Are RWCs a rort?

Submitted: Thursday, Jan 27, 2011 at 23:36
ThreadID: 83942 Views:4349 Replies:9 FollowUps:20
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Bought a 2007 Corolla in Adelaide last week for my daughter in Melbourne. The car has been privately owned, dealer serviced and on thorough inspection and servicing last week, was faultless.

In Melbourne, we had it booked in to a local workshop to obtain a RWC for Vic registration and transfer.
#1 The workshop can charge what they like for the RWC – this one cost $95 and the only fault the mechanic could find was the rear wiper smeared the rear window because I hadn’t cleaned it. So he added an extra $14 for replacing it with an aftermarket blade.
#2 He had us in his office for 30 minutes while he wrote the certificate – during which time, he suggested we get a “slight noise in the front" checked out by him on another day. We politely said we’d look into it. We have never heard the noise.
#3 He then suggested we book it in with him for a service - by saying the vehicle was due – which is actually due in 5 months.
#4 He rubbished the “Toyota Extra Care Warranty” which we had transferred from the previous owner by saying they won’t pay out on any claim – they always have a way out of it…not worth the paper its written on.
#5 Then to thoroughly annoy the daylights out of us, the certificate was rejected by Vic Roads because he made a correction to the engine number by crossing it out and rewriting it. My daughter then had to spend 2 hours taking the certificate back to him and getting him to rewrite a new certificate, then returning to VicRoads. Instead of apologising, he said “Yeah I wondered whether they’d knock it back”.

This experience is similar to another daughter’s experience in Queensland last year where her Landcruiser was knocked back on a RWC because it had “some wear” evident on a trailing arm bush. The workshop quoted her $700 to replace the bushes. To get the roadworthy (I gather you are not allowed to get a second opinion on a RWC), she got another workshop to replace the bushes for half the price – the removed bushes were in serviceable condition. The RWC mechanic didn’t even inspect the work had been done.

So what are your thoughts?? Is the RWC system used by some states too easily abused? I’d like to think we just struck a couple of duds, but there's an incentive there to make a few $$ when you have the owner over a barrel.

Why don't all States have independent inspections (such as the Government inspections in SA and NT)?
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