27-10-2022, 04:28 PM
My 67 reg. Berlingo Multispace was bought new by a very good friend of mine who, unfortunately got Covid and passed away, so I bought the car from his estate.
He had religiously had it serviced (??) by the Main Dealer he bought it from,so it's now 5 years old with 30,000 on the clock.
I took it to my local small garage for a service yesterday, who I have used on numerous occasions before and trust.
He also prefers you to buy the oil, filters etc, so you know what is being used and he only charges a very fair price for labour.
When I went to pick the car up, he called me over to look at the old parts he had taken off.
First, the air filter was filthy and he showed me the date stamped on it which showed it was the original one , factory fitted 5 years ago, when it should be changed after 4 years.
Secondly, the oil filter was also covered in black sludge as was the inside of the filter housing . He reckoned that the oil had never been changed.
Thirdly, I was there when he changed the cabin filters as he had forgotten to do it before. When he took them out, they were all mangled up and had dirt on both sides of the filters which he suspects thay have turned them round instead of installing new ones. Not only that but they were fitted the wrong way round with the arrows pointing outwards instead of inwards.
When I got home I checked the past service history and , sure enough, it said all these parts had been changed, (and charged for) at the proper times. I think, because he didn't do large mileages, the mechanic thought it OK to skip these changes and just do the visual checks which don't incur any costs, perhaps the mechanic can then use the parts charged for his private jobs.
This is from a very large Citroen main dealer with branches thoughout the UK!!.
Obviously there is nothing I can do as it wasn't my car at the time, but I'm glad I use my little one man garage who will treat his customers the way they deserve.
He had religiously had it serviced (??) by the Main Dealer he bought it from,so it's now 5 years old with 30,000 on the clock.
I took it to my local small garage for a service yesterday, who I have used on numerous occasions before and trust.
He also prefers you to buy the oil, filters etc, so you know what is being used and he only charges a very fair price for labour.
When I went to pick the car up, he called me over to look at the old parts he had taken off.
First, the air filter was filthy and he showed me the date stamped on it which showed it was the original one , factory fitted 5 years ago, when it should be changed after 4 years.
Secondly, the oil filter was also covered in black sludge as was the inside of the filter housing . He reckoned that the oil had never been changed.
Thirdly, I was there when he changed the cabin filters as he had forgotten to do it before. When he took them out, they were all mangled up and had dirt on both sides of the filters which he suspects thay have turned them round instead of installing new ones. Not only that but they were fitted the wrong way round with the arrows pointing outwards instead of inwards.
When I got home I checked the past service history and , sure enough, it said all these parts had been changed, (and charged for) at the proper times. I think, because he didn't do large mileages, the mechanic thought it OK to skip these changes and just do the visual checks which don't incur any costs, perhaps the mechanic can then use the parts charged for his private jobs.
This is from a very large Citroen main dealer with branches thoughout the UK!!.
Obviously there is nothing I can do as it wasn't my car at the time, but I'm glad I use my little one man garage who will treat his customers the way they deserve.
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