Ok I know this is a car were taking about but I would appreciate anyones experience especially any mechanics out there, I put the car in to get the near side spring replaced as its broken also the front pads changing and an MOT, I gave the garage the car at midday and they said they would call so 1630 I gave em a call they said they were having a bit of trouble getting the spring changed with seized bolts, so he said they would MOT the rest of the car and get back to me......well its late o'clock and no call....   I was quoted £168 and change for this all to be done, I had already paid for the fronts pads on top of this ( i know its easy but I didn't have a 7 mm allen key for the calipers).   My question is realisticly just how much can they caharge on top time wise due to a seized bolt, I mean they are the professionals and I wouldn't expect someone to pis around with the bolt for too long before getting it sorted...   Anyone any input for this?                                                                                                                                                                             

it shouldnt change the quoted price. they will spray it and do something else for an hour or heat it up. they quoted to do the job not an hourly rate                                                                                                                                                                             

Hi Johnny .. A bit more info mate ..... What car are we talking about. Make, model, year? What exactly does the £168 cover .. Parts, labour & VAT ???   Some top mount designs are a total f**k up, the design of them simply traps water & so they sieze up solid. The top mount has to be removed before you get the spring off.   Bit concerned about .. .. so he said they would MOT the rest of the car and get back to me.....   Errrmmm .. how do you MoT test half a car ........... Professional is not the first word that springs to mind here.   May not be able to reply tonight  but will get back to you.     Duns .. they will spray it and do something else for an hour or heat it up   A little simplistic there mate methinks ......   I have a BIG notice on my garage wall purely relating to siezed, rusted, broken or otherwise fasteners. I'll photo it & post it later / tomo.   I DO agree with you though about 'they quoted to do the job' ANY increase in costs should be informed to you Johnny, as opposed to getting a larger bill.                                                                                                                                                                             

*they quoted to do the job not an hourly rate*

Not quite that simple unfortunately. They quoted to change the spring not tackle seized bolts. If you go to KwikFit or similar for a new exhaust they'll always explain there's a risk of the bolts seizing or snapping and this will be charged extra.

johnny it depends on what type of car and garage used. A good little back street garage services my car for around £30 an hour but the main dealer charges £90 an hour. A seized bolt can easily take up to an hour to free off unfortunately! I had a clutch put in last week for £610 but the main dealer quoted £1100!!                                                                                                                                                                             

  l   Okay .. it seems I'm not much good at posting pics. But if you click the little red cross it does open up ............... ??????????? At least, it does whenI click it on my 'puter                                                                                                                                                                                

I'll ditto all these comments, it doesn't sound a bad price. Not cheap but not 'rip off' expensive either.
I'm a maint tech and we had a bolt shear on us yesterday, we've all the tools and it took us an hour to drill and then tap out. I consider that an easy one, wasn't rusted in either.
                                                                                                                                                                             

Its a 99 ford focus 1.8 ghia, thing is the front nearside has been making a god awful noise for a while I got a suspension specialist to check it for me ages ago and they said they couldn't find anything wrong with it, so i left it then witht he spring summer coming in, i used the bike all the time, its only when I went to work on it on the ramps at work that I noticed the spring, the suspenion specialist are now closed ( apparently they were crap lol)   I just hate it when you get a quote then it grows by £1-200 because of a ' seized bolt, I mean thats why we use a garage as they should be used witht his and can do it with the correct tools quickly.... its an old car but still less than 87000 miles on it, spent over £700 on it last year new discs exhaust rear suspension mounts, I don't mind paying for 'work but I hate paying for 5 hours when you know it was only 3 hrs....   I caught a garage out with that before, I watched the car going in at 10 am, they stopped at 12 for an hours lunch then rolled the car out side at 2 pm then tried billing me for 5 hrs.....only when I pointed out that I had seen the time worked on it as I was across the street in the cafe waiting for it tha toh oh I must have confused it with another car...yeah let me check with the mechanic.....   ....I hate that or marking up the cost of the parts...... my mate had a job done same parts as from halfords but charged him 2 times the normal cost of parts, Ihate getting seen off and never ever see anyone off myself, just my beliefs I guess not everyone elses..                                                                                                                                                                             

johnny like all businesses there's good and bad and it doesn't sound to me like they're trying to rip you off even at £200. An MOT is at least 30 quid, a spring will be 50 and 4 hours labour for spring, pads and test at least another £120.

You'll get it back tomorrow with the work done and an MOT so all sounds quite reasonable to me mate 

Its funny but we don't mind paying £3 for a pint of flavoured water yet someone shouldn't make any money on parts                                                                                                                                                                              

yeah I know mate but, its like the old cliche with the plumber   'sharp intake of breath and blow out'....its not as straight forward as I'd hoped mate, its gonna cost you'...syndromme lol                                                                                                                                                                             

They might not even charge you for it if it was easy to get out. Wait till morning then pass your judgement johnny. You might be pleasantly surprised.

I asked my garage to check and clean the brakes a couple of months back and was expecting to pay £30 but they charged me a fiver!                                                                                                                                                                              

As said if the price is a quote thats what you pay dont care what thay have in a poster on the wall, if thay give a quote thay will have to stick to it
                                                                                                                                                                             

what the garage surely should of done is pre warned re seized bolts can be a issue and if thats the case the price may well change, then they could of even rang you to let you see the seized bolts etc                                                                                                                                                                               

I took Geoff's car in for its last MOT. It had a fractured coil spring which needed replacing for it to pass the MOT.   Total cost was £154. Nothing was seized though.                                                                                                                                                                             

apart from geoffs wallet !!!                                                                                                                                                                              

Hahahaha Ian - too right. It was me that paid for it!!                                                                                                                                                                              

Bugger, duplicate post. Can someone delete please.                                                                                                                                                                              

good plan to send you Rach !!! you pay then...                                                                                                                                                                              

well saturday, 1200 still not a peep out of the garage...good job I didn't need it or have my kids down here etc...not impressed at all....                                                                                                                                                                             

What you got to remember these days ids that most garages do not employ mechanics anymore they are technicians who usually just connect a car up to a computer which tells them whats wrong with it. When I were a lad I used to do all my own repairs then all these electronic gizmos came along which were beyond me so I let the garage do it. I got so fed up with it that I bought an old Land Rover Discovery without electonickery gubbins and Im a happy teddy again, not only are the parts cheaper than a garage can get them for or rather what they sell them out at, and my labour costs are just my own time, oh and I dont charge 40 - 50 quid an hour either unless Im working on the wifes car.                                                                                                                                                                              

Hi, Sorry it might be a liitle bit late, but i've got a ford focus, had a terrible cracking knocking noise from the front suspension,i checked the spring, shocker nothing... changed wheel bearing though it was that cracking.. nooo.. not that !! I then changed  the torsion bar its around 10 inch long with ball joints on the end.. bingo noise gone. cost of part £10 .