This is why I drive a shed and do all the maintenance myself

It just boils my blood stuff like this. It's the future now.

They are called stealerships. They need someone to pay for the glass showrooms with free coffee.

Had a really bad sound coming from my exhaust 3 years ago, out of desperation went to my local ‘quick fit fitter place ‘ - needs complete new exhaust and catalytic converter- over £1000. Changed the back box myself - £35 and 20 minutes. 3 MOT’s later all still fine - robbing bar stewards!

For 20 years I got yearly oil changes done at National Tyres for about £60 all in. It's now £195, so for the first time in many years, I did it myself.

I used to do all my own car repairs when cars were easily repairable. Now , without a garage to work in and no special tools , I'm too old to lie in the street in the rain fixing cars. Solution came through the door. My OAPs bus pass. Takes longer to get anywhere but I can admire the views and save on everything. Just got a little Honda motorcycle for sunny days that I can still repair cheaply myself.

I work in a dealer and I can catagorically tell you not to go there for anything other than a free health check. Then take your car somewhere reasonable using the free healthcheck data. Dealers are legal thiefs

People are scrapping perfectly good cars now because of this and extortionate tax rates, its been my experience that more garages are jumping on the rip off band wagon .

Took a Honda Jazz to local dealer who said it was going to be £700 for part. Took it to Arnold Ckark who was original Honda dealer...£200 to cure electrical fault.
..

Just had the same on my 2012 Honda civic, Honda wanted to charge me £945 for a new alternator, called into a local garage and they supplied and fitted a new alternator for £320 👍

Toyota wanted £220 for a tank filler neck and £2600 for a rear subframe on my son’s 17 year old Yaris.  EBay sorted me out.

I had a Lexus GS300 with an exhaust blow. The local garage said that Toyota wanted £1200 for that piece of the exhaust - if they had one in the country. The garage said that they would try to weld it for a quote of £80. When I went to collect it, they only wanted £60. What a decent result!

I'm fortunate for having a good local garage just 5mins away. They do a thorough job, don't use OEM parts for the sake of it - and don't overcharge or "upsell' unnecessary work. They've helped me keep my 2003 Honda Accord running without costing me the earth.

Thank God my Son, who has been a car nut literally since he was in nappies, is a Mechanic and MOT Tester at 24. The lad is an old head on young shoulders: everything raised in the video he was saying when he started his apprenticeship at 17. He has no interest in iPhone Chinese EVS or the like, he is 100% ICE. He's saved us so much money on parts, not to mention his mates, and we do pay him a good labour 'mates rates' as well.

The car industry in in the toilet due to WEF-sycophantic Governments and their scam of Net Zero, personified here in the U.K. Manufacturers/Dealers are gouging in part as they are getting whacked if they don't sell their quota of milk-floats-in-drag - I believe it's something like £12K per car not sold - criminal.

Been very fortunate to have had some lovely cars: Jaguar, Lexus, Saab, Alfa Romeo, Audi to name a few. Nowadays, I drive a '97 Nissan Micro 1.0L Vibe - peppy little 998cc 16V Twin Cam engine returns around 42mpg urban and regularly over 60mpg Motorway. Bought 6 years ago £200, my Son reckons its around £800 now - just love driving the K11. In fact my Son told me a couple of days ago one Nissan Micra K11 Auto sold for over £2K in London to get round the ULEZ scam, and a Toyota Yaris Auto top spec for the same reason £4.5K!


Channels like this are invaluable - please keep up the excellent work it is truly appreciated.

Hit the nail bud....it needs to change....the talk about recycling and reducing waste yet this kind of thing increases waste.....madness!

i used to do all my car repairs myself over the years .could not afford garages when driving in the early days so had to learn myself which has stood me in good stead to being ripped off. but im now 83 and dont bend about too well so have to get any work done for me.i find that a good alternative is to use mobile mechanics that come to you for essentials like oil changes etc.just had a oil and filter on my crv for £85 at my house.no running around and not worth getting your hands dirty.i find generally mobile mechanics are far cheaper as they dont have the overheads of running garages and workshops.as you say do your homework and dont take the big boys word for it.

Can't emphasise enough that if you want cheap and reliable motoring you MUST get an early vehicle and learn how to maintain it.  I bought a SECOND car (of the same make) to guarantee I had all the spares I might need (apart from normal wear/tear stuff that I buy new of course).  I now have all the body panels, glass, lights, spare gearbox and electronic modules I could ever need.  Cost me £350.

Issue with AC few weeks ago. Dealership said £700.

Spent few hours on chatGPT, watched few hours YT videos.
Amazon part £21.
Then, I spent 2 hours on car and all fixed.
If I knew exactly what to do in the first place that would be 5 min job.
It was literally 1 screw and one plug.

£700!!!

Yaris rear hub £23.95 on Ebay. With ABS sensor.

Used to take our 2003 Rover 75 1.8 to a local garage. They charged £180 to change the oil and over £400 for a full service, in which the mechanic broke the plastic panel that's below the windscreen. I now do the work on the car myself. Goodness knows how much they would have charged me to replace the electric window motor on the driver's door. Now mainly get the service items from Discount MG Rover Spares, an excellent company.