Not Happy Jan

Rojac, don't rant - take action by going to your local Consumer Affairs/Vehicle Repairers Licencing office, lodge an official complaint, and provide comprehensive details of the poor standard of workmanship and poor level of customer service.

The offences are - fraud - unsatisfactory workmanship that was short of any acceptable level - failure to carry out customers specific instructions - and substitution of specified, requested parts.

Anyone who performs repairs in the manner that you have stated, doesn't deserve to be in business.

Cheers, Ron.

Rojac

You should have followed through with the Small Claims Tribunal...

It is you and the other party - not their legal team. That is why the process exsists. So that the little guy can have recourse through Natural Justice.

Cheers

Anthony

Why go back, the second time one may ask, location is very convenient to where I work.

Bad all right, and a mate with his LAndcruiser had the same issue with diffs after a rebuild.
Found in the middle i=of the Simmo north that his diff housing bolts were all loose, and it was leaking oil badly !!
Luckily he had spare oil suitable and could get it all ok to continue.

It's a crap shoot getting a good mech, most times you are REALLY better off buying a good manual and doing work yourself, which is a sad indictment on the industry in general.

Unfortunately it's a case of 98% of mechanics give the rest a bad name !!!

If you want restitution I'd recommend a staged approach. Going through a tribunal is the last step.

Start with a written demand and at every step indicate that you're not going to let it slide. The workshop manager has to conclude that it's easier to make it right than to fight on.

The Small Claims is the way to go, AFTER you have written to the firm stating your displeasure and what you expect them to do to fix the situation.

Keep all your paperwork from before and after. Make sure you write it all down especially if they only give a verbal answer (phone).

I took Toyota to the Consumer Tribunal, was a bit of a time investment as they didn't turn up to the first hearing (which didn't do their case much good - 'magistrate' was peeved at the no show).
But, I got satisfaction and if the part fails again on my current Prado, I will be in a very strong position.

Sometimes just having a go, documenting it all and following it up, without actually having to front a Tribunal will bring them to the party.

Fair Trading can ONLY negotiate on your behalf. They have no teeth. The Consumer Tribunal can make an order on a firm. No escape then.

bill

All done and dusted.

Cheers

Which state is this place, which suburb ????

I work in a trade where I cop flack for the world's problems, so I really don't want to attack "all mechanics in general" (bless all the decent ones out there!)...but...
My hubby has discovered some things about his car's servicing over the past few years. Bought it new from a big Gold Coast place and took it back to them twice for servicing.
The first 2 services were awful (like you, Rojac, he gave them another try) so he told them he wouldn't be back and decided to do his own.
Fortunately he's in a complementary trade and very mechanically minded and can do so.
As part of the advice re heading outback, people always say "Get your car serviced"...and you assume the experts are doing the right thing by you!
But are they?
Did they really put in the full quota of oil?
Did they really check all those things?
Did they really adjust and tweak and tighten?

Just a thought for you before you head off the beaten track...!

:) Robyn

Motor mechanics rate pretty highly on the list of disputes - and many are genuine.
However, a lot of mechanics fail to explain to the customer what could go wrong and what went wrong when they operated on the clients vehicle.

As we who fix stuff, all know - when you get a mongrel of a job, it can turn into a horror story.
The studs that break off unexpectedly and which give you heartburn trying to get the broken sections out.
The components that break right as you remove them, having shown no signs of problems prior to removal.
The things you found wrong that are in need of immediate attention, when you were working on something else.
Then the customer claims you're trying to diddle them, and make them pay more than they should.

All this can be resolved with clear communication and explanation and display of the troublesome components.
But a lot of mechanics won't spend the time trying to explain it in detail, convinced the customer still won't understand, anyway.

But when it come to ignoring customers explicit instructions and not replacing components, yet charging for replacements - that's just plain stupidity and outright fraud.

I can recall way back in the late 1970's, when the brother and I supported the old man in his retirement years, he had a HQ Holden wagon that we'd bought for him.
He got the servicing done locally and we refunded him any money he spent on it.

One time, we rocked up after not having seen him for a month or so, and he told us how he took the car in for a tune-up and oil change - and when he went to pick it up, the garage bloke told him the diff had crapped itself and he'd had to fit a new one.
He accordingly billed the old man for a sizeable additional sum, and the old man presented us with the invoice that he'd paid.

The brother and I were very suspicious - the wagon had only done modest kms, it had shown no signs of diff problems previously, and no-one in the family had been flogging it.

We both crawled under the car and checked for any signs of diff replacement.
There was none.
There was untouched dirt around all the rear axle bolts, and not a single component in the rear axle showed signs of any wrenching.

We hot-footed it down to the garage with the invoice and the old mans wagon, and fronted the mechanic, who was a Pom.
We told him he was a fraud and a con man to boot, and we told him that we knew his diff replacement story to the old man was a straight-out lie.

He blustered and BS'-ed and carried on, until we told him the police were going to be informed, unless he refunded the full amount for the phoney diff replacement - that we KNEW hadn't been replaced, because of our wrenching knowledge.

At that, he produced the money and repaid it. Naturally, he didn't get any more work from either us, or the old man.
I often wonder how many others he'd taken for a ride, and how we probably should have dobbed him into the police.

Cheers, Ron.

So that all don't get tarred by the same brush another western suburbs repairer Alltrac, I've had good service from in the past, bit pricier than some of the others but allways get a good job back and get what one has paid for.

Unfortunately at the time of the other work, there was over a week pre advance notice required for bookings and I could not wait that long.

Cheers

What many businesses’s don’t understand or fully appreciate is the value “Customer Advocacy” (word of mouth appraisals).

And this goes for all types of enterprises not just motor mechanics.

Companies use all forms of advertising to promote products or services, but that is them telling you how good it is. What is far more powerful is a mate, friend, or acquaintance willing to put their reputation on the line and recommend a business to you that they have good dealings with.

The reverse of this is just as powerful.

And that isn’t to say that the customer is always right, frequently it comes down to miscommunication, but ultimately it will always be the customer that gets the last say!

Cheers, Baz – The Landy