£123.38p dor fuse change

[Rusty Nuts]

Took the car to Gordon Love for a tow bar to be fitted they phone me half way through the job saying that the electrics have gone faulty. The brake lights would not go off. They said if I took it to a BMW dealer they can reset it and Gordon Love will foot the bill. Fair enough I thought took it to BMW they put it on their computer and analyse it as a fuse, replaced the said fuse and all OK. The bill for all of this £123.38, kindly made good by Gordon Love. But dealer charges are just a tad expensive I thought.

[Richgm]

I've got 3 points about this,

A) If I tried to charge someone £123 for changing a fuse then I'd expect to be taken to court or appear on one of theese rouge trader tv programms.

B) Are BMW that useless that they can't work out a fuse has gone without the aid of a computer.

C) Fair play to Gordon Love for owning up and footing the bill.

Rich

[Martin Keene]

I've got 3 points about this,

A) If I tried to charge someone £123 for changing a fuse then I'd expect to be taken to court or appear on one of theese rouge trader tv programms.

B) Are BMW that useless that they can't work out a fuse has gone without the aid of a computer.

C) Fair play to Gordon Love for owning up and footing the bill.

Rich

My thought's exactly... My the f##k can't main dealers do anything without the help of a f~~king computer...

Wa###rs...

[Guest]

Computers are a great excuse, because nobody understands them!

Similarly, my Audi TT needed a new key.  main dealer told me it was a load of money (cant remember  how much, but well over a hundred quid) just for the key, and then some labour to program it into the ECU.

Not standing for that, i managed to find a mobile key guy who cut the 'laser' key using a grinder, and some avid googling let me program the immobiliser myself.  Total cost about 20 quid.

Main dealers spread lies, make things seem complex.  These days most people seem quite happy to pay 350 quid for an oil change!!!

[Barry Ashcroft]

My engineers regulary cause airbag lights to come on when taking the dash apart nobody's fault just the over eager manufacturer not wanting anybody working on there cars except the franchised dealer.

Eg. Skoda octavia to remove the glovebox you need to disconect the pass airbag deactivation switch as it is on 2" of wire. makes no difference if you put the ignition on or not when you put it back togeather the airbag light stays on on the dash.

If the punter takes it to the garage and says we did it we get charged £45+vat to have it reset.

If the punter takes it in and says this light just came on they reset it for free  

[DanB]

If you've got VAG.COM and a dongle you can program duplicate keys on VW stuff. I've done it in the past on my Passat.

[samcooke]

£100 +vat is standard bmw dealer price round here for diagnosing a fault. The rest will be for the gold plated platinum fuse.

Amazing how many owners of 5 yr old £6k cars pay up...

[Pilot Pete]

If you've got VAG.COM and a dongle you can program duplicate keys on VW stuff. I've done it in the past on my Passat.

that`s a bit more involved than a google search though as you also need the VAG-COM interface for it to work.

But if I now do some googling I might find this very post that tells me where to go and what to do.

[Jenko]

Wifes Altea went in for it's first service today...

Conversation went like this

Me...What exactly do I get for my 237 quid?

Seat..Well sir, we change the oil and filter, and check everything.

Me...Define everything

Seat...tyre tread, lights, break pads, etc

Me..what does etc mean.

Seat..Well, you know, doors, windows, ummm did I say lights?.

Me..I'm not a total dimwit, and am more than capable than checking tyres, breaks, doors and windows, and the b****y car tells me when a light is duff!!!!!.....Please just do an oil change, and stamp my book.

Seat..yes sir....

Still some how cost £120!!!!!!......

I passionately hate main dealers, they consistantly take the Pi$$.

Paul.

[ChrisG]

Just for info, those with VAG cars with dodgy remote central locking keyfobs, you don't need anything to program a new one of those for most VW/Audi/Seat/Skodas.

How to program a new remote fob insert http://www.audittcca.com/faq/1045086641

How to set up a new key with VAG.COM http://www.ross-tech.com/vag-com/cars/Immo3-key-matching.html as Dan mentioned, although later VAGs (~2005>) use the dialup facility as mentioned above so can't be done with VAG COM I assume.

The first link worked for me having bought a new remote from Ebay for ~£15 for my Leon.

[pistonbroke]

Have you tried googling for Ferrari control data  

I beleive its now on public domain  

[wiz 1]

Had a MINI cooper s which had a real bad battery drain took it to main dealers left it overnight next day they rang up to inform me it had a tracker fitted and that was the cause. Bought the car off another main dealer a year earlier and they told me nothing about this tracker, obviously not subscribed to any more so i told them  to disconnect it. Picked up the car next day £150 oh and here's the fuses we took out.

Supplying dealers washed their hands of it saying it wasn't part of the service and pre sale inspection.

[tex]

My engineers regulary cause airbag lights to come on when taking the dash apart nobody's fault just the over eager manufacturer not wanting anybody working on there cars except the franchised dealer.

Eg. Skoda octavia to remove the glovebox you need to disconect the pass airbag deactivation switch as it is on 2" of wire. makes no difference if you put the ignition on or not when you put it back togeather the airbag light stays on on the dash.

If the punter takes it to the garage and says we did it we get charged £45+vat to have it reset.

If the punter takes it in and says this light just came on they reset it for free  

the airbag system has its own ecu which logs all faults it picks up - IE a wire disconnected - its this they will be clearing thats all barry.. there is no way to do it yourself without a consult checker with the right program which for the nissans we use at work is around 3k just for the software, then you have the ignition software.. etc.. way beyond the home mechanic. i have a program on the other pc that can diagnose a lot of stuff like that and tell how to fix a lot of faults Autodata the one most garages use (not the main dealers) but works just as well - there is a newer one out now i'm trying to get hold of obviously for the newer cars - if anyone gets stuck send me some details i'll see what it churns out..