AA Motor Medic in Ipswich used FOXY Choice approved FEMALE FRIENDLY garage logo without joining the network first.

I would like women drivers in Ipswich to know about a misleading garage leaflet that was printed and may have been circulated to them by AA Motor Medic. We are not sure how many copies were distributed because we only found out about this when a motorist checked the FOXY Choice website register and saw they weren’t there.

The leaflet features the distinctive FOXY Choice approved Female Friendly Garage logo. We would like to make it clear to all female motorists in Ipswich that, despite them using this logo, AA Motor Medic is not an approved member of our garage network and had no right to use our logo or claim to meet our standards in this way.

On contact, AA Motor Medic claimed they sent us an application form and a cheque. We hadn’t received this but knowing that the post is not as reliable as it might be, we decided to look at this case again and asked to see their application form. Because the business was so eager to join our network… we even held an interim Board Meeting (on their insistence) to discuss their application.

We were given several assurances that the initial leaflet printing/circulation was a genuine mistake, that they are a young and enthusiastic business, that they meant to check with us before circulating this leaflet, that they will be employing female staff, that a member of their staff had inadvertently circulated some of their leaflet stock without checking with the boss and so on…

After studying their application we noticed that they were featuring the Motor Codes industry scheme logo at their website but our checks (we check all garage quality claims as part of every application) revealed that they weren’t registered there either. After speaking to Motor Codes about this, we now see that this logo has been removed from their website…

That clinched it for us because AA Motor Medic didn’t have to be vetted by Motor Codes at the time of their application. All they had to do was fill in the online form and pay there and then. Or to claim a mistake and do that when Motor Codes contacted them about their logo? So it was quickly clear to us that AA Motor Medic chose not to pay for the credentials they were using to lure in business under false pretences – they thought they could just publish our logos instead.

So women in Ipswich will not be at all surprised to read that FOXY Choice has rejected their application to join our FEMALE FRIENDLY garage register. As we see it, if WE can’t trust a garage to tell the truth in a leaflet or at their website why would we want to promote them to women who are looking for genuinely good garages THEY can trust to look after our cars?

Sadly other garages do make similarly extravagant claims and we don’t always find out about them unless we are told about these by vigilant motorists.  But when we do, we expose them for passing off standards of course because they are using our services to pretend to be something they obviously aren’t. The motor industry needs to be MORE open and transparent in its dealings with all motorists, not LESS.

We always check for quality first…

Rest assured that false claims to do with quality do not get past our checks when we receive their application form to join the FOXY Choice FEMALE FRIENDLY garage network. We check all OFT, BSI Which is why we prefer our manual and thorough check of all applications before we accept them into our network.

We also welcome recent garage feedback via the FOXY Choice website so we can share this with other women.

FOXY Steph

The recent Which? undercover garage investigation turned up a few surprises for me, mainly to do with the cost of servicing cars.

Not the findings that some 90% of garages missed at least one of the potentially dangerous faults on the cars submitted, or that nearly 40% charged for something they didn’t provide – we talk to women and garages everyday and the stories we hear confirm this sort of thing is happening everyday.

But I was surprised to see the prices charged by the different categories of garages.

Most expensive in the performance league was OFT fully approved network Bosch Car Service whose average servicing price came in at £218.56.

Next came subscribers of the recent Motor Codes scheme (88% dealerships; yet to gain full OFT approval) where the average charge was £217.11.

Members of the Good Garage Scheme came in at £177.72 but no measurable signs of quality promoted here – the business simply pays £23.50 a month to be listed as a good garage .

And least expensive of all were garages that aren’t members of any association and didn’t seem to have any notable attributes according to Which? – they charged £148.20.

So arguably you get what you pay for. A cheap price with no frills or safety guarantee, up to the Bosch garages and Motor Codes dealerships where you pay more but have the reassurance of varying stages of OFT approval.

But what I thought was interesting is the much publicised statistic that independent garages are some 30% (sometimes the percentage quoted is more) more expensive than dealerships. Not so in this case where the dealerships in the Motor Codes average were actually cheaper than the Bosch franchised garages.

Forget competing with garages that can’t demonstrate measurable quality like ATA technician accreditation, they will be cheaper because that’s their competitive advantage in the absence of quality. The point I am making is that measurably good garages like Bosch and measurably good dealerships like Motor Codes and ATA employers seem to be charging much the same for car servicing.

So how do some of the increasing number of garage brokers justify their sales claims that they work with qualified garages (they often say Bosch) and that their prices are c35% cheaper than dealers? I’d like to see the evidence.

