The Mégane II Owners' Club

I own a 1.9 DCI Privelege and feel i have just been seriously ripped off.
Took the car for its 2nd service 36000mile. When booking it in i asked about the cost. £280 i was told plus obviously if anything was faulty that would be extra. When picking the car up the cost was £461!!! After picking myself off the floor they told me 1st price didn't include parts ie oil filter, washer fluid, pollen filter etc!!! Have i been ripped off. Wouldn't of taken it to a renault dealer if price in 1st place hadn't seemed reasonable.
Thank god there were no faults.

I would have refused to pay it. That's bang out of order!

Write to trading standards and try and get some of your money back

so thats £280 just for labour+£181 for service kit which would consist of-oil+filter,air filter,fuel filter,pollen filter,and consumables? ?
at least dick turpin wore a mask when he robbed you!
you need to shop around next time mate.
i think i can feel an increase in the price of `foreigners`coming on

If they did not state when you first enquired that the cost of £280 did not include parts then I would definatelty consider contacting trading standards, as they have blatently misled you.

Yes £461 is very expensive. I would have expected £300-£350 to be a more realistic price for a 36000 service.

What was listed on your bill?

Thats worryingly as my 36,000 service is almost due. When I enquired I could have sworn they said that it included all the oil etc.

nickbell69, I have a question for you. How much is that dealer charging an hour?

Not sure if it's any use to you but that are nearing the 36k service but AC Williams LTD in Lincolnshire are a main dealer and do the 36k service for £250 all in and that is a negotiable price apparently

cipman. not sure about hourly rate but from what i can make out it was £280 labour for the service. Guessing it wouldn't take a mechanic long to do a service? Couple of hours 3 if i was been kind!!! Think from the other posts i will challenge the garage over it and then try trading standards if no joy. Luckily the front brake pads needed replacing but i told them to leave them and i would do them(could of added another couple of hundred quid onto bill!!!)

It doesn't matter how long it actually takes the mechanic to do the jobs involved, all the labor is standard and it's only a matter of copying values from a table. It doesn't matter if it takes him 3 days or 3 seconds to change a wheel, they can't charge more than 10 mins or so for the job and surely they won't charge you less than that.

There are only two variables here:
- how much are they charging for an hour (it varies among the dealers)
- what additional jobs they performed on your vehicle.

What you could do in the first place, before booking, is ask how much they're charging for an hour and compare with other dealers around, let's say on a 100 mi radius.
Another thing you could do before taking your vehicle to the dealer is to check and top up all fluids and note the dealer about that. So they will not charge you 30 quid for a windscreen washer tank fill up, fluid and labor (30 is just a guess). Same thing for cooling and breaking fluids (the last shouldn't be toped up anyway - just let them know that it's been checked).

Don't expect much from challenging them. The only interesting thing would be a fully detailed list of the labor times, job by job, and a detailed part list. That is if you don't already have it on your bill.
If you have or will be able to get such a list it would be interesting to see it (delete the personal and dealer details from it).

But thats the thing. That price quoted SHOULD have included everything needed for the service. I can only suggest to phone up some other garages and ask whats included in their services.

Just for reference I phoned 2 main dealers for quotes for my major (36k) service in my 1.9dci120 sport tourer (september 2006 so may have gone up a bit). Both quoted £292 inclusive of everything. As they were in different counties and from totally different groups (both franchised main dealers) This suggested to me there must be some kind of fixed price system for all main dealers - perhaps not then? When I picked up the car the bill was exactly £292. Sounds to me like you have been ripped off.

Out of interest i just paid £274 for my 130 DCi FAP service at 18,000......including two new front wipers