when I first bought the Z I took it to the main dealer nearest to me.

 

told them it was an import 2 weeks before its 60K service. After the car had been with them for TWO hours, I got a call at the office to tell the that "your car is an import, did you know?2 and that the service would cost more due to the increased proce of parts. ended up paying them over £900 for that service, including a new water pump.

 

12 weeks later, I was driving down to Malvern when I heard the cooling fan going. pulled the car over immediately, opened the hood to the sound of boinilg coolant and smoke emanating from every rubber hose the eye could see.

 

Turned out the incompetent SOB`s had not tightened the main water hoses correctly. However, since I had changed the lube in the intervening period, they claimed it was my inexperience and maltreatment of a "very complex car"

 

Took it back to them to have the problem fixed (I know, I know) and they told me that due to my error, the head gasket had busted. Charged me £400 for replacement of the hoses and handed over a quotation of £6,236 for replacement of the head gaskets.

 

Thank God Luke at the Zcentre and Jeff at Zedworld are straight up and honest, otherwise those assholes would have charged me almost 3 months income for an utterly unnecessary job!

 

NEVER AGAIN!!!!

 

Anyone out there had a similar experience?

that should be incorrrectly......sorry!

even if it wasnt their fault (which it was), how can they charge that much for a head job??!! ffs?! :eek:

 

I thought we were expensive doing head jobs on mercs. around £1000 (including resurfacing). looks like were a bargain basement compared to that!! :rolleyes:

 

autodata time to r&i headgaskets: 15.1 hrs. lets lose the odd £236 on parts. £6000 on labour. thats £397.35 ph!!!!

 

where is it again, i think i'll go for a job there, wonder what they pay their techs?!

They told me that the job involved 72 hours of labour. The bill for that alone was over £5K not including VAT! Nearly messed me pants!

I've herd nothing good about main dealers since I got my Zed. I had work done by Jeff. It was the 60k service in fact with cam belt, water pump, thermostat, new plugs. Had other work as well but the 60k service worked out at around £400.

 

Had no problems with the car at all. I would rather take my car to someone who works on Zeds constantly even someone who works on sports cars constantly. But I just couldn't justify taking my car to someone who works on micra's, I mean theres a big difference.

LOL 72 hours - that's about 10 working days, 2 full weeks working on it!

Any one remember that person who went Nissan with over heating problems and was giving an estimate well over a £1000 to fix. I think they wanted to change the heatermatix and radiator.

 

They went to Hiteq where they looked at the engine for 1 min, went into the back and put a new radiator cap on with no charge.

Just found it. It was you Chris wasn't it. Nissan quoted £1300ish for new head gasket when it was the radiator cap.

 

Stuart

Originally posted by jenbstevieb

They told me that the job involved 72 hours of labour. The bill for that alone was over £5K not including VAT! Nearly messed me pants!

 

Could you do us a huge favour ? Could you tell them that you need the work doing but need a formal estimate for some reason ?

 

I would love to see the estimate sent to some magazines, TV programmes and, most importantly, Nissan GB & Nissan Japan for comment.

Yes that was me.

 

Even though that was a total ripoff (I don't think they even knew what the overheating fault was so quoted head gaskets) it is nothing compared to £6K for the SAME job!

 

Best thing was Hiteq gave me the Rad cap F.O.C and didn't want to accept any cash that I offered him for helping me out.

Just shows it's worth a tank full of petrol to go to someone who knows their stuff.

 

My local Nissan dealer closed down last year so I'm happy :)

If I need to travel to get things fixed I may as well go to a specialist who knows what they are doing and doesn't try to rip me off.

 

I think Nissan work on the basis that most small garages don't like to touch these engines and think they can charge what they like.

Originally posted by Hairsy

Could you do us a huge favour ? Could you tell them that you need the work doing but need a formal estimate for some reason ?

 

I would love to see the estimate sent to some magazines, TV programmes and, most importantly, Nissan GB & Nissan Japan for comment.

 

Yet again, the man's right (must be all that clean living up a bloody mountain what does it :) )

 

I have heard that Nissan Motor GB sometimes do wade in on the side of the customer when dealers take the mickey. Also the dealer will be a member of one of the trade bodies - complain to them at the same time.

 

But not all dealers are this bastardly - my local one is fine. (Dan Perkins in Slough - free plug but won't get me any discount). Not perfact but quite adequate and they do have a couple of Zed specialists.

 

Good luck - don't let them get away with it.

 

Cheers - Gio

Asked for a quotation to be faxed over to the office. Never been done yet but I`ll follow it up.

 

I always usd to work on the assumption that to get a good job done you gota shell out a few extra quid. Was fine with that until I got the Zed. Head teccie at the dealership told me that he had never seen a TT before and was going to have to contact a mate of his at Wolverhampton. WHAT?!?!?! should have realised then huh?

 

Best of all though (this one will make you fall about a bit):D

 

On the job sheet, the b*£$!rds charged me 15 minutes labour for transporting the old oil to their disposal facility! Almost 12 quid for some spotty oik to walk over to the disposal tank and pour my oil in it! HA!

6K! When my cam belt went on the S4 at 90 mph, it only cost 2K, thats a total head rebuild by Audi! You could buy a new Nissan lump for less than that! Anyway Ill do it for 4k cant say fairer than that!

On the job sheet, the b*£$!rds charged me 15 minutes labour for transporting the old oil to their disposal facility! Almost 12 quid for some spotty oik to walk over to the disposal tank and pour my oil in it! HA!

 

lol! seriously, its not unusual for companies to charge for disposal of waste products, as the cost of getting them removed has risen a lot over the last few years due to new disposal regulations, although £12 is very much ripping the arse out of it.