My son's pissed off at the moment. Had his Forester XT serviced at a Subaru service centre and also needed a pink slip. He knew that it needed a new new headlight bulb but rather than do it himself he let it go until the service. Turns out that this model XT has a special type of headlight bulb. Charged him $230 for it and also a fist full of dollars to fit it, not a 5 minutes job. Luckily he earns good money and could afford the bill. The full bill for the service pink slip, bulb, consumables etc as nearabouts $900.
The missus is getting her Forester Diesel serviced today, shudder.
Yeah mate, when you have to take your car to a "pro", you just have to accept that you have no choice but to bend over and grab your ankles.
I took my new (but 20 year old) Liberty in for a Vic Roadworthy last week, I'd replaced all four discs and pads and changed the fluids and reckoned it looked OK, so was a bit taken aback when they needed to replace the windscreen and found oil leaks from the rocker covers, crank and cam seals, (I had it sitting in my carport idling for an hour while I fcuked about with it and there were no oil spots on the concrete) a torn steering knuckle boot, sway bar bushes etc. All up, $1530, ouch!
No matter, I've learned the hard way that asking for a roadworthy inspection gives them a license to do whatever they think they can get away with, so I just play the game.
I bought a neat set of stainless headers for it on Gumtree a couple of weeks ago and rang the local exhaust place to get them fitted (not a hard job, only 8 bolts, but I don't have a hoist and crawling around the concrete driveway in this weather doesn't appeal) and the bloke I spoke to was horrified, he said they were probably made in China and wouldn't fit properly (no, they're actually made in Japan for a specialist Subaru performance shop) and he didn't want to touch them (read: wanted to sell me a set of his Chinese headers) so even though I also wanted a new tail pipe and muffler fitted, he wasn't interested.
So I rang Ravi (the roadworthy bloke) and he's happy to install them and source me the rest of the 'zorst system, which is good because he's closer anyway. I remembered when I was driving in the rain that he's charged me for new wiper heads but hasn't actually fit them, so I'll make mention of that tomorrow when I take the car in to get the exhaust done, it's bad enough being held hostage by repair shops, but not getting what you pay for pisses me off............