Mike Mcdowles (not sure if that the right way to spell)

Its the only garage in Aspatria, Cumbria as far as im aware of, but he just charged my mate (P reg vw polo) £1050 for a job he quoted £300 for and unfortuantley he was gullable enough to take his word for it and not get a written statement. He doesnt turn up when he wanst your car in or says he cant do it that day without any notice, e.g. he drives from a good distance, forseeing no problems as he has not had a phone call like always arranged (if my mate rang, the garage would not answer the call anyway as they cnt b arsed) and ends up turning him away. Basically avoid like the plague!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What did he/they do to the car for such a high bill?

A quote by law is what must be paid, is it not?

An estimate can be argued later.

A verbal quote cannot be argued by law, whereas a written estimation can be argued upon, but not necesarily sorted unless you get the person to agree to a term of condition of work which states that there is a lea-way of a set amount that can deviate from the original estimation by something like £50 or whatever is set. Im busy trying to find pics of what my mates car went in for - its gud reali, worth waiting for!

punto_jr_sx75 said:

A verbal quote cannot be argued by law

Click to expand...

Can in Scotland .......aslong as there is a witness :bang:

Might as well tell the whole story - worth a read! To reply to the question what did he go in for, funny reali, NOT. We were coming back late at night from a pub where we had played pool. NOBODY had anything to drink. We left the pub about 12.15ish and Mymates cinquecento was loaded with two friends, one in the back and one in the front. My girlfriend got in the back of my mates polo and i sat in the front passenger seat. We set off down the road and reached around the 55mph , it wasnt raining and a corner didnt seam that big, but after rounding it, my friends cinquecento locked up on some dried leaves and carried stright inot the dyke at about 40mph, ouch, seeing as there was a 3ft dyke whioch it came to rest ontop of. If that wasnt bad enough, in horror, we had to watch it happen then, we also locked up and hit the back of the cinquecento in my mates polo. Both cars ended up in the dyke. I realised later after taking my girlfriend to casualty when my father came and towed the polo back that night, that i had not had my seatbelt on. It sounds funny but, i had saw the crash happening and had prepared myself for a decent distance stop in the polo to get out and check they were alive and as we crashed in tot eh back of them my seatbelt unclicked and my knees hit the dash. I later found out i had broken three ribs upon impact. Here is what cost my friends polo £1050 to repair when quoted £300:





Note to people with Subs - the boxes were ruined but the subs were ok. Also, weall reckon that the person in the back cudve been seriosly injured, had he not had some of the impact taken by the spare wheel and boxes
Note to people with Backboxes and decats, the front of my friends polo was this bad in the middle becoz of his rear box and the decat. Coinsidentely the decat and back box were practically untouched and neither were warped or bent!

thats nasty, looks more like a £1k repair to me, surly your mate didnt think he could get that sorted for £300, he sure the bloke didnt quote £1300?

looking at a local pattern parts warehouse:

bumper : 85
grille: 13
headlights : 48 (each)
indicators : 11 (each)
bonnet : 55
wing : 28 (each)

so parts alone are over £300 plus vat, just for the major bits, let alone all the fixings, little bits, god knows what else that needs straightening under the skin, paint

then add labour, etc

can't see where £300 came from, but if you reckon the locla courts will entertain a small claim then would be worth hearing the outcome

yeah thats not a £300 job. if I got that much damage looking like new for £300 I be laughin so hard you could here me from where ever I was.... like a big Giant or something.

HhhhAAAAAAAAAAAAAhahahahahahahahaHohohohohohohoho! <<< is what you would hear.

But I gues it must have been a kick in the nuts having the repairs changed from £300 to £1000 might have had plans for that other £700. £300 quote is a bit misleading. Didn't really give him much opertunity to shop around.

Glad everyones ok but £300.........no way sorry! The price quoted seems reasonable for all parts (as mentioned) & labour,paint etc.

