Mechanics Hall of Shame

So you chickied out of a confrontation with them???

 

I can think of at least 5 garages off the top of my head that I could list here for varying levels of incompetence, but I also know for fact that in most cases it was a specific technician that was the issue, not the estabilishment as a whole.

Almost all technical trades have become a minefield in modern times, the people you go to because they know better and are 'professional', who at one time you would happily trust to do all you asked, keep you safe and take pride in their work are a dying breed.
There are a plethora of bad mechanics out there, be it poor knowledge or corner cutting to save money, laziness or just bad attitude to the importance of the job they do.
But, there are also some very, very knowledgable guys too who may not agree with a diagnosis of the customer and solve the problem in a more consise and practical fashion. Does this make them bad also?

It's a dangerous act soiling someones name without all the details and I don't want a thread like this to turn into a virtual lynch mob when it could provide a valuable insight to where to and where not to shop.

Being charged for something that wasn't supplied is of course not on at all. What were the brands involved, out of curiosity? Also, what are you now running? Model numbers too please.

If you post on here about a bad service, include all the facts. Not "they were rubbish, I said I wanted a new wheel and they just put weights on my old one" type posts.
This should be for information , not to throw dirt at businesses.

Cheerios

 

Nein mein fuhrer, you are incorrect. The people I dealt with at J&G and my other nemesis: Pole Position, it was both the mechanics and the owners that fucked me; they were one and the same person.

 

Incorrect about what? This thread should be for information, not sh*t slinging. If you're going to complain about a business with an aim to helping other members avoid the same fate then give details, please.

 

They did that to you, literally. Didn,t the other customers complain?

 

WTF The fuck are you on about, I did in the first post about the bloody battery!!!!!

Im sorry, but have you been munching Huyabusa Dave's happy pills????

(It was too funny to leave that as a text)

 

FYI, WTF means What the f*ck. No need to put it after

I asked if you can give some more details, what battery did they say they fitted and what did they actually fit.
Also what was their response when you contacted them about it.

If the thread is going to continue as a point of reference then it needs to be done in a fashion that won't incur risk of slander.

 

You have waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayy too much time on your hands, its 10 and I just got home from work so I dont have time to check things like names of batteries! I just know that I paid £100 for the battery and Nick said there is no way that was £100 battery, he said he could get those ones for like 45 quid and it was a rubbish make. When I called them, they said they dont fit rubbish batteries. Seriously, what do you care if I slag off a shitty service and warn others not to use it especially when they charge £60 an hour plus VAT for labour! Can we just have one thread of mine that doesnt turn into a boxing match over trivial shit and lands up getting locked. If you have had bad service, just like 100s of review sites on the net, you can express your opinion. Simples! Threads should go thus: I tell a story, you tell a story, the next guy tells a story, not "lets write a diatribe about the state of affairs in ancient Patagonia"

 

Sooooo, there is nothing much going on in Patagonia at the moment then?

 

Er, small point Yer 'Onour: it's libel, I think, if it's written, and slander if it is verbal, and that presupposes it isn't true - if the accusation is true, then it cannot be either slander or libel.



The main point I guess is that posts should tend to be informative and factual rather than giving the appearance of being just subjective. I can think of several retail purveyors of stuff which I continue to use even though others have uttered dire imprecations about their lack of service, quality of merchandise and so on. Maybe I'm just lucky? (Although after today, I find myself snorting ironically that I even wrote that). My entry on the 'What's pi$$ed me off today' thread was only the start of it!

 

Buggerit, always get them confused!

Without going into a diatribe, if they gave you a receipt then it should be on it.
If it doesn't match then you have simple grounds to take it back.

No batteries cost that much! Even Oddessy batteries don't cost £100, which are the cremé de la cremé of batteries. So yes, if that was the cost for just the part then you were massively overcharged.
Yuasa, Motobatt and Numax are all reliable and OE fitted makes that can be had for around the £45 mark. Anything that isn't a Rob Hunter is generally up to the mark.
You say you didn't take the battery back to them to be checked, so you don't know what their response would have been. Did you confront them about the apparent wrong battery issue?

I don't care about the garage, what I care about are the details.
I assumed the intention was to allow this thread to be built into a resource for members to browse, consider cases and make their own judgement when furnished with all the details.

But it appears that what you want is a place to complain instead. I'll leave you to it, knock yourself out.

 

I don't see any issue with giving your own personal opinion of poor service - after all, it does us all a favour. The same can be said of good service, so it's worth spreading the word.

I also can't be arsed with the semantics of correct protocol, but DO value feedback gained from people's experiences. In short, if a company doesn't want bad publicity, they should do their job properly in the first place.

The end.

 

I'd agree, but when the details are hazy there needs to be confirmation.
Sometimes parts can fail, it's an imperfect world. But Tanya says she didn't take the battery back to be checked, which means had it been confirmed as faulty they may have replaced it. Or maybe they wouldn't, we don't know from the available information.
The cost is excessively high for a battery, unless it included the labour at circa £60ph. In which case £45-50 battery plus 30mins fitting time would be about the £100.

Good service is easy to quantify, it makes you happy you dealt with someone.

Bad service is more difficult and that is why I asked for the details, because the premis that a product was poor based on a 3rd parties opinion is hardly a reliable source in my eyes. What makes the new mechanic any more trustworthy than the first?
Especially if the original mechanics weren't given the option to rectify the problem.

 

I notice that Demon-tweeks are retailing Super 8 batteries at prices between £167.99 for a little 'un to £503.99 for their B2600P model. I guess these are exceptionally high end bits of Lithium ion kit with weight advantages over conventional lead/acid accumulators, but their prices put this into a different context, methinks?

 

LikeI said,it would cost me £60 to get the bike picked up and taken back to J&G plus the £60 + VAT an hour they would charge to check the current flow of battery (apparently) plus whatever they would charge if they did change the battery. For the same money (£130), I got a new battery, current flow check and the bike picked up by Nick who I know and trust having being recommended to me by many mutual friends so if you are stupid enough to throw good money after bad, and give money to people have screwed you over once, then good luck to you. I also dont have time to sit around waiting for a pick up man to get my bike to get it to J&G and pick it up when Nick was nice enough to pick it up AND drop it back at my house in the evening. Seriously, you do have way too much time on your hands, this was supposed to be a helpful thread to warn people about bad service and not to waste their money but if you want to get into an argument and detract people from putting reviews like they do on literally 100s of other sites on the net, then be my guest but I dont have time to argue with you anymore.

 

PS. Welcome to London where you get ripped off for everything, if I bought the battery myself, yes, cheaper, but mechanics throw a generous mark up on it. Anyway, I asked for the best battery for my bike.

 

... source and fit it yourself next time! Job done.

 

Not sure how it effects the context, as they're for specialist racing application and not general road bike usage and it's implausible that any garage would suggest their usage for anything less.
The point of debate here as I see it isn't the battery at all, but the details of what happened. If we're going to list poor quality service then it seems only logical to give the facts as well as the feelings involved. So this could be built into a useful resource for other members, not just a extended "what p*ssed me off today" thread. If I've got the wrong end of the stick then I'll move it to the general section as it's of no real mechanical benefit should that be the case.
For reference the B2600P wouldn't be suitable for an R1

 

But this Lithium battery IS suitable for the R1 and good for road use (ie not total drain):

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/LITHIUM-I...08?pt=UK_Motorcycle_Parts&hash=item5d3206061c