italiastar

Ivor, Thanks - I was tempted with them if I brought both cars to them as they were willing to do a deal. I'm probably going to Sidlow near Gatwick or Westerham - has there been any reports about them?

......at least you won't have to pay someone else to do it badly!!! ;) The best part is thae neither car has been serviced yet - the Alhambra hasn't even been booked it. One of the cheapest for the Alhambra is Camberley Service Centre - a service only centre for SEAT and Skoda - not cheap on Skoda though :( http://dealer.seat.co.uk/dealers/home.aspx?id=47.68P When I spoke to SEAT (and Skoda) for that matter, they both said that dealers were allowed to set their own charges, so basically, from my experience, the garages with the highest labour rate take longer to do the job - great eh - we have to pay more for incompetance! Also, the excuse for charging around

Had a great day with dealers today - a ruck with two of them. Firstly Seat, after finding out that the correct price for servicing my Alhambra was around

I've got a template from my dealer - apparently I think it might be in the TIS - Once I get my scanner working I'll post a copy. I bought the VW protectors from SEAT - oddly they didn't have any deflector stickers.

With a bit of ringing around, I've got it down to

Odd as I normally find french roads much smoother. I did have a problem with my spacewagon after it had new tyres fitted in the UK - it suffered wheel wobble between 80 and 85 MPH - exactly the speed I normally drive in France - didn't notice in the UK as I never went much about 70 - this could be your problem. I got my wheels checked in france and they balanced them spot on! when I got back to the uk I went to the tyre dealer and they took them off to check them - they said they were out - I refused to let them change the weights as I said the car was spot-on - proof that their balance equipment was out! - I got them to pay for the French bill.

Ivor, the first service last year was

How do you find BT fleet workshops?

Some people are never happy! I bet if they charged you to crush them, you'd have still complained! How's my 2nd year service (13,000 miles) at

I'm just getting ready for my annual (2nd year) service and have been quoted

Are you sure it's not peacocks ? :unsure: :angry: :P My suggestion is take it up with Fraud - you'll only have to take a look at their used cars to see this occurring. If people don't complain, they accuse people like me to be the only complainers.

I first came accross this crazy ideas (DRL) last August in Italy - the law had just been introduced and no one had a clue on when the lights needed to be on - yes outside towns, but no one knew whether it applied in town. Really annoying was that Europcar had not bothered to tell me when I picked up my hired car - lost just outside Milan I stopped at a Police check to ask for directions - they clearly didn't have a clue as I didn't have the lights on and they didn't say a word. I accept that in more northern areas of the world ie. north of Watford, DRL may be useful, but I can assure you that driving down an Italian motorway in full sunshine it is not necessary. With the trend in modern cars for having to take the car to a dealer to change the bulbs, this looks like another reason to line the pockets of the motor industry. The other not so daft idea on the way is having to carry a reflective vest in the car. If the EU is serious about cutting accidents, they should ban people who get up in the morning from driving! - i'm sure that the majority of accidents are caused by people who get up in the morning! for those not tuned into my sense of humour - the above comment is not a serious one :unsure:

SEATs come already supplied withsupply them, so I guess their dealers will also have them.

:) :D Too right - unfortunately I think this probably applies to many other dealers too - after all how many of us have paid nearly

As always, they probably didn't quote

?? Refusing to pay ... or ripping people off ................. can't be the latter - Garages do it all the time

Am I missing something? an "02" should still be in Warranty - didn't you try and claim on it? Warranty or not - If this happens to mine regardless of age, I'll take this up with customer lack of services.

A colleague of mine booked his BMW motorbike into the main dealer yesterday for an MOT - Just an MOT. When he went to collect it, the bill was

Mine was about 5mm above max - the dealer said it was to account for usage? I had the same with Mitsubishi, hoever in their case the oil was slightly dirty - in my view they didn't suck out all of the old oil and toped it up with a standard amount, but then again I would say that. When ever I change oil in a car I firstly run the engine until it's hot and then leave it draining for at least 30 mins. When I re-fill it, I fill it to max, run the engine to fill up the oil filter and then re-fill it to max and re-check it after a day or so. How can we expect technicians to do that?

Thanks for that - the "motor factor" was the local "open-all-hours" place rather than a discounter, but the was no sign of a guarantee. Sounds like as usual with the motor industry, there is no wrong or right answer. He's got a 1.9 Alhambra - w-reg, so a bog-standard battery should be OK.

I believe this is something to do with needing a "box of tricks" to power the aerial amplifier which is built into the car - original units are able to do this but after fit ones don't. I don't think that the "box of tricks" is expensive and you can get it from a car audio supplier - try www.caraudiodirect.com - I've got a Kenwood in my car, an in all honesty don't know if it picks up AM as I only use FM - that's the real question - if you don't want to use AM then I wouldn't worry about it.

I still stall mine from time to time - last time yesterday. My wife has the same engine in her car (tuned by Skoda) and we've never stalled it. Surprisingly the car (Fabia) is not half the weight despite being half the size.

My neighbours battery packed up this morning (as well as yesterday) - you may recall my previous story. We went to the local motor factors who sold him a viper battery - never heard of this brand. The one they gave him was 80 amp, but the one we removed (original) was 92 amps. He phoned the retaileer who said the the figure on both batteries was a "cold start crank level" and that the battery he'd supplied was actually more powerfull and better - this sounds like ********* to me, particularly as the new battery is slightly smaller and lighter than the OEM one - any thoughts?