MrsR's 5 year old Mini was in the local main BMW/Mini dealer for its MOT last week. It failed on one corroded brake pipe and got an advisory on the other.
We were quoted, wait for it...£1013 to replace one brake pipe, or £1209 to replace both.
After picking myself up off the floor I did a bit of Googling and ringing around a few local independents and found that the going rate for replacing brake pipes on a Mini is about £70 each.
I appreciate that a main dealer has higher overheads and would expect to pay more, but not *that* much more!
I dropped the car off at an independent yesterday. Shortly after I got a phone call from them saying "we wouldn't fail it on the brake pipes, they just need a bit of a clean up". Long story short, they cleaned them up, changed the brake fluid and MOT'ed the car for £120.
My main reason for posting is to ask whether it's worth reporting the main dealer to anyone and if so who?
My concern is that a vulnerable customer could be ripped off - I can imagine, for example, an elderly customer just assuming that the main dealer must be right and paying without querying it.
@screenman ?
Go to an independent to get the work done, no point in reporting neither. Main dealers are always more expensive, for example we have a 4 yr old Mini Cooper, its got a mini service plan on it. Chucked it in for its service and got the fright of my life when they gave a list of things all needing done. The main one being the AC condenser. That was £600 !! btw it still works just happens to have been hit by a stone, so got a few dings and holes. Also they reckoned the discs were corroded and the pads need changed, fine I said. However that was another £300 for them to do that !! Bare in mind this car only has 16000 miles on it ! Picked up my keys and left, will do any remedial work myself.
As a rule of thumb I don`t put my cars into a main dealer for an MOT as they will look for as much as possible to rinse your cash, always have done, don`t trust them at all.