Undercover Car Servicing: Some Good News for Drivers
An undercover car servicing project carried out by Warwickshire County Council’s Trading Standards Service has revealed that two-thirds of the garages inspected delivered services that were good or average.
Warwickshire County Councillor Richard Hobbs, Portfolio Holder for Community Protection said:
“In Warwickshire, one of the highest areas of consumer complaint is car servicing. Our undercover car service inspections not only enable us to take action against garages that are delivering a really poor level of service, but help us to identify garages whose services are reasonable but could be improved.
Over the years, Trading Standards Officers have been able to help these garages by providing them with advice and information to enable them to turn an average car service in to a good or very good service.
Consumers rely upon garages to carry out proper services so that they can be confident that their vehicles are safe and roadworthy. We will continue to work with garages to assist them to deliver better services whilst tackling those garages that are not taking their responsibilities seriously.”
Trading Standards Officers submitted vehicles with faults to six garages located in Warwick, Stratford, Nuneaton, Rugby and Leamington Spa. One garage produced a good service (Stratford) and two a quite good service (Stratford and Leamington Spa). One service was average (Rugby), one below average (Warwick) and one poor (Nuneaton).
No garage produced a perfect service, in which all faults would have been identified and rectified, but those garages that were rated as good or quite good missed only one or two minor faults.
The worst garage, which was based in Nuneaton, missed seven separate faults which should have been identified and fixed:
1. Power Steering Fluid low
2. Pollen Filter not checked/replaced
3. Nearside front side lamp inoperative
4. Nearside rear number plate lamp inoperative
5. Spare tyre still deflated to 20psi
6. Nearside windscreen washer jets still misaligned
7. Brake Fluid low
This service cost almost £200.
Garages involved in the project are not identified, but any garage that is the subject of successful prosecution will be publicly named.