Car\'s still at the garage

[Bobbit]

:2Mad
Bloody garage!
They have had my car for 3 weeks now, they are fixing my rear bumper after a roundabout collision. First they could not get the parts in time, then they could not get a colour match as the lacquer is tinted or something, then it was flooded, they managed to de-flood it by removing the plugs etc, now it wont start?
The garage is a mazda,toyota,suzuki mix each with there own show rooms but they share a workshop.
After leaving 3 message since 4pm yesterday they finally left me a message saying that these cars are usually tricky to start after leaving for a while :Hammer.
Now when I left it while i was on me honeymoon, 3 weeks with no use, it started 1st time no probs. Are they full of crap or am I getting paranoid?
And before anyone says it I know mazda not bot all about these cars but the repairs were needed to be done by an official garage and I was happy as it was just body work being carried out.

[BlitzBoy]

why they need to start the car anyway shouldnt they just repair the bodywork and push the car round the garage, tell them when they finished the bodywork you will deflood the car yourself

[nikp]

If they were left unflood, and everything else is in good working order, they should easily start after a long period of no use. I\'m surprised they are trying to tell a long term owner how these cars are hard to start! What a load of rubbish from them!!

[REVIT93RX7]

Before I tore my 93 down, I had 84,836 miles on her and not one time did it ever fail to start.  Even after long perios of rest.  Sounds kind of strange to me.

[Bobbit]

The reason they started it was to move it to the spray shop which is a few hundred yards. The car had been de-flooded aparently. They removed the plugs and fuel pump relay, turned it over to clear the fuel and to "keep the rotor tips dry"??
But I am getting suspicious now, I\'ve had the car for over 3yrs now, only flooded it myself once and that was when the plugs needed changing so they weren\'t sparking too well. But once i\'d changed the plugs it was fine.
It\'s a nightmare getting in contact with them now too, to start off with they would take my calls or at worst call me back within the hour, now they are not taking my calls and when I leave message they do not call back. I\'m getting quite annoyed, especially as my hire car (08 Astra 1.6) is total arse.

[D2BBA]

Bleedin bafoons!,

Shame its taking soooo long bud

Used to flood mine plenty before the re-build.  Seems to be easier the older the engine is.  They probs just started it and knocked it off in seconds, even my bro\'s MX5 floods when this happens.  If its warmed thro properly you can leave them standing for weeks / months (I used to) and as long as the battery has a good charge it\'ll start.


As the lads say just tell em to push it around (with care) and you can de-flood yourself.  If you need a had de-flooding i\'ll pop along with you.  Getting good (ish) at it now!

Chris

[Clarky]

Think i would pay a secret visit or two if you have the time, not being able to contact them would bring the bristles up on my neck, you need to have peace of mind. did you check the milegage before you left it with them, and yes they are talking rubbish about difficult to start, if it was ok before.

[Bobbit]

I did check the milage but lost the bit of paper i wrote the milage down on. Cheers for the offer Chris but they think it has been de-flooded ok???

[D2BBA]

No probs matey  

If they fook up the job again give me a hola, lol!

Chris

[Bobbit]

Will do, you still want these double solenoids i\'ve got bud?

[GhostWKD]

Sounds like you had as much fun with the official garage as i did with a \'mates\' garage 5 months on after paying in advance etc for a HG change on my MR2 Turbo i\'ve finally got the car back - missing parts and with head only bolted back on everything else in a box in the boot

[D2BBA]

Will do, you still want these double solenoids i\'ve got bud?

Please bud, will be breaking up for Crimbo tomorrow so will have a bit of time to play with the car (when im not decorating the house )

Cheers!
Chris

[neil_jdmr]

Feel for you Rob and I too would pop down there for a surprise visit and explanation on the lack of customer service.
 
My itr was in honda for 12 weeks after a rear end they also blamed on parts/delivery etc.
 
To top that my insurance tried to charge me 3.5k for the hirecar charges.
 
Luckily i had taken out a seperate insurance incase of that happening so be careful mate.
 
 
Get down and see them, Is it in Hodgesons on the silverlink???

[Kash_]

I would pop down there and see what\'s happening... thats the thing with leaving a Rex at a bodyshop... when I had to leave mine for several days I set my limiter to 3000rpm on the power fc and took the commander out of the car that way I knew they couldnt take it out for a drive.. they flooded mine a few times and I had to keep going over to deflood because I didnt trust them (lucky bodyshop was close to me), after that I told the guy to push the car if he needed to and only start it if absolutely required and to let it warm up before switiching off... lucky I didn\'t need to deflood it again

[Bobbit]

Well got it back this morning, back bumper is very shiny now! They have not done a colour blend tho, just sprayed the rear bumper so it looks quite odd, I had asked them to look at the exhaust as since the crash it has been blowing, but they haven\'t looked at it and there is no way i\'m taking it back seeing as how it took them 3 weeks to repair (not replace) the rear bumper and spray it. So i guess i\'ll be doing that this weekend. Was nice to get into tho, the car felt odd since drive the astra, and did a nice wheel spin pulling away, I forgot the clutch was so responsive compaired to the astra, lol.
So if anyone ever needs to use Hodgeson mazda based in newcastle best bet would be to drive to edinburgh zoo and let one of the monkeys there do a better job!