Our Panda has a warning light showing, which our local indie service station diagnosed, using the OBD plug, as overly rich running, with several possible causes, thus making rectification, one by one, expensive.
After re-setting the light, the advice was to take it to our local FIAT dealer if the light reappeared.
It did: we have.
The initial diagnostic check is circa sixty five quid, which seems a lot to me as it surely cannot be more than half an hour's labour to carry it out.
We are NOT in an expensive part of England, BTW.
What do members think of this charging level?
|
Is the Panda still in warranty?
If not, seek out a Fiat specialist on Google, and research for customer reviews.
I did this for my SAAB (I know!) with great success.
Last edited by: neiltoo on Tue 18 Sep 12 at 10:51
|
|
You could always ring someone like this www.mobile-cardiagnostics.co.uk/ and see what their charges are.
|
Dont understand, you took it to your local indie (presumably because its cheap) and because they cant fix it they suggested you take it to Fiat. Now you are moaning Fiat are too expensive.
You have a choice, the cheap one cant fix it. Seems to me a case of wanting cake and eating it.
|
>>>What do members think of this charging level?
Very much in line with running a modern car..... or getting a boiler serviced.
|
>> You have a choice, the cheap one cant fix it. Seems to me a case
>> of wanting cake and eating it.
The cheap ones could fix it, but they suggested that fixing, bit by bit, would not be in my best interests and perhaps the FIAT folk could pinpoint more accurately. We shall have to see if that is so.
Their charge for the OBD check, advice and re-setting the light? £0.00.
|
>>
>> >> You have a choice, the cheap one cant fix it. Seems to me a
>> case
>> >> of wanting cake and eating it.
>>
>> The cheap ones could fix it, but they suggested that fixing, bit by bit, would
>> not be in my best interests and perhaps the FIAT folk could pinpoint more accurately.
>> We shall have to see if that is so.
>> Their charge for the OBD check, advice and re-setting the light? £0.00.
They didn't charge you because they didnt know what they were doing. Sounds fair enough to me
Now you need to take it someone who does, and they will charge you. Sounds fair enough to me.
Where is your beef?
|
>> The initial diagnostic check is circa sixty five quid, which seems a lot to me
>> as it surely cannot be more than half an hour's labour to carry it out.
The units to do the diagnostics cost several thousand quid and require a service contract for regular software updates.
The tech needs to be paid and trained to use the device. The service people need to be paid. And last, but not least, the free tea and coffee needs paying for. ;)
Sometimes it can seem a rip off (no more than 5 minutes to plug in and read a code) and sometimes it can be pretty fair if they have to scratch their heads and think about what's actually wrong. Would it be fairer if they charged you £10 for a code read and maybe £200 for more in-depth diagnostics? I dunno.
|
Reminds me of when I took 30 squid orf a window cleaner for one hours work in the early nineties.
Christ! he said, that's a whole days pay for me :(
Ah, but, I said ... you're paying for my 14 years experience, Crypton engine analyser, Snap on tools etc. etc. etc..
|
This is an area I have a bit of understanding in and I have seen a very expensive diagnostic system being used but the results it gave did were inaccurate because a faulty MAF was giving other sensors false readings. Modern vehicle diagnostics is far more complicated than plugging in a machine and getting a result, what you're charged for is the hopefully the knowledge of understanding those results.
What engine does your Panda have?
I assume the very basics such as it being service have been checked?
|
This sounds like shrewd business from the independant garage.
They've plugged in, and found it's not something obvious. They could spend their time finding this fault - time for which they probably couldn't bill at full price - with no guarantee of fixing the fault. However, what they've chosen to do instead is to give the customer the fault code information and a plausible story, and they've made it someone else's problem - freeing them up to do some more profitable work. It would only be worth their while taking on this kind of diagnostic work if their mechanics were not otherwize busy.
The Fiat garage, on the other hand doesn't have a neat way of avoiding this work, so, will charge handsomely for it.
Result - indpependant garage appears honest, trustworthy and good value, while the dealer appears to be rip off expensive.
|
|
You should have bought a nice simple, basic car Roger :)
|
>> You should have bought a nice simple, basic car Roger :)
Ho, ho!
An 04 Panda with the 1200cc Fire engine is not exactly ultra high tech!