Cool to see so much interest! Well as it goes, i quoted £350 for repair panels and spray, the nearside wing, light and indicator were all untouched - NO WARPING to wing AT ALL as was inside the engine bay! It needed a bumper, offside wing, offside light and indicator bonnet, grills and a radiator hose. I quoted him £250 for second hand parts in excellent condition on a rear end write off 16valve polo from a local salvagers (DA Autoparts in dumfries) which is a differnet style bumper which looks cooler but direct replacement and teh wings are the same and free fitting and a professional car sprayer who is a good friend of mine was going to spray the wings up for the cost of the paint, which was defo gona b £100. The only problem was, we needed a car to get down to alton towers as a group of eight of us were going away for two nights in their hotel (AWESOME btw - gorgeous hotel and grounds Amazing water park and entry to park all for £60 each sharing two decent size rooms and entry into water park for both days - DEAL!) So he approched 'said garage' and they agreed to do the work and give him a free courtesy car for the 1 week it was going to be in all for £300.

Forgot to mention!!!!! The courtesy car arrived on the night we were stopping in my mates flat to all get an early start, so we didnt get there until 10.30 at night and planned to set off at 7 in the morning. It was a Rover 240i 16valve. Dare i say more? The icing on the cake is that when we arrived, we pulled up inot the car park at the hotel and the clutch cable went 'ping' and snapped. Lucky, my friends Gf was a member of the RAC and six hrs later it was fixed ready for the journey home the next night. ICING ON THE CAKE:

14 miles back onto the motorway the next night after getting our moneys worth and spending the rest of the day in the waterpark after we were exhausted by the amusement park, the car decides to die slowly and my friend manages to swerve into the next service station and we l'alp (cumbrian word for 'hop') to push it the rest of the way up the hill into the service station. Thinking its been fixed after we continue when the car started again via a loose battery terminal, we get on the motorway. Two miles down the road we manage to loose all power again and the car is coasting in the fast lane, my mate manages to swerve onto the hard shoulder just past a brisge and it starts to **** it down. Half an hour after we are shivering under the bridge whilst its raining waiting for the RAC after my friend looped the motorway and dropped his gf off and continued to the next services, 2 hrs after we break down on the motorway the RAC arrive and Clarify what i was thinking that the alternator had packed in. They charge the car and linp us back to the next petrol station and miraculously it has a toilet. at 11.00 a tnight we sit waiting for a tow back home, until........................this is good..................wait for it............................. 5.45 the next morning Imagine, if that petrol station wasnt 24 hrs and didnt have a toilet!?! When we are collected the car is taken on an hours trip with us in the cab into a depot and the car is left for an hour before somebody finds us to tell us that the alternator is bugg*rd (we know) eventually 3 hrs pass with us waiting in a small office with nothing but our thumbs to play with and we finally get taken home. TO EVEN FURTHER enhance this tale uof unbeleivableness the guy that tows us back has just seriosely worked a 48 hr shift an falls asleep at the wheel towing the car at 70mph plus. My friends gf wakes him up as we close the gap on a artic on the motorway! We get home somewhere in the afternoon the next day - unbelievable:bang: I am NOT LYIGN on ANY part of that either if you've bothered to read it. I promise that that is the whole truth. Funny reali now when you think about it :nono:

well you should be reporting the tow driver. shouldnt be working 48 hours(although i have done similar ) could have been a multiple death situation!!

I know, we were all knackered, forgot to get his name. He wasnt getting paid for taking us back thow and he felt sorry for us so thats y he grabbed a wor van and took us. we only found our later on that thats what he had done - there had been 16 crashes or suamt that night and hed had worked since the previous moring so we just thanksed him and made him have a sleep when he got to our end!

It's always a good idea to get 3 or 4 quotes for work - if one seems too good to be true then it probably is.

Thats true but the quotes were similar and he got a car for the time his was off the road it seemed too good to be true and he took it. I never thought of advising him different because i had came up with a similar quote for doing the work myself where i work