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If you, like me, invoice people for the work you do, you’ll usually have to wait quite a time before you get paid, but if you take your car to a garage, you won’t get it back unless you have paid the bill in full, on the day. I’ve done work for garage owners, and when I suggest jokingly that I’d like to be paid in full before I leave, I get a wry smile and some interesting responses, or should I say, excuses as to why it’s not possible.
I rarely use garages to work on my cars because I originally trained as a mechanic and I enjoy doing the work myself. On the odd occasion when I either can’t do the work because of time constraints, or the need for special tools and I need to take the car to a garage, I usually find the experience irritating for several reasons.
I can never seem to get a decent time slot, and I dread the phone ringing and the inevitable “We’ve found x y or z while investigating your original issue. Would you like us to fix that too?” conversation.
I am always annoyed by the price, and this comes down to an extortionate hourly rate compared to most small businesses. I keep being told that it’s because the equipment is expensive, but in my experience, no more if not less than the kit used elsewhere.
I’ve found over the years that the price difference between main dealers and local garages has closed a great deal. I’m guessing that this is because these days, cars are so complicated that your local garage can’t afford the specialist equipment to do major work, and so need to price themselves out of the job, rather than have to say that they can’t do it. Most small businesses don’t need different specialist kit for each project, but car manufacturers are determined to make life a difficult as possible to protect their aftermarket work. If you think about it, pretty much the only thing the same on all, well, almost all cars, is the tyre valve. Extraordinary!
In this day and age, parts should be relatively cheap because of all the automated manufacturing. I recently got prices to replace the timing chain on my daughters car, and it ranged from £700 to £850 with the lowest price being from the main dealer. I bought the parts from the dealer and did it myself so it cost me about £150, not of course accounting for a day of my time. But still, £150 for a chain and a few plastic guides, ouch!
I’m very lucky, because I can do these jobs, but what about the majority who can’t? My daughters car actually wouldn’t have been far off being a write off because of the cost and that just seems wrong, given that the rest of the car is in great condition. We are constantly being urged to save the planet, so how can it be right that what was once a fairly simple repair, can effectively make a perfectly good car uneconomical to repair?
Another thing that annoys me is the way women are treated by many garages. I was very pleased recently to read of a young woman who is trying to encourage other young women to take an interest in being able to do the most basic work on their cars themselves. From changing wheels, to basic servicing. It would save these youngsters a small fortune and unfortunately, according to a recent survey by ClickMechanic, women pay £45 or 28% more than men for the most common repairs.
I’ve often thought a woman with some engineering background could make a good living by sitting at the end of a phone and being a liaison between garages and other women who have car problems, taking a small fee to keep the cost of repairs down, and stopping unnecessary work being added.
The military recognise that women make great mechanics. I remember the daughter of a friend who left school and went to work as a helicopter engineer for Westlands. She soon became the foreman (or should that be foreperson?) in charge of a workshop of over 50 men.
Finally, did you know that two of the best safety features on cars, the windscreen wipers and indicators were both invented by women?