Is this reasonable..? Views please..

[Lady g]

I dropped the bike the other - and Simon (billinom8s) posted about it on here the other day - thanks to everyone who replied with suggestions. I think the main suggestions were carbs/oil in the airbox. Anyway, I took it to the garage the other day and they said they would do an initial assessment and let me know what it was/how much? I didn't hear from them for 2 days so called in to see them to find that the work had been done. It was in fact the carbs, which they cleaned and balanced. I was told it was 2-2.5hrs labour. Cool, I thought. However, when I went to pick it up I was charged 4 hours labour (£176). I didn't feel sufficiently confident to argue it at the time - being a girl and not at all mechanically minded and they were telling me they had actually spent 15 hours (!!!! How???!!!) checking stuff like spark plugs, ht leads, putting in on the diagnostics machine, only to find it was in fact the carbs.

Is the bill reasonable, or have they done the age old thing of doubling it because I'm a girl and don't know any better...?!

If the general opinion is that the bill is fine, then obviously it'll teach me to be more careful in future and not drop the blummin' thing (hehe), but if you think the bill is too high, I'm going to pop round there with my sister (that'll scare 'em) and my trusty baseball bat..! (Joking!)

[Maver-Nick]

Which garage Kim... I think I may have a pretty good idea...

Bring the bill with you to Paignton tonight.

[Jak]

Is the bill reasonable, or have they done the age old thing of doubling it because I'm a girl and don't know any better...?!

Ba$tards - sadly it happens all the time. I wouldn't go near any of the bigger dealers, I use a small local garage that I trust.

I'm sure Nick would help them see the error they've made on the bill!!! And don't forget to post up which garage it is.

[ZXR400Lee]

Sounds like GT Motorcycles

Thats far from resonable, you verbally agreed to the time taken over the telephone, if they'd said 15 hours to you on the phone, you could have just said, you'd take it somewhere else.

Lee

[chris_1127]

if they genuinely took 15 hours to diagnose crap in the carbs and carbs needing balancing, i think it would be an idea to let everyone know who the garage is so that everyone can avoid these monkeys! To check coils, leads, plugs and stator should have taken about half an hour once the tank etc was off - and theyd need to take the tank off to balance up the carbs anyway!! dunno how they test the cdi but assuming they have some diagnostic machine sure that wouldnt take long either

if you want good, honest work done from someone who really knows his stuff i wouldnt go anywhere but Tremletts in Ashburton. You may have to wait to get it booked in some times, but think thats just a reflection of how good he is

[billinom8s]

believe it or not, it was..............DYNOMAP

[sprocket]

Dynomap in exeter Damn that sounds well [Censored] up ... granted SVs can be a bitch to take apart but a grage with the right tools shouldn't take 15 hours to diagnose something like that

[Lady g]

Thanks for your responses. I've actually managed to speak to a couple of other garages - Bike Worx quoted £50-75 plus VAT to clean and balance the carbs (but said it could take up to 3 hrs), and Speed quoted £60 plus VAT on the basis that it would take 1-2 hrs. So, even with a bit of time to have a look around and check what was what, I'm thinking £176 is too much..

Mav - thanks - I'll bring the bill with me. Do you think I should give them a call in the meantime?

[billinom8s]

spocket,

wasn't an SV, is kims cbr 400 rr, nice n easy to work on.

[Maver-Nick]

Ok here goes...

Just got back from Dynomap, where I spoke to the boss man Mark.

I explained the situation, and emphasised that Kim wasn't whinging but being new to biking was genuinely concerned she might have been ripped off.

Mark was a bit defensive at first but soon opened up and consicely explained a full breakdown of the work carried out.

Firstly the diagnostics took an hours labour to find the problem, which was pot 3.

Then stripping the bike, Carbs, HT leads etc, cleaning and reassembling the other pots too, Balancing / re-balancing, meant the bike was actually on the table being worked on for around 8 hours.

As Kim seemed new to biking, and as Dynomap aren't rip off merchants, they rang Bridge to get a fair estimate to charge, Bridge said 5 hours would be fair, they decided to charge Kim 4 hours labour.

4 hours labour @ £44 an hour = £176. (They didn't charge for the Redex flush or the fuel they filled up with)

Marks parting words were, if anyone on here thinks they can carry out all the work they did in less time, then he would be happy to refund all monies paid...

Basically Kim, I hate to say it but technically they could have charged you a whole lot more...

I think a lesson may have been learnt by us all here, that is, if you can do it yourself, or know someone that can, then avoid garages like the plague...

[billinom8s]

cheers for that mav, will send a copy to kim

[chris_1127]

O
Marks parting words were, if anyone on here thinks they can carry out all the work they did in less time, then he would be happy to refund all monies paid...

My mate Bubbles here says that in 8 hours he could throw in an oil and filter change too, and do the valve clearances whilst he was at it. He cant guarantee not to throw sh1t at the walls if he gets angry though....

[age]

To be honnest I have delt with Dynomap for years and HAVE never felt ripped off.

Unfortunatley We all know bikes arn't cheap to keep going so at some point or another we end up with a Bill we did not expect !

It is also easy to pick fault when we know what was wrong but when you have to diagnose a problem and fix it it may take longer than you can bill for.

in my opinion if the bike is sorted now then it's £176 well spent.

Age

[TLS-Moose]

I tend to agree that it is awkward for places to bill this sort of work, and labour is always a killer - I take my car to a local bloke who charges £20/hr ..... Vospers Ford want £80/hr + VAT for the same time as was spent on the CBR, 4hrs at Vospers would have seen a bill for £320 .......

What it does re-inforce, and this is no criticism of anyone, is that if you are paying someone else to do work for you (whatever it is) you should always try to make sure what you will be paying for

[DynaMight]

Pricey if you ask me. I'd be well annoyed and never use them again. This is why I like the place I use, if they say they'll charge x amount of hours they actually charge x amount of hours but if theres a problem or it'll take longer they'll call you not just hand you a massive bill.

The fact that they just did the work and then lumped you with the bill annoys me, they're saying 'We've done the work now so pay up'

Always ask around here first, I expect theres meny people that dont mind helping out. I would had happily done the work for you, only take a few hours ;)