BTW, Tyres, Uniroyal, only £44 at our same indie and the most fuel in put in at one go is £36, so, yes, £65 IS a lot in our scheme of things!
Plus our indie has a really great BIG waiting room, with TV & drinks machine, magazines, nice tables & chairs and the cleanest bogs of any garage I've been in!
|
|
Should have spent less in the waiting room and more on his diagnostic kit.
|
We shall see whether Stoneacre FIAT are able to pinpoint the fault and then fix it without escalating the time & cost!
Last edited by: Roger on Tue 18 Sep 12 at 21:00
|
|
When all's said and done you don't really have much choice. £65 is not exactly a fortune - basically a tank of fuel or a new tyre. Just part of the running costs for a car, pay up and find out what's wrong.
|
>> The initial diagnostic check is circa sixty five quid, which seems a lot to me as it surely cannot be more than half an hour's labour to carry it out.
>> We are NOT in an expensive part of England, BTW. What do members think of this charging level?
>>
£65 for a diagnostic check at a dealers?
Cheap!
|
>> >> The initial diagnostic check is circa sixty five quid, which seems a lot to
>> me as it surely cannot be more than half an hour's labour to carry it
>> out.
>> >> We are NOT in an expensive part of England, BTW. What do members think
>> of this charging level?
>> >>
>>
>> £65 for a diagnostic check at a dealers?
>> Cheap!
>>
Anything less than £200 per hour is underselling.
|
There was the old story of a man who took his car in for repair-the fitter came out to the car,listened,went to get a hammer and clouted part of the engine and the problem was fixed.
He presented the car owner with a bill for £100.
The billstated"£10 labour-£90 for knowing what to hit".
|
>> Anything less than £200 per hour is underselling.
Not in a town where a good three bedroomed semi can be bought for around £100K! (Or less - £92K as our daughter & SIL did this year. Needed decorating and carpets and general tidying, but that only cost circa £4K.)
|
The engine management warning light came on in my 330 a few months ago. It was still running sweetly enough so a pal of mine bought a diagnostic reader off Ebay for circa £20. I plugged it in, read the fault code, remedied the problem (s), bought the required parts and had it sorted for £65.
Its really not rocket science to buy a diagnostic reader and find out what is wrong.
Maybe I'm just lucky to have an old fashioned engine.
|
I don't know much about modern systems and diagnostics but it seems to me that people who complain about a high(ish) one-off charge for diagnosis don't have very long memories.
A decade or two ago you could pay for a day or two's labour while mechanics traced an elusive fault. Now you get a pretty reliable diagnosis very quickly, probably more cheaply in relative terms. As has been said above, knowledge and skill have to be paid for one way or another.
|
|
I will put my OBD scanner on any car for an hourly fee of double the scanner cost (£40) ..Minimum Period 30 mins..
|
Unfortunately for you and both garages, the price of property in the UK has no bearing on the price of diagnostic equipment in Italy 8-(
I wouldn't blame the maker, either. Remember that they have to bear the cost of developing and building the diagnostic system - which they must recoup - but they're also obliged under EU regulations to allow 3rd party repairers work on the cars they build.
Ergo, if they stand to lose the income from running diagnostics in Fiat garages, they have to recover it by charging accordingly when they sell a system (or provide the diagostic info to another tool maker). So the indy who buys one, in turn, has to charge you enough to recoup what he paid for it.
In this case, the know-how you're paying for isn't the code read off the car, its the experience (hopefully) that tells the operator what underlying fault - or chain of faults - generates that code.
|
I would have no problem paying £100 to have a fault accurately diagnosed. That's a fair price for the equipment and the brains needed to operate it, and interpret its results accurately. Unfortunately, the whole trade is undermined by the con artists who don't know what they are doing, and after relieving the customer of the money, then do a load of work that is not only unnecessary, but doesn't actually fix the fault.
I know a number of people who have spent four figure sums at both franchised dealers and independents and had the car returned unfixed, or in some cases made worse.
£60-£100 for a skilled technician and a good bit of kit to tell you what is wrong with the car is more than fair. Sadly, the chances of getting the skilled technician, even if they have the right kit, are not as good as they should be.
Word of mouth rules in these instances.
|
>> The initial diagnostic check is circa sixty five quid, which seems a lot to me
>> as it surely cannot be more than half an hour's labour to carry it out.
>> What do members think of this charging level?
