Vehicle main dealer rip off- Again.
I know we have had many examples of car main dealer rips offs in the past but here is my latest one, my car, a VW Passat start / stop needed a new battery, prices seemed al over the place but found a decent branded one at a local motor factors at £121 + VAT , 4 year warranty, slightly better spec than the OEM one in the car, took me 5 minutes to fit, just out of curiosity I phoned my local VAG garage to get a quote, there are two battery options sir, a economy one that has a 1 year warrenty £196 + VAT or there is the premium battery that has a 2 year warrenty for £396 + VAT and fitting for either of those is 1 hour labour @ £150 per hour. Quite scandelous in my opinion., I know the coffee and huge glass windows don't pay for themselves at a main dealer but bloody hell thats taking the piss.
Vehicle main dealer rip off- Again.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
JasonM
Hi, I worried about this too, reading up on the battery websites it says you need to code the battery to the car when you change it so the cars battery monitoring systems don't throw a hissy fit, especially with modern cars and start stop systems apparently, I spoke to my indi VW mech and he said its pretty much bullshoot and he's never coded a car battery ever, however, what he does is attach a jump pack to the car when changing so the car doesn't know its been changed, but he said that this isn't strictly needed, when i changed mine I did have loads of amber warning lights come up and I thought uh oh, but most car forums have endless threads on this and the advice was to drive the car a mile or so and the lights would go out as the car sorts itself out, which is exactly what happened.
It does seem strange that cars have been successfully charging batteries for over a century and even your average £10 battery charger can manage it without damaging the battery, but modern cars have to be told exactly what new battery is being fitted or all hell will break loose!