.

Sorry, I didn't read your thread properly - these problems manifested themselves 6 months later?? Based on that, I don't think your chances of getting this resolved to your satisfaction are very high.. Sorry.

Gert_8 wrote:Sorry, I didn't read your thread properly - these problems manifested themselves 6 months later?? Based on that, I don't think your chances of getting this resolved to your satisfaction are very high.. Sorry.

I too didn't notice this happend 6 months after.

No. I think he's saying that they manifested themselves at the time, but the time was six months ago.

depends where you go, our garage bends over backwards for customers at an amazing rate, i wouldnt be surprised to see a customer get a free set of pads after complaining they wore down after 20k

Thanks for the replies!

The garage i took it to was mosely motorsport in telford, shropshire. To be honest I wouldn't feel comfortable in giving the car back at all as they would most certainly cut corners again/"damage something by accident on purpose" just for the hassle. I paid cash, hard earned cash!! I can maybe understand the fuel hose leaking over the weather changing conditions being parked up, they saiy never road tested it but was run over and over again & the temp was fine......the cost wasnt an issue to me beforehand thats why i took it there, to a specialist, I just wanted it done and back in tip top driving like it should. I was just lead to believe never go to "main dealers", (for this reason)

no the only problem i picked up when leaving the garage was the temp. half way & over, then, when i got home the car leaked water, over heated, after that the inspection lights came on, then clock, then the oil service, days later they are permantly on EVEN NOW red & orange are on yet the car is off? all these problems happened within days, yet ive hardly used the car really since then & have dwelling on it, whether i've been ripped off or they just happened to occur at that time. & all those things were read off the detailed receipt i was given inc. "fit obc bulb pack" the brakes were just as poor as when i dropped it off but he said "there fine", i thought maybe im just used to the braking of a E class merc audi quattro etc! but now they are like a flinstone car, serious. so obvious the light is not part of a si board fault......

your SI board is knackered,

black_sport wrote:Thanks for the replies!

The garage i took it to was mosely motorsport in telford, shropshire......the cost wasnt an issue to me beforehand thats why i took it there, to a specialist, I just wanted it done and back in tip top driving like it should. I was just lead to believe never go to "main dealers", (for this reason)

Really, if cost wasn't an issue, then you should always go to a main dealer. I don't think there's much mileage in discussing this 6 months after the event, and if I were in your position, I would take it to the main dealers to find out exactly what is wrong with it. You don't necessarily have to have them do the work for you, but they should be able to tell you what needs doing and the cost...?

Given Mosely have been around for years and a have a pretty good rep esp for e30 m3's and have the odd part from them and service is okay I would send them a letter stating the problems in order and when they happened and ask them to at least complete the work that was on the recipt to the correct standard.

And when you go back see if they will let test drive another e30 to compare the brakes.

The si board is knackered now yes, but it was fine before! & prior to that the brake lines light was on anyway & you could feel them. No, i've never used a dealer for service work purely becasue I dont know how experienced they are nowadays with E30's not to mention theres usually a young apprentice carrying out the work sometimes. In past experiences with other cars at main dealers I dont really like them. the brakes dont need testing mate lol, trust me they hardly effin work!! & to be honest i know they have been around & all the guys seemed decent there thats why i used them & was happy to leave it there & travel all that way, I mean I dont want to give them a bad name or whatever I purely came on here for advice from you experts, but im just not happy at all with the outcome! & dont see who would be! I dont really wanna go down the legal route nor have the boys go round so I will see what happens, & will keep you posted anyway..thanks for all comments peeps......

Since over 6 months have passed since the work was done you have no rights legal or otherwise unless you can prove beyond doubt that you have been charged for work that hasn't been done.
That will be very difficult .

Service boards go wrong all the time, your car is over 20 years old. The fact that these guys took £600+ off you hardly makes them liable for everything that goes wrong with your car from that moment on


If you need an independant "autopsy" done by somebody knowledgeable about these cars, give me a shout.

Be warned though, the findings might not be pleasant !