They say that in business ’The customer is always right’ but I’m not sure that I entirely agree. When it comes to making decisions about maintaining their cars, some customers are often too sentimental about their beloved car to make rational decisions and sometimes need a little unbiased advice to stop them parting with their hard-earned cash.

A car that was someone’s new pride and joy in 1995 is likely to be the source of much costly grief 15 years later and really isn’t worth ploughing any more money into.  As a car gets older (with the possible exception of say a Lexus LS400), the possibility of it needing major and expensive repairs increases dramatically, yet the price of these repairs can often excees the value of the car itself!

The problem is simply knowing when to cut your losses and buy a new car rather than throwing money away to fix it. One of our customers has been faced with this decision this week as his 15 year olf Peugeot needs a new cylinder head gasket. This alone would cost over £500 as it’s a 7 hour job. As I was driving it into the workshop, I noticed that the clutch was also on its last legs. That’s another £400 job (unless you’re a keen DIY mechanic, in which case it wouldn’t be with us) so for a car that’d struggle to fetch £500 in a private sale, at least £900 is needed spending just to keep it on the road. Come MOT time in a few months, a likely failure could easily cost another £300 or so, assuming it’s not too bad. In my opinion, this is nothing short of madness to even consider spending money on, but believe me, it still took some persuasion to convince the owner that it was a waste of money.

A quick trawl through the autotrader.co.uk website revealed some far better and newer cars for sale at considerably less than his existing car would cost to make decent again.  I even offered some free advice on which cars to avoid if he didn’t wish to be using the RAC’s recovery service too often!

I can only hope that my advice is heeded and that he’ll buy something decent and that we won’t see him so often. Tempting as it would be to just keep taking his money and keeping the old banger running, I actually have a conscience and would much rather that we saw his new car once a year for a service and MOT than his old car every few weeks for a breakdown. Sadly, not all garages or ‘fast fit’ centres place the best interests of their customers before their own profits and targets. ‘You’ll be amazed’ at the number of  motorists we see that have just spent £700 or so on tyres, shock absorbers, exhaust and brakes, yet their ‘fitter’ failed to spot the knackered clutch, worn engine or serious corrosion BEFORE fitting all these new parts! How convenient, and a pity that they didn’t pay us a visit first.

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