Technical MOT Advice

[mankobranko]

Hi,

My 02 Stilo 1.6 Dynamic failed on numerous points today and I got a bill of £260 for the work he could do with parts, which seemed rather expensive to me.

This includes mechanical parts and labour for:
- Anti Roll Bar Linkage
- Coil Spring
- Suspension arm

I'm not exactly sure on everything until I get the report. In addition to this I'm going to need a new tyre (which he doesn't do), re-attach a floppy front wing and fix the broken front windscreen wipers - Which he first quoted me £200 for until I found the brilliant answer on here about fixing the linkage with the parts from Wipex for £30.

All in all, price to pass MOT with price of initial test it's going to be around £400.
I was wanting to ask, that if I bought all parts needed myself, including the wiper linkage and got it fixed elsewhere at another time would it be that much cheaper?
I'm sure I could fix the wiper linkage myself. Buy a 2nd hand tyre for now, fix the wing myself etc.

I would love to be able to just tell him to fix it and I'll take the hit of £400, but that's easier said than done atm.

Any advice at all would be much appreciated.

 

[MarkThompson4]

Hi,

My 02 Stilo 1.6 Dynamic failed on numerous points today and I got a bill of £260 for the work he could do with parts, which seemed rather expensive to me.

This includes mechanical parts and labour for:
- Anti Roll Bar Linkage
- Coil Spring
- Suspension arm

I'm not exactly sure on everything until I get the report. In addition to this I'm going to need a new tyre (which he doesn't do), re-attach a floppy front wing and fix the broken front windscreen wipers - Which he first quoted me £200 for until I found the brilliant answer on here about fixing the linkage with the parts from Wipex for £30.

All in all, price to pass MOT with price of initial test it's going to be around £400.
I was wanting to ask, that if I bought all parts needed myself, including the wiper linkage and got it fixed elsewhere at another time would it be that much cheaper?
I'm sure I could fix the wiper linkage myself. Buy a 2nd hand tyre for now, fix the wing myself etc.

I would love to be able to just tell him to fix it and I'll take the hit of £400, but that's easier said than done atm.

Any advice at all would be much appreciated.

Drop links - roughly £30 and easy to do yourself if you have allen keys.
Coil spring - could just be out of place which is strightforward to sort - happened to me - but for a new spring I reckong will be at most £50?
Suspension arm - £70 tops and easy to replace
Front wipers - wiper motor from breakers; £20? Easy to replace yourself
Front wing floppy - get some new wing bolts to mount it securely? Would be cheap to sort.
Tyre - second hand tyres are pretty cheap and to replace one tyre I paid a tenner.

Everything apart from changing the tyre and coil spring can be done yourself so taking that into account I reccon you could get all the parts for 200ish and fitting the spring/ tyre would add maybe 20-30? You could find cheaper parts (there are some springs available for 20-30 on ebay and there are some cheaper wishbones available) you could bring the overall price down to half your original quote.

 

[mankobranko]

Cheers Mark, I thought as much. I'm sure I can knock at least 100 off the price of the 400 by buying the parts myself and fixing what I can. Picking it up today so I'll scour eBay and the like for the parts.

 

[nikkiy9]

get on to eurocarparts as they have a 30% discount code knocking around at the moment (SERVICE30) so you can get all the parts and then 30%, i've just paid £20 for a full service kit for my punto