But the dealerships need to be totally honest at all times and remember their ATA ethical Code of Conduct. In the Which? investigation 11 out of 17 Motor Codes subscribers (ie mostly dealerships) charged for screenwash when the wash bottle was full and didn’t need topping up.

Not a lot of money but it’s the principle that we women remember and dislike.  If they can do it to overcharge us a couple of quid, what else are they charging us for and not doing…

Mind you Bosch also charged 5 times out of 14, whereas members of the Good Garage Scheme and individual garages (only?) did it in 3 out of 13 cases.

None of this is good enough remember. It’s still a quality lottery for confused motorists to find a measurably good UK garage. The industry isn’t doing its bit to explain this to motorists and the whole thing is far too confusing.

To have safe cars on our roads we need ONE SCHEME CALLED REGULATION and all mechanics to be qualified to ATA standards. Never mind the bureaucracy the industry dreads, regulation could save lives.

That will fix it for once and for all. Nothing more and nothing less will do. Then the businesses can all compete for customer share on an equal footing by differentiating themselves by price and service levels.

In the meantime, I think it makes sense to choose an ATA employer whether an independent garage or dealership.

FOXY Steph

Within the Club and on some trade websites we still hear of and read about stories where MOT centres are selling top of the range servicing packages and ‘strongly recommending’ the likes of new tyres, when neither may be needed to pass the test.

Which is presumably why chains like Just MOTs reassure motorists that MOTs are all they’ll be sold because MOTs are all they do; so they can’t have a vested interest in selling other services.

I now read that VOSA centres are to be asked/required to sign the Motor Industry  Service and Repair code  but I can’t see how this will outlaw this predatory practice or where this says that the business shouldn’t sell something the motorist doesn’t need or want to buy?

Just to remind us, this is the relevant bits of the Code and what subscribers agree to provide…

• honest and fair services
• open and transparent pricing
• invoices that match quoted prices

Pardon me but aren’t these requirements the bare and ethical minimum for ALL businesses regardless of industry.  And shouldn’t standards be SMART ones in an unregulated industry with a bad image and where bad garage work can mean unsafe cars and motorists being overcharged and sold services they don’t need?

I just don’t get it.

To begin with we were told that this Code was to encourage the cowboys to sign up.  But aren’t they likely to be the last ones to sign up when they don’t have to (unless it’s for a cheap £75 blast of publicity without any pre-inspection and with no intention of paying for  the later compliance visit?).

And surely by far the majority of Code subscribers operate to higher standards already (many much, much higher) so what’s the point of all this?

Is it just me questioning the wisdom here? I sometimes think that the likes of dealers have signed up without reading the code simply because they have been told to by their manufacturer. How does that raise garage standards for all motorists?

It doesn’t of course but I’d be interested to hear your thoughts…

FOXY Steph

NB: Relevant FOXY plug follows -  Wary women drivers can at least search for a female friendly garage that has signed the FOXY Promise to ‘never overcharge, patronise or sell them services they don’t need or want’ at FOXY Choice. We also show businesses that subscribe to a fully OFT approved code, are ATA employers or hold a BSI Kitemark in automotive services because we believe these are the main signs of tangible quality.
We also like Trading Standards’ Motor Trade Partnership schemes where they exist, but they are rare, fragmented and may not all be the same – which is a shame because the Trading Standards Institute SHOULD wield the power here on behalf of motorists.

I have just received a shocking email titled ’14 million UK motorists feel ripped off by their garage’ from Motor Codes who organise the Motor Industry Service and Repair Code. They have 6200 subscribers of which the lion share (>70%) are franchised dealerships.

I now realise that their research turns out to be based on 1194 motorists which they have extrapolated, for headline reasons perhaps, to suggest that over 14 million motorists ‘feel short changed by their local service and repair garage’.

On reflection whilst this is probably a highly misleading statistic no matter the qualifying asterisks in the Press Release if we assume that this is a sufficiently representative sample to be meaningful in any way, then the following findings are very worrying on their own:

• Almost half of UK motorists (45%) feel they have been ripped off by garages (allegedly representing some 14,063,614 motorists).
• UK motorists feel out of pocket to the tune of an estimated £2.4 billion
• Young drivers are hit hardest with 41% of 16-24 year olds feeling ripped off by local garages to the tune of £51 – £150… which could be explained if they ended up in dealerships without realising they are more expensive than garages of course – whose fault would that be?
• Some 30% of motorists aged 25-34 and over 55 were dissatisfied with their local garage
• Over a quarter of all motorists who felt ripped off believed they paid between £51 and £150 more than they needed to… which could be explained if they ended up in dealerships without realising they are more expensive than garages of course – whose fault would that be?
• 5% of motorists felt they had been ripped off to the tune of more than £300.
• Those who felt more than £500 out of pocket claimed to be on average £1,408 worse off following their latest service.
• The East feels the pinch the most where a third of motorists claimed to have been short changed, compared to just 17% of motorists in Northern Ireland.

