02/03/2026
AHHH YOUR A WOMAN....
I hope that grabbed your attention and even made you angry , as angry as this made us ...
A couple of weeks back we received a very distressed phone call from a young lady who was new to the area and who had recently broken down with loss of drive in her car so she called out a national breakdown service who attended and diagnosed her car with clutch failure (clutch was slipping majorly with serious flywheel noise and slave cylinder was clearly leaking) which they couldn't repair roadside so recovered her car home for her .
Pretty standard outcome to be fair and nothing too distressing...yet
This young lady then decided to contact a local "mobile mechanic" (who we wont name..just yet for legal reasons) who attended her home to fix the car. He decided that the clutch didnt need to be replaced and that the flywheel wasnt so degraded that it sounded like it was ready to exit the chat just yet and chose to just replace the clutch slave cylinder INSIDE the gearbox.
Now this is something any COMPETENT and PROFESSIONAL mechanic would very very very rarely do , why you ask? Well on this vehicle the clutch slave cylinder is INSIDE the gearbox , a gearbox which takes around 4.4hours to remove so best and frankly standard practice is to replace the ENTIRE clutch assembly including slave cylinder and dual mass flywheel ( unless the flywheel is good condition) so would be pretty moronic and cost double the amount to go remove the gearbox all over again to the replace the clutch and flywheel that should of been done the first time .
BUT WAIT ...IT GETS WORSE..
The customer then tells us that the repair hasn't worked and is leaking oil all over the floor and shes
Not sure why but doesn't have much confidence in this "mechanic" so wants us to take a look and see if we can figure out whats gone wrong
NOT A PROBLEM we say..
Within minutes of having the vehicle in the air and starting disassembly it became VERY clear that this car hasn't been touched and when I say touched I mean worked on for a VERY long time, seized nuts and bolts galore and driveshafts so seized into the hubs that they had to be removed by sledge hammer and not a socket or spanner mark on a single fitting.. somethings very very wrong here .
Anyhow we continue and once the gearbox is removed we can finally confirm exactly what we thought from the beginning... that this "mechanic" hasn't actually repaired anything what so ever, we have our suspicion of what he has done but well keep that quiet for the time being and let the pictures at the bottom of this post speak for themselves..
So we fit a new 3 piece clutch kit with dual mass flywheel and nice new gearbox and bleed the clutch system up and take it for a test drive and guess what.. its like brand new so time to return it to a still very upset but now relieved customer .
We are very blessed to work well with a number of other professionals and suppliers who we call upon from time to time as there is a right person for every job just to see what their opinions are on our findings and each and every one of them agreed with exactly what we suspected.. that this vehicle had not had its gearbox removed at anypoint in the last few years and that the customer had been ripped off to the tune of nearly £700 , part of that was to buy the clutch kit from MPD in weymouth which he then returned 6 days later and received a full refund for (its not always what you know but who you know 😉)... UNACCEPTABLE in every way shape and form and not just because she was female as this happens to men aswell
Now we know the individual who did this is 100% without a shadow of a doubt going to see this post as he advertises himself on many different social media pages so our suggestion would be to do the right thing and refund the customer in full IMMEDIATELY (hes already been given 7 days to do this and has decided it isnt in his best interest and instead ignores his phone and emails so now faces legal reprocutions)for works that he didnt carry out and parts that he didnt use .
☆DO THE RIGHT THING☆
We will not sit back and tolerate our trade being tarred by individuals like this 👊 many of us have worked unbelievably hard to build up valuable and trusted business reputations
Moral of the story? Be VERY careful who you chose and trust to repair your vehicles , always get recommendations and look for those who get tagged time and time again by others and not just tags themselves and if in doubt ask others about their experiences with the ones they suggest , do they take pride in their appearance and manor? Do they seem pushy or like they are doing YOU a favour? Are they too cheap or too dear? JUST THINK IT NEVER HURTS TO ASK!!!
Anyways here's a few pics to see what we found
Hope youve all had a great weekend and have a greater week ahead of you 💪💪
You know where we are if you need us 😎
