Fair Go

[piroska]

It gets worse all the time.

Story 1:
Lady changes to Orcon power....they come out and change meter.
Power usage immediately starts climbing at around $1000 a day.
She emails them. A lot.
She rings a couple of times, each time she gets a new problem ticket.
So instead of escalating it to A)Management or better yet B)Power Disputes she waits and goes to fair go.


Story 2:
Couple are out on holiday, some problem (unspecified) occurs and Dunedin garage charges them $315 to change spark plugs.
They end up back home and unspecified problem occurs and they have to go to local Gore garage who says something like Dunedin gave them the wrong spark plugs and they are carbonated (oh shock horror) and they must keep car overnight. Gore then charges them $600.

So the story is about Dunedin the terrible lot who wouldn't pay their $600 extra cost to Gore garage.

I don't know, I'd be complaining about both. $315 is bad enough but $600? Even if the things were $60 each....sheesh.

[1101]

It gets worse all the time.

I don't know, I'd be complaining about both. $315 is bad enough but $600? Even if the things were $60 each....sheesh.

The real story should have been Gore garage ripping off couple on holiday ?
Did fair go even try and get an expert opinion on what the truth is ? what caused the issue , was it really a plugs issue ?

I get the feeling there must be a lot more to that story .
Quite possibly some other fault caused carbon build up. The plugs may have been 100% OK for that car but not the $60+ ones specced by the manufacturer
What was the 'unspecified problem' . Seems rather vague

$300+ for spark plugs, easily can be more than that. 6 x $60 =$360 (I told them to use the cheap $10 ones instead , when I had a Nissan ) .
Plus charge to actually get to them & remove them : can be under a nightmare of hoses cables & covers .
Some supercars (and old sport cars) cars even require moving (or removing) engine to change plugs .

[Lurking]

Tourists' are not here to pay the exorbitant prices of everything, so silly kiwis' have to. e.g. Queenstown. Loved holidaying down there.

lurking.

[piroska]

The real story should have been Gore garage ripping off couple on holiday ?
Did fair go even try and get an expert opinion on what the truth is ? what caused the issue , was it really a plugs issue ?

I get the feeling there must be a lot more to that story .


$300+ for spark plugs, easily can be more than that. 6 x $60 =$360 (I told them to use the cheap $10 ones instead , when I had a Nissan ) .
.

My thoughts exactly. It was vague other than the picking on first garage. Yes maybe if $560 spark plugs...car was a Mazda, mazda what they didn't say.

But no mention of Gore garage and what was meant to have cost so much other than they swapped them out too.
I found a lot of garages down South were like that.....although the rest of the country isn't much better either.

My mum was being charged $400 - $700 every year for her WOF.....they had stuff like "charged battery" on it....she does maybe 3000km a year, if that....
After I insisted she stop going there and take it to Honda instead it's been much cheaper.

[1101]

I get a bit peeved, when getting a (say) $800 bill for car repairs , they tack on another $5 for rags , and $5 for overall cleaning , $5 for workshop expenses etc.

[bk T]

Yeah, Car mechanics are now the same as Politicians, Real Estate Agents, Car Sales person - grouped under the 'Most Untrustworthy' professions.

And it seems that plumbers are slowly falling into that category ...

[wainuitech]

Just goes to show how reporting a problem can be errrr well you decide the correct wording . Just watched the 1st one described, it was slightly more than "a Couple of times" contacting the company. The lady emailed at least 10-15 times and rang every day for a month to try and get things sorted talking to various departments getting shunted from pillar to post and back. The problem was after trying to sort it for at least a month and getting nowhere then she contacted fair go. Orcon Dropped the Ball as they put it.


One fact left out of original post relating to 2nd part -- The problem started in December, then it was 6 months later the problem started after the plugs were changed. The couple actually live in gore.

The whole point being it pays to give all the info not just bits that suit to make a dramatic effect.

[piroska]

The lady emailed at least 10-15 times and rang every day for a month to try and get things sorted talking to various departments getting shunted from pillar to post and back.

.

Yes. Why? I had an issue with my mums power co. I emailed them 4 times. They firstly lied, then made excuses, then basically said too bad.
I then contacted Power Disputes. 2 days later the power co suddenly wasl all apologetic and sorted the issue.

That was my point, why let it go on and on.

And yes the couple lived in Gore, so? The Gore garage was still even worse.

[1101]

One fact left out of original post relating to 2nd part -- The problem started in December, then it was 6 months later the problem started after the plugs were changed. The couple actually live in gore.

Fair go made both garages look really bad, rather than get an expert opinion and get some facts.
It was a high milage car , I bet it has issues unrelated to the spark plugs . Plugs may be just the the symptom, not the cause

[wainuitech]

And now the rest of the Story relating to the spark Plugs, From Fairgo.

A lot of you weighed in on our spark plugs story and we want to clarify a few things. The Dunedin Motors bill was $315. The second bill from a Gore garage was $600. The reason the second garage’s bill was more expensive was because they had to diagnose the fault with the drivability problem of the car. Not expecting the dealer to have installed incorrect parts, the plugs were not immediately suspected.
The original plugs were 10mm too short in reach and did not go all the way down the spark plug hole. This caused an odd driveability miss - manmade faults are usually the hardest to find. Carbon also had to be cleared out of the threads. It was a bigger job than the first job, and the correct plugs were twice the price of the ones incorrectly fitted therefore more expensive. We welcome feedback from our viewers, but we will not accept unnecessary, nasty comments – particularly against a small business which has done absolutely nothing wrong in our story.
In our opinion the Gore garage did a brilliant job, and we’ve had no complaints about them from customers. The aim was fixing the Hutchins problem, and we did just that!