Nationwide Autocentre

...business to Nationwide. Now called Nationwide Autocentres they have similar branding to LEX and Lucas and offer the same services often at the same premises.

I happened to buy a brand new MGTF at about the time Nationwide Autocentres came into being and so I've been getting my car serviced by MG Rover and haven't needed to visit Nationwide for about 4 years. But MG have gone bust now so ….

Where do you go?
Who ...
...as the Rover Metro but Nationwide Autocentre seem to think they can charge extra just because it's an MG TF.

As for the front disks well let me tell you what happened today.

This morning I took the car into my local garage for a second opinion. Another MOT.
It failed which wasn't a surprise but to my astonishment it failed on completely different items.

I asked the bloke behind the counter about ... more

As a car owner it's inevitable that at some point you will need to service your car. As a new car owner you are restricted to the servicing being done by your dealer to retain cover under your warranty but once the 3 years are up you are free to go anywhere you like.

But where do you go?
Who do you trust to do the job well and without ripping you off?

Well many years ago I couldn't afford brand new cars and got my car serviced and MOT'd by a mate but when he moved I was fortunate enough to come across a chain of garages called Lucas Autocentre. In those days Lucas was a manufacturer of automotive parts and when they went into the car servicing business it was a godsend for us poor blokes at the mercy of every dodgy garage out there. I went through the late 80's and early nineties getting my car serviced and MOT'd by these guys because they were competent, competitive and they guaranteed your money back if you went away and later found that they forgot to do something on the car. They sold the business eventually to a company called LEX and through most of the 90's I continued using them but I noticed a slight difference in the level of service. As LEX I noticed that they weren't just satisfied in servicing or MOTing your car. They also went on to 'advise' you of additional things that needed doing on your car. For instance after 40k miles they'd tell me I needed to change some obscure widget otherwise risk having my car fall apart around me. At 60k miles they'd tell me I need new disks because the old ones had been worn down by the brakes. This despite the fact that the disks would have been within the MOT guidelines. In short they would exaggerate problems with a car in order to scare their customers into getting additional work done. Luckily I knew a little about cars and knew when they were trying it on just to make an extra sale and just ignored their advice or sometimes double checked their advice with friends and relatives, some of whom worked in the motor trade. This worked well for me. Apart from the scare tactics they were competent mechanics and knew their way around cars and they were still competitive.

A few years ago LEX sold the business to Nationwide. Now called Nationwide Autocentres they have similar branding to LEX and Lucas and offer the same services often at the same premises.

I happened to buy a brand new MGTF at about the time Nationwide Autocentres came into being and so I've been getting my car serviced by MG Rover and haven't needed to visit Nationwide for about 4 years. But MG have gone bust now so ….

Where do you go?
Who do you trust to do the job well and without ripping you off?

Well the answer was obvious. Good 'ol Nationwide/Lex/Lucas Autocentres. In my case the one in Coventry on Foleshill Road.

I took my car there last Saturday. My car needed servicing and an MOT and I can't renew my road tax until I get this done. So Saturday morning I left my car in their capable hands but just before I left the garage I got called back and the guy behind the counter said

'I see the car has done 45k miles. It will need new spark plugs then'.
'Hmm I said. Isn't that part of the service?'
'Oh no', he said. 'These are special platinum plugs. Don't need changing for many miles but its best that you have 'em changed now before your car starts misfiring'

Well it seems that nothings changed there then. Back to their old tricks and scare tactics. I agreed to have these changed anyway as it only cost an additional £30 and so I left the garage to return 6 hours later to pick it up. On my return I was told that it had failed the MOT.
Now this was odd. My car sailed through its first MOT last year so I couldn't imagine anything seriously wrong with it so I thought that perhaps it failed on simple easily fixed problems.

The list of problems that caused the MOT to fail were:
Front Brake Discs need replacing (£124 + vat)
Front Brake Pads need replacing (£70 + vat)
Front headlight incorrectly adjusted. (can't remember + vat)
Rear drivers side indicator WRONG COLOUR!! (£5 + vat)

The problems that were listed as advisory were:
Rear passenger side indicator light NOT WORKING (£5 + vat)

This last point struck me as odd. So a light that just doesn't work is not an MOT failure but a light that does work but where the orange colour has faded IS an MOT failure? Surely that's the wrong way round. A white flashing light is surely better than no flashing light at all?

Also the headlights would presumably have been checked during the service. Well doesn't the service include adjusting the headlight so that it conforms to the requirements?

When I put this to the chap behind the counter his answer was that the service consists of a number of items which are only checked but not fixed and that headlights were one such item.

It seems to me that checking the aim of a headlight beam requires using specialist apparatus. So why not adjust it if it's out of alignment at the same time. Surely it would take an additional couple of minutes to adjust it so why not just do it as part of the service. They checked my washer fluid and the bottle was near empty and they filled it up. Why not do the same for the other items? Bizarre.

This didn't sound like the LEX/Lucas Autocentre that I knew. The location of the garage was the same the colours of the building were the same but the people in there seemed to be driven by doing the minimum possible and then charging for everything that they could get away with.

I ended up with a quote for over £200 to have the problems rectified so I told them not to bother and took my car away. I purchased a couple of bulbs from Halfords next door and stuck them in. There by immediately saving myself £5. They were quoting £10 just to change two indicator bulbs which took me about 30 seconds to replace.

I can purchase the front brake pads from Halfords for £20 and stick them in myself and potentially save myself another £50. They are the same as the Rover Metro but Nationwide Autocentre seem to think they can charge extra just because it's an MG TF.

As for the front disks well let me tell you what happened today.

This morning I took the car into my local garage for a second opinion. Another MOT.
It failed which wasn't a surprise but to my astonishment it failed on completely different items.

I asked the bloke behind the counter about the front disks and his response was that there was nothing wrong with them. Well what about the front disc pads. Well it seems there was nothing wrong with them either. What about the headlights? Nope they're fine.

So what the blinking hell did it fail on?

Well the front coil spring was BROKEN. It was broken to the extent that at anytime the spring could collapse onto my wheel and if it happened at speed it could cause a rather nasty accident.

My car is now booked to have the coil spring replaced but its amazing to me how the standard of service at the Autocentre has declined in the 4 years that its been since I last used them. It is now in my opinion part of that unique network of garages dotted around the UK that are complete cowboys.

For them to miss a potentially lethal defect on my car and instead to make up other defects simply to make money is nothing short of criminal.

I have a letter ready to send to the trading standards people and I'll update this review when I get a response from them.

In the meantime avoid Nationwide Autocentres. They are no longer run by people who care about the motorist. They are run by people who are motivated purely by profits.

Update: 20/06/2006
Interesting comments by a new ciao user called Mech1.
Odd that he joined 5 days ago and the first comment he makes is on my review and defends the MOT testing station.
Hmmm I wonder who HE works for. 

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