Where I worked, the full cost (i.e. including overheads) to the company of employing someone was reckoned to be roughly three times the labour cost.
Last edited by: L'escargot on Wed 19 Sep 12 at 14:13
|
>>Where I worked, the full cost (i.e. including overheads) to the company of employing >>someone was reckoned to be roughly three times the labour cost.
So for every employee you go further into unrecoverable debt? You sure you've got that right? I had it that an employee costs to employ roughly twice what you pay them; before you take any account of company issues.
|
>> >>Where I worked, the full cost (i.e. including overheads) to the company of employing >>someone
>> was reckoned to be roughly three times the labour cost.
>>
>> So for every employee you go further into unrecoverable debt? You sure you've got that
>> right?
I've got it right. The full cost of a job carried out by an employee was roughly three time his wages. If the "product" was then being sold the selling price would have to be the cost plus the required profit.
|
Your understanding/theory makes sense, but not your words! Either that or I'm reading them in a funny way.
|
>> Where I worked, the full cost (i.e. including overheads) to the company of employing someone
>> was reckoned to be roughly three times the labour cost.
A former colleague considered a second career as a legal executive. He was told he would need to cover his salary x 3 in billable time. The rest was overheads, equity partners profits etc.
|
|
That's interesting about the 3x billable time. My salary by choice isn't the best (I'd need to work on more interesting accounts and work away a lot... no thanks) but 3 x salary works out at a daily rate that I simply not charged out at. Must work a little different in IT.... or I am in trouble soon. :-)
|
|
In IT my (external) charge out rate was 5 - 10 times my labour cost. (it varied by a complexity ratio I was upper tier on one band and lower tier on another) and I had to have in excess of 200 external billable days a year.
|
Traditional accountants work in thirds.
ie: Of a £99 (net) bill, £33 for employee costs, £33 for fixed overheads, £33 partners profit share
Not many businesses still work to this model, unfortunately.
|
Report: The Panda driven to dealer : SWMBO driven back home by a nice young man.
The engine management warning light was caused by an air intake pipe becoming dislodged. Fixed as part of the diagnostic check & the system re-set.
So far, so good.
The mechanic spotted an (unconnected!) water leak from the water pump. It seems a new pump is needed. At the same time the question was asked about cam belt change . Hmm: almost certainly never done. We had been aware of this but putting off the spend, as IIRC this is a "safe" engine in the event of a breakage.
As the cam belt replacement comes with a water pump replacement (nearly always together) we gritted our teeth and gave the go ahead for the two jobs.
A nice offer from the works receptionist - "as you are new customers" was to discount the diagnostic check by £30 and to give a further bit off for the combined job.
Result, so far, is the diagnostic check, R & R the water pump and cambelt for an all in price of £280.00.
Car to be ready tomorrow lunchtime.
Is my faith in a franchised FIAT dealer (as an ex Lada & Proton dealer myself!) going to be restored? We shall see!
Last edited by: Roger on Thu 20 Sep 12 at 15:55
|
|
that sounds a good price.
|
|
That's a bargain!
Last edited by: DP on Thu 20 Sep 12 at 17:29
|
IMO main dealers are not always the rip off merchants people like to portray them as, I think it just the age old unhappy customers make noise, whereas the silent majority just carry on.
Sounds like you have found a decent dealer
|
The cambelt is an easy job on the FIRE engine (think the book time is about 90 minutes) but the belt and pulleys alone are probably about £70, then the water pump will be a good £50 probably, so you're not getting a bad deal at all.
And how the so called indie didn't spot something as simple as a loose pipe!
Last edited by: RattleandSmoke on Thu 20 Sep 12 at 17:33
|
>> The cambelt is an easy job on the FIRE engine (think the book time is
>> about 90 minutes) but the belt and pulleys alone are probably about £70, then the
>> water pump will be a good £50 probably, so you're not getting a bad deal
>> at all.
>>
>> And how the so called indie didn't spot something as simple as a loose pipe!
>>
Or the water leak.........
VW charged me £25 for the water pump on the sharan
|
Dealers can be surprising for price. When I had my old 306 D-Turbo (XUD engine), the local Peugeot dealer service department were advertising a special price promotion for cars over 5 years old which then was quite a rare thing.
They changed the car's cambelt and tensioners for £240 all in, and guaranteed the job for two years. A no brainer. A decent quality belt kit at the time was £70 on its own.
