Part of the way service and repair garages get into the good garage listings is by subscribing to Motor Codes. ( www.motorcodes.co.uk ). This makes them work under a code of conduct and gives disgruntled customers a means of conciliation and arbitration over a dispute.
So first Geistack must check up if this garage is a member and if it is he must take his complaint to Motor Codes.
If Motor Codes does not look after him then we will investigate why not and if we are not satisfied with Motor Codes we may withdraw our support of Motor Codes and leave the OFT to taker over.
The other way garages get in is by recommendation. Someone has to actually recommend them. But if we receive complaints about that same garage we investigate and if we uphold the complaint we remove the entry.
Geistak has done neither of these things. But he is welcome to to do them.
HJ
{link amended as the closed bracket right at the end prevented it working}
Edited by Dynamic Dave on 04/02/2010 at 10:24
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>>But if we receive complaints about that same garage we investigate and if we uphold the complaint we remove the entry.
This is a difficult one. I discovered a dealership that I know of in the list that sports three hats - one that I used to use, but no longer use. I have no specific complaint - though some friends felt that this dealership was incompetent, messed them around, was completely dreadful, etc, etc. I just felt that the overall experience was not very positive, and started going elsewhere.
I personally wouldn't classify them as a good garage. But I (unlike my friends) have not found them to be dreadful either. And if 5 people have told HJ how good they are, then who am I to argue?
The funny thing is that the small independents that I (and other people I know) use, and have found to be very good indeed, do not appear in the Good Garage list at all.
Edited by tyro on 04/02/2010 at 09:15
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The funny thing is that the small independents that I (and other people I know) use and have found to be very good indeed do not appear in the Good Garage list at all.
That's because - clearly - no one has bothered to recommend them.
Why not do so yourself.
It's only a guide - based on people's experiences - though, and not a guarantee of good service.
People's expectations do vary. There is indeed on the HJ guide a main dealer that I stopped using because I grew tired of them continually telling me that work needed doing when it didn't - although the work they did actually do was good. I've seen this same dealer recommended on some other (model specific) forums and the main plus point from many of the people posting was that "....I got a free coffee and a danish pastry and they washed the car...." !!
J
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Hi, HJ, thanks for the offer.
It might be too late - this happened almost 3 years ago (and the dealer is no longer franchised by the marque in question)
They're still in business though - and sporting three of your hats ;)
I never really understood what they were up to - obviously, initially, they wanted to press he sale, but their continued refusal to refund the £500, even after it was clear that I would rather poke out my eyes than buy anything from them after they had revealed their true nature, was a bit baffling.
They actually offered to personally extend the warranty on the fuel pump to five years! - and seemed oblivious to the fact that their refusal to honour our unambiguous agreement to return the cash made their promise to stump up a couple of grand (plus) for a new pump, if necessary at some time in the future, a less than compelling gamble on my part!
I never doubted that I'd get the money back, somehow - it just took a lot of letters and phone calls. It was their absolute and blatant dishonesty that really threw me - almost like the Simpsons episode where Mr Burns lets Castro look at the Trillion Dollar banknote and then asks for it back, only for Fidel to reply, "What note?".....
Just out of interest - they had previously won a 'Garage Of The Year' award as well! - which just goes to show....;)
I can formalise a complaint if you want - unless the timescale rules it out?
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In response to tyro, the reason why the excellent small garages he mentions have not been included in good garage guide is that no one has recommended them. If people don't recommend a garage it doesn't get in, unless it gets in on the Motor Codes criteria. A recommendation has to be made via the system or e-mailed to me. No use just posting in The Backroom.
Geisak, please do as I asked.
First check if the garage is a subscriber to Motor Coodes and if it is make your complaint that way.
If it isn't, e-mail me with the details and we'll look into it.
HJ
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>>That's because - clearly - no one has bothered to recommend them. Why not do so yourself?
I have recommended the one I use, but it needs four more recommendations. (But perhaps I'll be the fifth?) I can't recommend the others - even though they are very highly spoken of, because I've never used them.
One problem that I have with the good garage site is that if one is searching for independent garages in, say, Scotland, I cannot find a way of looking in a particular area of Scotland - I just have to scroll through all the garages in Scotland. Obviously one can use the sight search, but that is not quite as useful.
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I notice Mercedes Chester is listed with 3 hats.
I have a Mercedes and live in Chester and I've never heard anyone say a good word about them, and Mercedes own survey rates them at 85% - I've never seen another one that low, most are in the high 90's.
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I notice Mercedes Chester is listed with 3 hats. I have a Mercedes and live in Chester and I've never heard anyone say a good word about them and Mercedes own survey rates them at 85%
This site (honestjohn) is one of the best motoring sites around - which is why we all use it but it's not infallible.
For example if I was the service manager of Mercedes Chester - and became aware of the GGG - I'd make sure 5 staff members emailed in to HJ (posing as customers) to say how satisfied they were...................
Jacks
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One problem that I have with the good garage site is that if one is searching for independent garages in say Scotland I cannot find a way of looking in a particular area of Scotland
If you want a non-model specific garage in the South East for your next service, you get 141 pages of results :(
EDIT: 704 garages in total
Edited by Focus {P} on 04/02/2010 at 13:38
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If you want a non-model specific garage in the South East for your next service you get 141 pages of results :(
...and what it would be nice to have would be the capability of listing in (say) distance-from-postcode order, which you often see on other sites. No idea how easy it is to implement that though.
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"For example if I was the service manager of --- --- and became aware of the GGG - I'd make sure 5 staff members emailed in to HJ (posing as customers) to say how satisfied they were..................."
Well, maybe I've got a suspicious mind, but if my memory serves me rightly, 5 years ago there were only a couple of garages in the Inverness area listed in the GGG. They were both small family run businesses. When I looked today, I was astonished that in the past few years about a dozen Inverness garages have been added. Pretty well all come into the "glass palace main dealership" category.
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