Pretty much all of us drive a car, which is why ... pretty much all of us have need for a place which does MOT's and Servicing at some time. Have you stopped to consider the charges recently !

Do you feel that Main Dealer servicing prices are a little bit high?

I recently took my BMW 3 series to Vines BMW in Guildford for what I thought was a service - I collected it later in the morning and was handed a bill for £140 odd, not bad I thought for a BMW main dealer service.

I asked what they had done and the answer was 'nothing - we just checked everything, you'll need an oil change in 3000 miles and that will cost £150'

£140 for doing nothing and then £150 for an oil change ! I was staggered ! I have since discovered that the labour charge at Vines is £125 ! - and probably it was a 17 year old apprentice carrying out the work earning £10 an hour!

Don't get me wrong - I'm not knocking the main dealers - they have expensive premises to pay for and huge overheads, having been a motorcyle dealer at one time myself, I do understand the costs involved - however - I do think that once your car is out of it's warranty period that you should look eleswhere for regular maintenance.

The only reason I went to the main dealer was to keep the stamps in the book but I simply can't afford to do that anymore - even my (2nd hand) warranty company Warranty Direct refused to pay Main dealer hourly rates and said that I had to find a garage which charges a more normal £50/hour.

For the last service I took my BMW to  MOTORMECH which is where we have taken all our family cars over the years - Paul (who runs Motormech) has grown the business into a large operation over the years, based upon good service and fair prices and on top of all that I bet he knows a hell of a lot more than your average BMW main dealer mechanic!
Motormech specialise in servicing BMW's and Mercedes.

If you are approaching MOT time, you're probably virtually out of warranty anyway so why not speak to Steve at MOTORMECH.

and if you're looking for a new car ... why not check our MOTOR HEAD HUNTER, they can procure virtually any car you want, brand new, and supplied from a local dealer at anything from £500 to £5000 off the cheapest quote - try them, it's free and you'll be staggered at how much they can save (they do BMWs also!!),.