Last edited by: DP on Thu 20 Sep 12 at 17:56
|
>> >> And how the so called indie didn't spot something as simple as a loose
>> pipe!
Sounds like Cowboys and Indies....
|
I expect they would have if I'd asked them to fix the fault, but I didn't. Oh - and they didn't have it up on a ramp as the FIAT dealer did.
Obviously looking for work, under the guise of a standard safety check, but I'm OK with that - my workshop used to do it too!
|
>IMO main dealers are not always the rip off merchants people like to portray them as
I think they are very rarely rip-off merchants. I think there are many more examples of non-main dealers who deliberately mistreat you.
Sadly, however, Main Dealers are frequently let down by their understanding of business process, their communication abilities and their competence with customer care.
|
>> Sadly, however, Main Dealers are frequently let down by their understanding of business process, their
>> communication abilities and their competence with customer care.
>>
Sadly that is true of many other businesses too.
On the other hand, there are some very good businesses - of all sizes, large, medium and small - which have got all those things almost perfect. In my experience these businesses are those which have the right team at the top and their competence permeates down the whole organisation.
|
>>In my experience these businesses are those which have the right team at the top
Spot on, but two issues normally exist; (take just Sales as an example);
Firstly there seems to be an assumption that the most appropriate person to manage a group of high-performing sales people is an ex-high performing sales person - which is rubbish (the swear filter wouldn't accept what I wanted to say), its a completely different skill set.
Second is the question of the way people attract;
Essentially an "A" can only live with another "A" and therefore will attempt to surround himself with "A"s delivering an aggresive, driven and growth business. In particular an "A" can only live with being managed by another "A".
A "B" is threatened by "A"s so will not recruit, bond with or encourage them.
A "B" is also threatened by other "B"s. In fact he will endeavour to associate with "C"s where he can feel superior. As a "C" will associate with a "D" and so on.
Consequently take an "A" salesman, promote him out of his expertise and make him a "B" sales manager and watch it all fall apart.
Of course, its more complex than that,but who can be bothered to type all that much.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Thu 20 Sep 12 at 19:25
|
>> whereas the silent
>> majority just carry on.
Exactly. Citroën dealer did the service on Mrs OBs car this week. Only did what they were asked, checked with me before doing any extra work and the whole service came in at £99.
They claimed the brake pads are worn, and I checked and yes, they are. So no attempt to rip me off with extras either.
Another one of the silent majority who is happy with the dealer.
|
|
Happened to me once at the Mitsubishi dealer,some warning light came on car needed a diagnostic check.Bloke in charge was going to charge me 50 quid for a five minute check that's how long it took.Car was bought at the dealers from new he let me off saying the charge was due to the machine costing 50 grand.
|
A smart top of the range diesel automatic KIA collected us and took us to the garage!
Final bill was £278.41.
That was for the diagnosis, S & F cambelt & water pump, plus refilling with coolant.
The bill also came with a very comprehensive report on the car's condition, so all-in-all I am quite OK with the experience.
(I also had a bit of a drool over the latest model Panda in the showroom: "yours for £132 deposit and 47 X £132 each month on a PCP!).
I doubt my income would support that though!
Last edited by: Roger on Fri 21 Sep 12 at 16:30
|
excellent price i think.
if i needed a smallish 4st car for general running around and rare motorway trip i would go and get a fit panda with 1.2 ish engine with aircon and be very happy with it.
i had a new mk1 panda in 88 and i loved it and no matter how hard i tried i couldnt kill it.
|
FIAT keep pestering me with the new Panda. Both AC and Lookers will not leave me alone. Although man maths does come to into it, my car is on just under 10,600 now. About 9600 of that is stop start city traffic. So my MOT is due in May (needs a new front plate, £10 DIY) and by the 4th service other things will need doing.
However what those stupid adverts don't tell you is that after just 2.5 years most people have negative equality. I shall not be getting rid of my Panda any time soon.
|
>> my car is on just under 10,600 now. About 9600 of that is stop start city traffic.
Put some injector cleaner in a full tank of petrol. Then drive 1,000 miles or more at 70. Otherwise the poor little thing will choke to death long before its time.
You are abusing that car Sheikha.
|
FIAT Panda - FIAT diagnostic check - neiltoo
