Unless you spend your entire day without either watching the television, reading a newspaper, or simply talking to anybody at all, you must have heard of the dreaded ‘credit crunch’. It seems that every newspaper headline and news broadcast mentions the worsening state of the UK economy. Every day, another financial institution has collapsed, taking your hard-earned savings with them and causing yet more doom and gloom to spread.

There’s winners and losers in every situation however and if news reports of the last few days are to be believed, certain businesses and services are booming as cash-strapped customers are tightening their belts.

Whilst restaurant profits are down as people cut back on extravagant expenses like eating-out, pizza delivery companies are booming as people that don’t (or can’t) cook, order a takeaway to scoff at home. Presumably in front of the television watching the news about how bad things are. Shoe repairers (or cobblers as they’re more usually known) are also thriving. Where once a pair of perfectly good shoes with just a wobbly heel or holed-sole would have been tossed-out in favour of a new pair, a decent cobbler will repair them for around £10 (and sell you a new keyring or a shopping trolley on wheels).

I sometimes feel that we’re in a similar position as we can repair your existing car when it breaks, for much less that it’d cost to buy a newer one! We’ll also advise you on how not to waste money on ‘non essential’ servicing items. Let’s imagine that you’d been thinking of getting a new car for a while, as your old car (say a 1999/T reg Escort 1.6 with 90,000 miles on) was getting-on a bit and was due it’s MOT soon and you were worrying that it might cost a fortune. In ‘richer’ times, you might have simply booked the Escort in for an annual ‘full’ service and MOT test, that would cost around £240 at our very reasonable prices. Now, having already spent your money, you might find it needs a few things to pass the MOT. You already knew that the exhaust was a bit noisy, but had just got used to it, and so it slipped your mind. You may even remember a friend noticing that your front tyres looked bald when you last went shopping, and him mentioning it to you. You’d certainly noticed that as you turn corners, there’s a noise from the front of the car that you guessed might be a wheel bearing failing but you just turned-up the volume on the stereo to drown it out.

So, having already had your service (that you specifically asked to be done first, thinking that it’ll help pass the MOT), you’ve already spent the £240 and still the car can’t pass the MOT. Now, the new exhaust rear silencer you need will cost around £60, the front wheel bearing will cost around £110 and a pair of ‘budget’ tyres will still be £80 so now your £240 has become £490.00 (which is a lot more money)

You’re now faced with a difficult choice. You either have the MOT failure work done and end-up paying nearly £500 to keep your car on the road another year, or you decide to sell it (having been fully serviced, but with only 2 days of MOT left!) and buy another car.

If you decide to sell your car without an MOT, you’ll probably only get £300 for it, despite having just had it serviced. If you have the MOT failure work done and pay the £490, your car would probably sell for maybe £700 with a new MOT.

So, what’s my point in all this? Well, the simple fact is that having your car fully serviced is a lovely thing when you can a) afford it, and b) have a newer or more prestigious car where it adds value to it. The fact is that if you’ve had your old car regularly serviced for the last few years, missing the odd full service isn’t going to do much harm, and could save you a few quid. By far the most crucial element of any ’service’ is that the oil and filter are changed at the recommended interval. For an Escort, that’d mean every 12 months or 10,000 miles. The other parts of the service such as the replacement of the air filter, fuel filter and spark plugs can go a bit longer before you see any noticable difference in performance or reliability. Modern cars (and 1999 is still modern!) have spark plugs that’ll easily last 20 or 30 thousand miles, so why have them changed every year as we’re so often asked to do!

My advice for any customer enquiring about booking a FULL service and MOT is to simply have the MOT done first thing in the morning. If the car passes, or only needs something really minor, THEN they can have the service if they wish. If the car should fail though, we’ve got the rest of the day to get the work completed, and they have the option of delaying the service for a few more months. The best compromise is to just ask for an oil and filter change as well as the safety-related MOT items.

If your car turns out to be a really bad MOT failure and is going to cost a fortune, you’ve then only spent the £53.10 for the MOT before discovering it’s not worth repairing. Then you might decide to scrap it and even get your £53.00 back in scrap money if you drive it to the breakers yard yourself!

That way, if you really do need to change your car, you won’t have wasted any money on servicing it first.

Well, that’s the first of my ‘top tips’ to avoid wasting money. Remember, in the big waste bin outside a main dealer you’ll find hundreds of barely-worn spark plugs, dozens of slightly dirty (but still perfectly fine) air filters and numerous sets of brake pads that still have thousands of miles left in them. Bring your car to us and we’ll only change the bits that are REALLY worn-out, and not just because our technicians need to earn a bonus

I remember a customer a few years ago brought his ancient Fiat Panda to us for an MOT. The bodywork looked to be in a pretty ghastly state, but when the tester began the MOT, he was amazed to find that virtually everything under the car was brand-new. It had 4 new shock absorbers, a complete new exhaust, 4 new tyres and new brakes all round. It’s a pity that whoever had fitted all these lovely new bits hadn’t noticed that the entire rear suspension mountings, outer sills, inner sills and floorpans had huge rust holes in them and it needed about £400 of welding to pass the MOT. The owner (who was by now visibly distressed) told me that he’d just been to Kwik Fit (or similar fast-fit establishment) as he knew he had a bald tyre, and had been told by their fitter that he definately needed around £450 of other new parts (that coincidentally they ‘happened to have in stock’ ) in order to have any chance of passing the MOT. He foolishly agreed, and then brought it to us for the MOT, assuming it was guaranteed to pass! Had he have come to us first, we’d have told him straight away about the rust, and he could’ve just scrapped the car there and then as it was only worth about £500 max. I bet Kwik Fit weren’t keen to remove all the bits they’d just fitted and give him a full refund, just as I suppose that he was too ashamed to go and ask!

Bye for now – my bed is beckoning!

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