This garage has always been used my my fathers generations and now by my generations, they say it as it is. They show the issue, they give you the old parts if you want to keep them. They also do the work for the market price and don’t rip you off like other garages. Actually I will be selfish if I didn’t give them a review as I don’t want the world to know how good they are. They are only mine. I hope they don’t change or grow an ego with the extra business coming their way. I found a gem.

Poor service

I was approached by what seems to be a guy in charge and was asked to revise the review as he feels it was unfair.

So here it goes.

I used this garage twice before once to change my tires which took them 3-4 hours I don’t know if the guy was learning or a professional. They charged me 70 quid. I made no reviews then as I let it slip. I was ok with the service. A few months later I found another garage down the road who sells brand new tires for 50 quid each. It took them under 1 hour to replace all 3 tires. Now that I was impressed with.

Months later I took it again to their garage as I had accidentally broken the water pipe leading to the anti-freeze. They did their checks despite my suggestion which made me feel odd at the time, it felt like they wanted to find something else wrong with the car instead of what I suggested. It cost me 70 quid for the parts and with labor the total 170 quid with vat, estimated. I wasn’t overly impressed but also let it slip thinking as it was my fault for damaging my own car, I let it go again. Thought the price was a bit steep for a pipe connection though. They did manage to repair it in a day. Well, it was only a pipe in the end.

I went today thinking yes, the warranty will cover my payments and I’ll get my car fixed. I had a RAC report stating there is an air leak which is causing smoke from the exhaust to come out. But I was too generous. What aspired left me feel devastated. Not only this but the owner or someone who manages their social media asked me to rewrite this. Hence here I am.

Called on Thursday and asked if this RAC warranty job could be done. They advised yes. Bring it in on Friday morning and they’ll provide a full report to the warranty company by the end of the day. I was thinking my car will be fixed hopefully by Monday latest. As I have work commitments, I don’t have any other time off and this was my only option. The next day I have advised the technician called in sick but another will have a look at it and advise me of the outcome. I walked home in the rain. Mid-day a call comes advising they can’t do the work as the other technician has work outstanding up to a week which is more important than mine. Came and took my car. Walked to the garage in the rain. Had some guy then tell me to go into the office he would like a word. Advised me I left feedback he was not happy and his business is important. I guess the customers are the last thing on his mind. He advised he would have paid for a taxi. But still did not offer any apologies. In the end, this inconvenience caused me the customer to lose a day off from work and missed out in rebooking with other garages as a half a day has been lost and the next available slots are Monday which I have no time off available. I lost the only window in the next two weeks to have my car checked out as I have no time off pending. Still went home in the rain. Lost a working day off and a weekend. Due to their misinformation relating to the work carried out. I appreciate the garage called me mid-day to advise the work won’t be actioned however this was little too late to rebook elsewhere. To add it up there was no apology or compensation for the customer only they are more important than I. Hence the negative review.

If the table was reversed and I was the business owner. I would have compensated the customer by offering him a taxi service to drop him off home as a result of staff sickness and another taxi to bring the customer from home to garage as we failed to inspect the vehicle. This would have helped to say the company apologizes for the inconveniences and recognizes customer service and takes pride in upholding a good service for all of its customers. I would also put in a small repair for free to make up to the customer for losing out on his day off and inconvenience for outsourcing the job off to another garage.

This is what real customer service is!

If the 4th action was taken into consideration I the customer would have rated the feedback as positive instead of negative. This action would have shown a real customer care environment.

I believe this to be a true experience from my side. This company did nothing to rectify their error and despite raising a formal complaint still did nothing.

Date of experience: 15 June 2019