If anything was to convince me that there is a case for regulating the UK garage industry, this research is surely it and may prove to be the tipping point for the likes of the Office of Fair Trading who will surely see that this is a quality hurdle too great for any Code of Practice to tackle, unless it’s compulsory…

Not serious at all according to Motor Codes however –  instead they think  it’s time to launch an upbeat Golden Garage competition using £16,000 prize money to reward the really good garages out there (and there are many, see the female friendly FOXY Choice website if you are in any doubt…).  Whereas I feel it’s time (and has been for some 50 years) to rid the industry of the really bad garages so that motorists can look forward to paying value for money prices for measurably good garage services in future, having understood the difference between dealership and garage standards and prices so they can choose the solution to suit them, their car and the occasion.

If that means regulation then so be it.

What I’d really like to know is the strategy behind this garage competition and how it will help outlaw the really bad garages who are as likely to cut safety corners to cut their costs as they are to rip off motorists.

Surely an industry scheme MUST DO MORE to ostracize those garages and dealerships that could be putting lives at risk and are certainly harming the image of this industry…

Yet by concentrating on good garages, Motor Codes seems intent on ignoring the cowboys.

FOXY Steph

Believe it or not, FOXY is a supporter of the Motor Codes (service and repair) garage code within the trade but we do not think it is ready to promote to the general public even after 15 months.

Certainly we would like more independent garages to sign up to this (also known as the Motor Industry Service and Repair Code – MISRC), if only to highlight the slippery dodgy businesses that aren’t honest, fair, open or transparent in the way they do business.

As things stand, we are told that some 5000 businesses have signed up to this of which c90% are dealerships. Yet these dealerships are required by manufacturers like Ford and Peugeot to operate to minimum aftersales performance standards which already exceed MISRC standards. So why do they need MISRC?

Not just that but motorists who choose a MISRC dealership (where there isn’t an independent listed) will pay something like 30-50% more than they would in an independent garage.

This means that manufacturers like Ford and Peugeot are effectively funding the Motor Codes public advertising campaign which is encouraging men and women drivers to choose a franchised dealership (ie them) and the outcome is that the motorist will then pay more than he or  she needs to (because they don’t know they have a choice…).

The greatest irony is that if FOXY Lady Drivers Club wanted to complain that the Motor Code is an unfair sales and marketing practice which could deceive motorists (ie encourage them to pay over the odds without giving them a choice), we’d expect a fair hearing within the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR).

But there is a conflict of interest here because BERR is part of the same governmental family as the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) which is the financial beneficiary of the Motor Codes scheme. The scheme pays OFT so it is unlikely to welcome any complaints that will decrease its coffers here.

In fact, it’s only when the Motor Code’s monitoring Compliance Check happens (at an extra cost of £175 and to take place within 24 months of registration) that the OFT can know if the scheme is working (ie if subscribing garages and dealerships are up to scratch) before awarding it full Stage 2 OFT code approval. As the scheme started in August 2008 it’s too soon to know this – and I haven’t seen much mention of this in Motor Codes sales recruitment publicity in the trade recently…

All in all I think the female motorist runs the risk of being mislead if she takes the Motor Codes publicity material as follows, knowing that any business can sign up to this for so little money…

The Motor Industry Code of Practice for Service and Repair aims to promote and safeguard consumers’ interests by helping consumers identify better businesses and to encourage subscribers to raise their standards of customer service. You should have the confidence that Code Subscribers:

• are committed to treating consumers fairly

• will guarantee good customer service

• give consumers clear information about the goods or services they are selling

• have user-friendly, straightforward and quick procedures for dealing with customer complaints

• will use clear and fair contracts

On the other hand, if I were an independent and middle of the road garage I’d get in there now and pay my £75 sub for one year to take advantage of the scheme’s generous publicity, knowing that I need do nothing more and I could opt out before any compliance check bill.

FOXY Steph

PS: Final thought – the Motor Codes scheme sponsor is the Society of Motor Manufacturers (SMMT) whose franchised dealer members are among the 90% of businesses being promoted within the scheme (see above).  If this was you, and you were funded by major manufacturers, would you be inclined to actively court independent garage competitors that might be more popular?