Morris Minor Owners Club

The warranty on my everyday car ran out at the end of January, it was serviced and given a clean bill of health at the end of December by the supplying dealer.

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Front pads 30% worn.
Rear pads 50% worn.
Advisory additional work not included in service cost :- four wheel alignment and two tyres near wear limit.
Work agreed and paid for.

1000 miles later
Mid January.
I took the car in for a health check as the warranty was about to expire, again car was given a clean bill of health. The following comments were on the report.

Front brake pads 30% worn.
Rear brake pads 50% worn.
No advisory work required.

Would I like to extended the warranty for 1 year cost £1150.00 basic or £1375.00 for a more comprehensive cover?

No thanks.

3000 miles later.

Thursday brake pads low warning came on, took car to dealer today.

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Front pads 70% worn new discs and pads required. £325.00
Rear pads 90% worn new discs and pads required. £325.00
The best bit.
Rear upper wish bones excessive play both sides £810.00

You have got our extended warranty sir? It may cover the suspension works required.

Now either my driving style has gone completely mad and I've worn out the brakes and more worryingly the rear suspension on my car in 3000 miles or something is not right.

They didn't seem too happy when I wouldn't authorise the work and told them at those prices I would shop around, also that I was not best pleased as the car was in only 3000 miles ago and given a clean bill of health.

We'll ask the service manager to ring you on Monday sir!

Now we all wear brakes out, but rear suspension wishbones go from fine to need immediate attention in 3000 miles?

Now if it turns out that all the quoted work is required I will have it done and pay for it, however not by them and my next car won't be from them either.

Rant over feel better.

Is it current procedure to replace the discs every time the pads are replaced??????????

My franchised dealer advised the front brake discs and pads needed replacement. I ground the small lip off the discs and kept the old pads on. Would you be surprised if I said this was 3 1/2 years ago and passed an MOT last December. The MOT did advise the rear brakes were binding so I took it to Halfords for a brake check and they replaced the rear pads and freed off the sliders. Still nothing wrong with the front brakes though. I now know even the franchised dealers invent faults to line their pockets once the warranty has expired. So it's not just the government that is greedy it's everyone

I think this is a case of, if you get the work done under warranty it costs the supplier of the warranty, let's face it its in there best interest to keep the costs down when doing work under warranty.
If you have it done, it costs you and the garage makes the profit.
It's sad that in today's capitalist business world the only thing that matters is making a profit however it is made.
What ever happened to good old customer service.......

Surprisingly today I haven't had the promised phone call from the dealer service manager !

Took the car to an independent mark specialist late this afternoon who couldn't put car on their ramps as both had cars on them, quick look in the carpark and they said -:

Rear pads, discs and sensor required £190.00.

Front pads and discs not desperate but can't really tell until wheel off as the inner pads may be worn or disc groved will do them if I wish £230.00.

Rear upper wishbones :-

Never heard of them needing replacement at my mileage (53k).
Owner has the same car with 147k on the clock and not replaced them and your car doesn't look like its had a hard life but there's always a first time, we'll take a look at them when we do your brakes but if they were OK 3000 miles ago they aren't exactly going to be falling off.

Booked in for Thursday so we'll see.

Is there no way you can do the discs and pads yourself?

Provided the discs aren't within their minimum thickness you could just do a pad change for now.

Price up some discs and pads from your local motor factor, you'll be surprised how much you could save. It used to take me about three hours taking my time and several cups of tea. Pads and discs are far easier than working on drums in my opinion.

What car is it ? so I can avoid!

I don't understand this fascination for fitting rear discs - except on very high performance cars - drums are so much longer lasting and rarely need any work. I'm carefully to choose our 'moderns' from cars with drum rears. . Rear discs get damaged by not being 'used' - and of course - to change the rear pads usually involves a complicated 'winding back' procedure which is very difficult if you don't have the special tool to do the job. And front discs - can usually stand 2 sets of pads before becoming sufficiently worn to need replacement. Usually very easy to change the pads - and just remove the little rusty lip that sometimes forms on the edge of the disc. Tapping with a hammer usually does it - or run round it with a small angle grinder. Very straightforward job.

I recently replaced my discs, the pads have no,wear,,in fact they may have been the second set of discs with the same pads. I need wear sensors on the discs rather than on the pads!!

Dean wrote:Is there no way you can do the discs and pads yourself?

Provided the discs aren't within their minimum thickness you could just do a pad change for now.

Price up some discs and pads from your local motor factor, you'll be surprised how much you could save. It used to take me about three hours taking my time and several cups of tea. Pads and discs are far easier than working on drums in my opinion.

Looked at doing brakes myself as I have done many in the past, however :-

Rear discs are just below minimum thickness, electronic hand brake needs a reset procedure which if not done correctly causes premature brake wear and reading an owners club forum it is very easy to get wrong requiring a dealer visit to correct.

Priced parts cheapest I can find.
Front pads and discs £150.00
Rear pads,discs and sensor £187.00

les wrote:What car is it ? so I can avoid!

It is a high performance so called British prestige car (or is that Indian) , I have waited a very long time to be able to afford one and knew it would come with large maintenance bills. What I object to is paying them to find out either they weren't done properly or the dealer is looking for work. Presumable one or the other of these or even worse a mixture of both is the case here or alternatively I have spent the last 3000 miles driving like a lunatic.

I'll wait until Thursday before making my mind up which I believe it to be.

Hmm let me think now.

Still not had my promised phone call from the dealer service manager.

Just collected my car from the independent specialist, new brakes all-round, asked about my suspension to be told two people had looked at it and could find absolutely nothing wrong.

So that's £810.00 quoted for work that is in the opinion of two other mechanics not required!

OK, what make and model you seem very reticent telling us

At this stage a strong letter to the manufacturer may avoid others experiencing the same story

I've had issues with main dealers also, on one occasion, when questioning their hourly rate, the guy actually said to me ' Most of our customers don't find it a problem' ! Stuck up [Don't swear or you will be banned - Admin]. I've still got the car but go elsewhere.

millerman wrote:OK, what make and model you seem very reticent telling us

At this stage a strong letter to the manufacturer may avoid others experiencing the same story

I wouldn't want to let the cat out of the bag.

They told me at the independent garage today that complaining to the manufacturer's customer service department in Coventry would generate a letter telling me that the dealer is a separate company and refer me back to them.

So it sounds as if this kind of thing is not as uncommon as I'd like to think.

Main dealers are almost all rip-off merchants. That's why I use a local trusted independent, biggest bill I ever had on a car was just over £500 and that was for a water pump on a Celica GT-Four. Half of that was parts and just over a full days labour. A beast of a job as well. I'd never buy a new car myself, always go with a used one with FSH - someone else has had the costly bit!